24. Phoenix St. Pierre
PHOENIX ST. PIERRE
The Cobalts being rich smacked me in the face when I first saw their apartment’s multimillion-dollar city view. Somehow, I did not think entering their SUV would cause the same reaction.
But what the fuck is this?
I don’t have time to comment on it. I put a hand on top of Tom’s head, trying to guide him into the SUV without him banging his skull against the doorframe.
He enters without problem, but success is short lived.
He loses his footing inside the car and smacks his head against the opposite window with a loud thump.
“And there goes the last brain cell.” That comment comes from the guy already seated in one of the captain’s chairs.
I recognize him as the brother who looks like Tom.
The one I saw briefly in the club before he disappeared.
He hangs an arm out of the window with a cigarette pinched between his fingers.
Tom falls back into the bench seat just as I sit down beside him. “I’m fiiiine.” He props his back against the car door, then drapes one leg over my knee. Fuck. Not only is his older brother arching a single brow at me, but Tom is about to roll into the footwell.
I pick up his legs and put both across my lap, holding them there so he doesn’t careen again and face-plant. I say nothing to his brother. I just watch him bring the cigarette to his mouth while he assesses me like I’m a painting at the Met.
He sucks in deeply and barely blows out any smoke.
“F.I.N.E.” Tom spells it out, draws the word in the air with his finger, and mimes an explosion.
“You seem fine,” the mystery brother says dryly. His eyes flit to me. “Qu’est-ce qu’il fait ici?” What is he doing here?
That question is not for me, I realize. Beckett sinks down in the other captain’s chair now, and he slams the car door shut. “Il ne quittera pas Tom.” He won’t leave Tom.
I debate whether to just tell them I can understand what they’re saying. But honestly, why should I? If they’re arrogant enough to talk in French around me thinking it’s a private conversation—then that’s on them.
I crane my neck to see who’s driving. If it’s another Cobalt brother, I might be fucked. But it doesn’t take long to spot the wire running from the driver’s ear. A bodyguard.
He’s older; most of their security detail look in their thirties. Him, as well. He eyes me from the rearview mirror. His expression is bottled, and I can’t gauge whether he’s suspicious of me or confused as to why I’m here.
“Shar-lee,” Tom says, which sounds like a drunk pronunciation of Charlie. “I fucked it all up.” He closes his eyes in distress.
My hand tightens on his leg. I peek into the side door’s cupholder. Empty. “Do we have any water in here?” I ask.
Beckett pops open a middle console between him and Charlie. He retrieves some fancy branded water in a glass bottle, then extends it to Tom, but Tom is not paying attention. His threaded fingers splay over his eyes.
“You feel sick, Tom?” I ask him. He doesn’t respond right away, and I shake his leg. “Tom.” I’m a couple seconds away from reaching up and clasping his face.
“Not sick, Phoenixxxxx.” The hiss lasts longer. What was funny before now has me more concerned.
When I look forward, my body locks into a rigid state at the way Beckett and Charlie are fixedly observing me. There is no subtlety, no hiding that they’re noting every fraction of an inch I move, every time I touch Tom, probably every time I breathe.
I’m more used to guys in Boston who’d curse me out and try to throw a punch in the car. I’m not used to whatever this is.
From behind the wheel, the bodyguard asks, “Where are we headed?”
Beckett hasn’t torn his gaze off me. “Your address?”
“That didn’t come up in the background check?” I ask him with raised brows.
Beckett has a no-nonsense air about him. He simply says, “I personally did not go through your background check. So, no, I don’t have your address memorized.”
“We can always call our dad and ask him,” Charlie offers in a bored tone. “Would you like that?” He taps ash out the window.
As much as I’m dying to call his bluff, I do not feel like talking to their dad tonight. I’ve heard Tom refer to him as a god enough to know I’ll steer clear.
Tom peels his palms off his eyes and holds up a hand like he’s in class. “Les get some snass.”
Beckett frowns. “Ass?”
“Snacks,” Charlie says. He rotates around. “Oscar, can you take us to McDonald’s?”
“7-Eleven,” Tom counters, trying to scoot more upright. He slumps back down.
“McDonald’s,” Charlie argues.
“I beseesh you…seven.” Tom holds up seven fingers.
“Oh, look, you can count,” Charlie deadpans. “Guess you’re smarter when you’re drunk.”
“Guess you’re drunker when you’re drunk, Shar-lee boy.” Tom forces his eyes wide open on me. “Seven.” He points at me. “You.” Then his chest. “Me.” Then swats the air at his brothers. “Fuck them.”
I force away a smile.
Charlie rolls his eyes hard.
I slide one arm across the seat toward Tom. “Wherever we go, we’re going with your brothers, man.”
I have a brother the same age as Tom. So I can empathize with Charlie and Beckett right now. Maybe not how they’re handling this with me, but just dealing with me in general.
In this situation, if Birdie’s bandmate tried to pry me away from him while he’s this drunk, I would throw the dirtbag out of the car and land a solid punch.
I am a guy from Boston.
So there is no way I would steal Tom away from his brothers.
Not even as Tom groans, “Fuck, no. They’re nooo fun. We need Eliot Aliiiiice.” He gasps. “Let’s get Eliot—”
“No,” Charlie and Beckett say in unison.
Tom lets out an extended moan. “Everyone’s out to get meee.”
“Yes, because the whole world revolves around you,” Charlie says.
“It does, thank you for noticing.” Tom slips me the fucking cutest smug smile I’ve ever seen.
I pat his thigh on my lap. “Sorry, nepo baby, you’re being held hostage.”
“Break me freeee, dude.”
I feel more heat off Beckett’s eyes, and I glare back at him. “What?” I ask with a grimace.
“Nepo baby?”
“Is it inaccurate?” I snap, feeling attacked even though the guy hasn’t raised his voice once. “He’s a nepo baby.”
Tom cackles. “That’s me.” He has a widening grin while he laces his fingers back over his eyes. “He loooves me.”
My insides cramp, and I’m too caught off guard to do anything but act like Tom spoke drunk bullshit into the air.
“Everyone loooooves me,” Tom smiles into a snicker. “I looove me.”
“Subtract me,” Charlie says, passing his cigarette to Beckett, who takes a short drag before handing it back.
“Mmmm-hmm,” Tom mumbles. “No can do, Shar-lee boy. You looove me. I don’t make the rules. Now, 7-Eleven. Chop, chop.” He claps twice.
The SUV is still idling in the cold. I glance between them. “Can we not go to the 7-Eleven?” I ask.
Beckett turns to Charlie. “He needs food.”
“He’s playing you.” Charlie extends his hand out the window. “He wants to go there to grab more alcohol.” He stretches his head toward the bodyguard. “McDonald’s, Oscar. Merci beaucoup.”
I frown over at Tom. Is he that shrewd? He seems harmless. He’s literally flipping Charlie off right now.
Charlie puts out the cigarette, then rolls up the window. The SUV starts moving and bumps along the road. Beckett still has the glass bottle of water.
“Give me that,” I motion my fingers at it.
“You slip anything in this water, and your life will be over,” Beckett says like he’s telling me the weather and not my fate. Like it’s a fact that he will destroy me if I hurt his brother, and somehow the impact of that is more forceful than a fist to my face.
“I would never drug him,” I emphasize with everything in me, then I grimace remembering Tom’s bodyguard at the club.
“Jesus, why is everyone afraid he’s going to be drugged?
” My face just plummets. My stomach falls out of my body.
“Please don’t tell me he’s been…” I crash backward, my whole body locked tight again.
I extend my arm back over the seat.
No one is saying anything.
No one is denying.
“Was he roofied?” I ask outright, gritting my molars.
Visceral anger tears through me, imagining Tom going through this.
The car suddenly bakes with heat—I’m baking.
I drag a tense hand over my mouth. Now I feel like I’m going to puke.
Tom’s legs are still draped across my spread knees, so I can’t exactly bow forward and put my arms on my thighs.
I’m uncomfortable in this agonizing silence of uncertainty.
I stretch my neck backward and say a harsh, “Fuck.” Then I glance at Tom, my pulse in my throat, and I ask his brothers, “Yes or no?” Neither respond. “You really can’t tell me? Because when he’s sober, I’m going to ask him anyway.”
“Ask what?” Tom tunes back in, unable to lift himself up the door.
“He wasn’t roofied,” Beckett suddenly informs me.
I release a tight breath and pinch my eyes. My other arm is still wrapped around Tom’s legs, and I hold him a little closer. Thank God he hasn’t been through that.
“Audrey was,” Tom mutters.
“Your little sister?” I frown.
Beckett is shaking his head over and over at Tom.
Tom mumbles another word. I piece it apart and say out loud, “Fentanyl?” I look to his brothers. “She was slipped fentanyl?”
“How far are we from the McDonald’s?” Beckett asks the bodyguard, completely ignoring me.
Charlie has a blank look on Tom. “Just wait until Eliot hears about your loose lips, little brother.”
“Loose lips sink Cobalt ships.” Tom mimes a drum beat in the air.
I assure them, “I won’t tell anyone. I signed an NDA, but even if I didn’t, I wouldn’t say a fucking thing.”
At this, Beckett hands me the water, but he manages to aim one more silent threat into me at the same time.
“Thanks,” I say and untwist the cap, tossing it in the car door’s cup holder.
Then I fist Tom’s black muscle shirt, drawing him toward me until I can put a hand behind his shoulders.
He slumps into me. “Tom.” I clasp his jaw while he rests his temple on the back of the seat. At least he’s upright. “Water.”
There is no way he’ll hold the bottle without dropping it, so I put the rim to his lips and spill some into his mouth.
He places a palm over my hand, and his eyes flit up at me as he sips water. I cage my breath.
Thoughts must be spinning in his head because when he guides my hand with the glass bottle down, he says, “Beck said go and he just…poof. Left.”
RJ…he’s thinking about fucking RJ.
About him leaving. I don’t like the sadness in Tom’s eyes. I like the conceited, happy drunk stage he was just at.
“Everyone loves you, nepo baby. You said it yourself.”
Tom is in a daze.
I pinch his chin and tilt his head toward me. His eyes aren’t heavy-lidded. They’re big and blue and on me. “Tom—”
“You stayed.”
The deep, emotional look he sends me is a hand reaching through my body and fisting my lungs. Fuck. “Will I ever ditch you?” I move his head side to side with my hold on his chin. He smiles and pushes my chest—he falls backward with the force, and I reach out and catch the back of his head.
He’s fisting my shirt now, and I’m breathing harder than I want to. I bring him back upright, but he slumps forward into my chest. I don’t look at his brothers, but I feel their eyes on me. Tom’s forehead digs into my ribs.
“I don’t annoy you?” Tom mumbles out.
“Oh, no, you definitely fucking annoy me,” I tell him, adjusting him so he rests his head on my chest. Basically holding him on my lap now, I cup his face, and his eyes aren’t morose anymore.
There is so much light in Tom. It’s easier now to see how he could’ve sparked a feeling I’d lost. “I like you living under my skin.”
Tom has a soft, faraway smile. He shuts his eyes, his lips rising higher and higher. “‘Your Epidemic.’” He names our song.
Our song.
They’re all ours.
“Ils sortent ensemble?” Are they dating? Charlie’s hushed voice snaps me out of focus.
“Je ne crois pas.” I don’t think so. Beckett replies, “Il ne sortirait jamais avec son batteur.” He wouldn’t date his drummer. He takes a short pause. “Ils se séparent, le groupe se sépare.” They break up. The band breaks up.
“Ils niquent?”Are they fucking?
“Peut-être.” Maybe. Beckett clicks open the middle console. “Mais il nous le dirait. Non?” But he would tell us. No?
The car rolls to a stop near a curb, and I’m about to reposition Tom so I can go grab him food. But Beckett tells me, “We have to wait.”
“Why?” I clearly spot the golden yellow McDonald’s arches among the high-rise buildings. I don’t see the problem. “I can even hop out and get halal on the street—there’s a truck right there.”
“We can get McDonald’s,” Beckett says.
Okay, that’s not the issue then. “I know why Tom shouldn’t be stepping out of the car. But you have two feet.” It dawns on me. “You aren’t seriously going to make your secret service grab you a pack of nuggets.” Fuck it. “I’ll go.”
I’m gently leaning Tom back against the door and untangling his legs from mine, then I jump out on the other side. Fully understanding that they could leave my ass inside this McDonald’s and drive away.
Birdie would tell me I’m setting myself up for it.
Each step away from the SUV feels like swords piercing me through the back. You’re an idiot, I tell myself. Truly this is so fucking stupid.