Some Kind of Perfect (Calloway Sisters #4.5)

by Krista Ritchie

  2025

  “I give my time to the people who are most important to me. Odds are that person isn’t you.”

  - Connor Cobalt, We Are Calloway (Season 7 Episode 10 – Hamlet & Hogwarts)

  [ 42 ]

  January 2025

  Manhattan Medical Hospital

  New York City

  ROSE COBALT

  I breeze through memories and land on one day.

  Over thirteen years ago, I hurried across Princeton’s campus, my umbrella catching the afternoon rain. All my exam and paper due dates rattled in my head on loop, and I walked faster. Heels against wet pavement. The Princeton library in view.

  Up the stairs, through the door, I shook out my black umbrella and stiffly checked my phone, hoping for a reply. Connor Cobalt was the top contact in my messages, but he didn’t respond to the ones I previously sent.

  I inhaled a strained breath. I hated that I sent him five texts. Five. All in quick succession. It would’ve been better if he responded, but it’d been two hours, and he was utterly silent.

  We’d started dating not long ago, and it couldn’t have been worse timing.

  Lily had just told me that she was a sex addict. Thanksgiving was approaching, hence all the college due dates raising their swords at my armor. The last thing I wanted was to be consumed by Connor Cobalt and dating. It was a betrayal to my sister and my studies.

  This was my senior year. Don’t lose focus now, Rose.

  Just to ensure that I hadn’t sent anything humiliating, I glanced over my texts and walked further into the library.

  The last one he’d sent: let me take you to lunch – Connor

  I’d replied with five frenzied messages.

  Text #1: You can eat alone. I don’t have time for food and drink and dates. My sister is my number one priority, and she needs me. Do you know what I did last night? I spent five hours researching sex addiction and contacting professionals in the field. And I’m no closer to helping her than I was the day before.

  Text #2: I will not go to lunch with you.

  Text #3: I have a French paper worth fifteen-percent of my grade due tomorrow. I haven’t even read Franz Fanon’s “Les damnés de la terre” yet, and now I’ll have to skim the book. (I never skim.)

  Text #4: I don’t even have study materials for my Strategy and Information final tomorrow. My economics professor decided to “up the final to November” to alleviate the stress on the first week of December. I loathe him. I’m not alleviated. It’s worth fifty-percent of my grade, and now I have less time to study. His logic is ridiculous. He also added extra reading supplements and teased us about specific questions from these textbooks. Which means I have to take time and go to the library. I’d withdraw, but withdrawing admits defeat. I will not be defeated by a professor.

  Text #5: disregard all previous texts except the second one.

  I still couldn’t believe I told him that I actually considered withdrawing from an upper-level econ course. He’d never admit that to me.

  You should’ve never started dating him, I kept thinking.

  Rereading the texts only rusted my joints, my neck strict and shoulders rigid. I slipped my phone in my Chanel bag and strutted past the checkout and returns. The library smelled like old hardback bindings and worn pages. I entered the common area of the first floor, ceilings vaulted, bookshelves lining a couple walls. Wooden tables and chairs were scattered in the middle.

  I needed to log onto the library’s database and figure out where my books were shelved. They most likely weren’t on the first floor. I stopped by a short bookshelf and scanned the library for a free computer, people quietly studying.

  My narrowed yellow-green eyes flitted this way and that. And then they froze. Right on serene deep blues, six-foot-four feet of arrogance and intellect, and a perpetually assured grin.

  Connor Cobalt leaned against a wooden table, skyscraping bookshelves back-dropped his stoic frame. I’ll never forget how he stood out among an ancient, grandiose library. I’ll never forget how he appeared taller and more omnipotent than the towering hardbacks behind him.

  I took a heartier breath and strutted towards Connor. When college exams and the texts made me feel frazzled, my wardrobe flooded me with confidence. Black skirt, sheer tights, booties with five-inch heels, a blazer over a loose white blouse, topped with a sleek pony and a Chanel handbag—I was ready for battle.

  As I neared, Connor stepped from the table, his wardrobe equally put-together: navy slacks, leather belt, expensive loafers, an Oxford collar button-down and tie beneath a gray sweater. He had always dressed better than most men, but I wouldn’t dare compliment him.

  I spoke hurriedly and hushed. “Did you slip and fall and forget that your allegiances are to Penn, not Princeton?”

  He almost laughed like I couldn’t see what was right in front of me.

  “Richard—”

  “My allegiance is to you, Rose.”

  My heart skipped a beat, too stunned to move. He calmly took my wet umbrella and placed it in a chair. That was when I noticed the textbooks across the table. I passed him and picked up a few, my eyes widening in more realizations.

  These were the four books I needed. “How…?”

  Connor leaned his ass on the table again, mostly—I realized—to be at the same height as me. I was angled towards him, a black textbook in my hand called Game of Strategy. His fingers skimmed my wrist, my skin on fire like never before.

  Then he flipped open the book, letting me hold it. Highlights, notes scrawled carefully in the margins, he turned to the very first page with a name in the upper corner.

  Connor Cobalt.

  This was his copy.

  “The course isn’t called Strategy and Information at Penn, but I realized it was just advanced Game Theory. I’ve already taken those courses, and I assumed the reading material would be identical.”

  He was right.

  And he saved me at least forty-five minutes of hunting through the library. “Thank you,” I said under my breath, still outright dazed. He’d been my rival since I was a teenager, and I’d yet to fully understand what it meant to have him as a teammate.

  We’d been on a handful of dates before this, mostly fueled by quick wit and my glares. He’d been extremely supportive of my Calloway Couture runway show, but today was different. I didn’t ask Connor to collect these books. I didn’t ask him to meet me at the library.

  I blinked out of my stupor, unable to look at him directly. I set the book down. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?” It sounded more hostile than I really meant.

  “Yes,” he said, “and I’m already here.”

  I swallowed as my iron walls lowered for him. They had never lowered for anyone before. “I have a French paper due first, and I need to wait for a computer.”

  He stood straighter. “You can use my laptop. I’ll buy you a coffee, and when you finish your paper, we can go through the game theory textbooks.”

  Before he moved, I said, “I don’t need Connor Cobalt the Tutor. I’m perfectly capable of studying on my own.” My lungs burned hot. I could barely breathe. I could barely meet his eyes without being overwhelmed by sentiments I’d never met in my life.

  Very deeply, he replied, “I’m not Connor Cobalt the Tutor right now.”

  I hesitated to ask. Rose Calloway does not cower. I lifted my chin, locked eyes with his, and questioned, “Then who are you giving me?” He changed for people. It was a fact we both acknowledged and understood.

  Connor waited to answer, tension jutting out my collarbone. Tension constricting muscles in his arms. “You have Connor Cobalt the Boyfriend.”

  Boyfriend.

  In a hushed voice, I asked, “And how much of him is real?” How fake was he being with me?

  Connor began to smile. “Terribly real, darling.”

  Darling.

  It was the first time he called me darling.

  At that, he walked away and only looked over his shoulder to re
mind me, “I’m buying you coffee. I’ll be right back.”

  Slowly and incredibly dazed, I sunk into my chair and removed my blazer. I found his laptop and just clicked straight into a blank document. I wouldn’t snoop. I valued my privacy too much to be hypocritical and destroy his.

  I tried to focus on my notes. FRE 371: World Literatures in French. I had pages and pages, and I began skimming the Frantz Fanon text. By the time Connor returned with two steaming cups of coffee, I’d written a thousand words.

  I told him I was halfway through, and he spent that time reading over my ECO 418: Strategy and Information notes. He only distracted me once. When he leaned forward in his chair and slipped a pencil behind his ear.

  I glanced over and watched his calculated eyes graze over my handwriting. I could barely admit it then, but I can now: it turned me on. Even his fingers lightly gliding over my notes turned me on.

  After a full minute, he caught me staring. In French, he asked, “Fini?” Finished?

  “Presque.” Almost.

  I typed out the last line, emailed myself the paper and then pushed his laptop aside. He slid his chair closer beside mine, our arms brushing. Connor pulled all the reading material towards us, and we began to talk about sequential bargaining under asymmetric information and applications for perfect Bayesian equilibrium.

  Two hours flew by. My pencil broke while I wrote out a complicated formula to an equation. He slipped his pencil out from his ear and held it to me.

  I lost all thoughts. My heart sped rapidly, and my chest collapsed in a shallow breath. I pushed my notebook to him before he noticed. “Can you finish the line? I’ll find a pen.”

  He lingered for a second and then accepted my request. Connor finished the formula, and I dug in my handbag for a pen.

  What the hell is going on? my iron walls seemed to shriek. This was unlike me. Letting him stay. Letting him help. Letting him near.

  I didn’t want to push him away. I wanted Connor right here next to me.

  I found my pen. I placed it on the table, and his arm extended over the back of my chair. He started talking about the equation, but I couldn’t think straight.

  “Rose?”

  I glanced at him, just slightly.

  He studied me with noticeable affection behind his blue eyes.

  “Continue,” I told him, my voice stilted.

  “No.”

  My eyes flamed. “No?”

  His hand encased my cheek and jaw, large and assured. My pulse beat my veins alive. His other hand rested on the outside of my thigh, climbing towards my ass.

  I held onto his shoulder. Our lifetimes of combatting one another seemed to flip over like a spinning coin that fell to one side.

  His lips an inch from mine, he whispered something, not a quote. Not in French. Connor Cobalt murmured, “What’s inside this feeling that screams at me?” His eyes spoke of battles and wins and years positioned right across from me. “Devotion.” He neared. “Fealty.”

  His lips touched mine. Our very first kiss. My rigid body stayed erect, but I heated like a thousand burning stars. He deepened the kiss, in control so I wouldn’t have to think.

  I was thinking.

  I thought about how my mind sparked and blistered. I thought about how his hands commanded the moment as much as his lips. I thought about how he held me like I’d always been in his possession, as he’d always been in mine.

  What’s inside this feeling that screams at me?

  Devotion.

  Fealty.

  It’s what I remember as I scream in a hospital. As I squeeze my husband’s hand. He towers beside me—as invincible as the day he leaned against that library table.

  “Push, one more,” the doctor encourages.

  I push with everything inside my soul. I scream so horrifically, my throat scorched and raw. Then I hear the shrill cry pitch the air. That cry. It eases me like morphine, and I thud against the hospital bed. Connor dries my forehead with a towel, and we both watch the nurses clean our baby, the doctor assures us of good health.

  Then the nurse places the newborn on my chest. I don’t hear the nurse’s next few words. Tears well and burn. Seven children and this one affects me all the same.

  “Rose, darling.” Connor lifts my chin, and I meet his glassy blues, his grin terribly gorgeous. “We have a girl.”

  “What?” A girl.

  I didn’t hear the nurse. I didn’t remember to look.

  Connor kisses my forehead and then he kisses hers and whispers soft French. A rare tear slides down his cheek.

  When he looks back at me, I say quietly, “What’s this feeling that screams inside of me?”

  His glassy eyes carry their own extraordinary grin. Sparkling like cut diamonds. “Love,” he tells me with such certainty.

  His single tear dries faster than the waterfall my ducts let through. Connor brushes beneath my eyes with his thumb, and we watch our daughter coo peacefully.

  I stroke her soft, tiny arm.

  Years.

  I wanted another girl for years. There was even a possibility that we wouldn’t try again after our seventh child, but we had her.

  I smile. “Fate was kind to us after all.”

  “Chromosomes,” Connor says. “Science. Not fate, darling.”

  I shoot him a glare, my energy rising a little, even after intense labor. I rub my eyes once more and hone in on our newborn’s thin hair.

  “She has red hair?” No one on my side of the family has red hair, but Connor’s mother did. “I thought your mother dyed her hair.”

  “She did dye it a deeper red. Naturally, her hue was more orange.”

  My lips inch upwards at our baby. I feel her heart patter against my chest, her little mouth opening in a breath. “Audrey,” I say the name I’ve had picked out for years. After Audrey Hepburn.

  Tears fall again.

  I’m a tsunami today. More water than rage.

  Connor pulls his chair close and sits beside me. “Audrey Virginia Cobalt.” After Virginia Woolf.

  I sweep up more tears with my fingertips. “Ugh. Audrey, I’m so sorry, little gremlin.” I wipe my nose with a tissue that Connor hands me. “This is not a good representation of me.”

  “On the contrary.” Connor captures my gaze; his unrestrained emotion could power the world. “This is a good representation of both of us.”

  Vulnerable and in love.

  So in love.

  He laces his hand with mine. I see Richard Connor Cobalt in nearly every frame of my life, and as his lips upturn with arrogant satisfaction, I know the greatest pieces of us have always remained the same.

  “Mommy!”

  The door whips open, and an excited two-year-old bounds forth, Jane clasps onto his shoulders, tugging him to her legs.

  “Stay very still, Pippy,” Jane whispers to him, the nickname a play off of his middle name Pirrip.

  Ben stands at attention as the rest of our children slip into the hospital room. Seven-year-old twins: Charlie and Beckett. Five-year-old Eliot. Four-year-old Tom.

  Audrey on my chest.

  Seven children.

  Seven healthy, beautiful little gremlins.

  Lily hangs by the door since she brought all of them to the hospital. Tears cloud her eyes, a smile illuminating her round face. She catches my gaze and mouths see you later. She gives me time alone with my family, and I nod in reply, the movement stiff.

  I’d like all my sisters here, emotionally, but she closes the door to one sentiment just to make room for a thousand more.

  “Come closer,” I tell our children.

  Connor stands and gestures all of them towards his side. They collect in front of his legs by the hospital bed. I sit up a little more, and I look to each of them as I say their names, “Jane, Charlie, Beckett, Eliot, Tom, and Ben.”

  They radiate, and the room teems with power and vivacity.

  “We’d like you all to meet your new sister. Audrey Virgina Cobalt.” I have the baby in my
arms to show them.

  Jane’s hands fly to her mouth, tears brimming. “A sister?”

  Over the years, she’s seen me with her aunts, the support and love we share for one another. Over the years, she’s waited, like us, to see if we’d have a girl.

  “Yes, a sister.”

  Jane cries into a smile.

  Connor sees our daughter and has to shift his head, angling his body more towards me. Away from our children. The sheer emotion on his face—I’ll never forget that either.

  While the children speak softly to Audrey, I say to Connor, “We did it.”

  “We did all of it,” he clarifies.

  This room.

  This love.

  Our future.

  Our dynasty.

  His hand strokes my cheek. I hold onto that hand, and his fingers thread mine.

  Connor & Rose Cobalt welcome the birth of their baby girl

  AUDREY VIRGINIA COBALT

  January 27th, 2025

  < 43 >

  May 2025

  Philly Aquatic Club

  Philadelphia

  DAISY MEADOWS

  At a crammed indoor pool, parents cheer for the 9 & older swimmers at a competitive meet. Lily and I are squeezed in between our husbands on the packed bleachers, all of us trying to ignore the onslaught of shouts, but hey, at least they’re not at us for once.

  “Come on, Sydney!”

  “Go, Michelle!”

  “You got this, Jenn!”

  Moffy and Sulli aren’t in this female 100-meter backstroke race. For one, Sulli is only seven and a part of the 8 & under category, which will race in about ten minutes. Moffy will be up first since he’s already nine.

  Lily bites her nails. “OhmyGod, I see him. Does he look nervous, Lo?”

  As I crane my neck Moffy stands totally chill by the blue-tiled wall. Swim cap on, ready to go, he just adjusts his goggles a bit.

  Lo feigns fright and clutches Lily’s shoulder. “Christ, I think he’s about to hyperventilate. Oh wait…that’s just you.” He flashes a half-smile at his wife.

  Lily gapes and almost goes to slug his arm, but she sees little baby Kinney in a gray woven wrap on his chest, sleeping peacefully.