35. Tom Cobalt
TOM COBALT
“You’re serious?” Phoenix asks when I call him in my bathroom. I have him on speaker while I wash my face.
“Yeah, I think having sex will help us finish out the album.”
His next long pause has me circling exfoliator more aggressively on my jawline.
It feels like a solid millennium passes before he speaks. “And what if it doesn’t help?”
“I’ve thought about that what if, and I am willing to be wrong.” I bend over the sink basin and splash water on my face. “Don’t you think it’s worth trying anyway?”
“I don’t need a reason to fuck you other than I want to,” Phoenix says. “I’ve been willing to take the gamble, man. I just don’t want you to regret it.”
“I won’t,” I promise as water droplets track down my face. I stare at the phone, waiting for his response. “Phoenix?” My pulse spikes. “I want to, but I’m not going to beg—”
“I’m not asking you to beg,” he cuts in fast. “Come over to my apartment. We can work on the last song here. Okay?”
It’s the first time I’ve been invited there. Nothing Personal is on tour, which means all of his roommates are gone. He has the whole apartment to himself. We’ll have it to ourselves.
“Sounds like a plan.”
I secretly love that he invited me to his place. It’s like voyaging into a whole new aspect of Phoenix I haven’t investigated yet. This is where he sleeps after our late-night songwriting sessions, where he wakes in the morning before meeting up with me.
“Cozy,” I smile.
“You mean tiny as fuck.”
“Cozy and tiny,” I shrug. “You weren’t exaggerating when you said it’s small.
” The hallway he led me down was cramped, but nothing could’ve prepared me for his bedroom—which can’t be bigger than seventy square feet.
It consists of a full-size bed, a skinny end table, and a closet.
Just enough space on the floor for my guitar case.
I pry off my Vans and jump on the gray comforter, just to check out the rainy view. The window is situated above his slated headboard. “You have a fire escape outside your window?” I grin back at him. “You hang out there a lot?”
“Not unless I want to be fined. The building manager, Freddie, is a fucking ass and made me pay for leaving an ashtray on the grate.”
“Seems harsh,” I spin around, plopping down on the mattress. “I have a friend in the Upper West Side who had firefighters called on him, and the citation went to the building manager, who ended up just slapping my friend with a warning.”
“What friend is this?” Phoenix asks while unlacing his boots. “First I’ve heard of him?”
“Yeah. Party friend. Trust fund baby. Eliot and I know a lot of them, being trust fund babies ourselves, but some of them are…I don’t know, super unmotivated?
They basically sleep all day, then smoke weed and party all night.
They act like Eliot and I are wasting time with our ‘hobbies.’” I use air quotes. “You probably wouldn’t like Sheperd.”
“I probably wouldn’t,” he agrees, hurling his boot aside.
“He’s getting axed off my birthday party invite list. There’s a ten out of ten chance Shep would piss in one of Ben’s house plants.” I bring my knees up and flick open my lighter, trying not to fixate too much on what he’s doing. “So what’d you do to piss him off?”
“Piss who off?” Phoenix kicks away his left boot.
“Your asshole building manager. If he’s coming at you for an ashtray, it sounds vindictive.”
“That’s because it is,” he says. “Ever since Birdie fucked and chucked him, he’s been a pain in the ass.”
My brows spring upward, not expecting that at all. The click, click, click of my lighter fills the brief silence. “How far does the apple fall from the St. Pierre tree?”
He’s rigid. “Are you asking if I would fuck and chuck you?”
“Yeah.” I shrug tensely. “I mean, I know you won’t because we work together, but I guess if we didn’t—”
“That’s not the plan, Tom,” he interjects, eyes narrowed on me. “That’s never been the fucking plan. I don’t want to get rid of you.”
Good to know, good to know. I try to shake off the jittery anticipation of sex.
Rising to my feet, I hop off his bed and stand a couple inches from Phoenix.
“The plan should be to put my poster on your blank wall.” I smirk and nod toward the muddy-colored brick wall behind him. “Perfect spot for it.”
He’s not entertaining a look backward. “You nervous?”
I try not to cage breath. “Dude, I could sing to millions without breaking a sweat. I have nerves of Cobalt steel.”
“Then why do you keep flicking open your lighter?”
Anticipation (just anticipation) pricks my skin. “Habit.” I shove my traitorous Zippo lighter in my pocket, then I hold out my palms. “Steady. Unshakeable. Hands that’ve made you come.”
“You think that’s noteworthy, nepo baby?” He inspects my hands, his fingers skimming my knuckles.
There is no way he can hear my pounding pulse. “I’m sure I’ve made you come the hardest of all the hands that’ve ever touched you, so yeah.” My breath shallows. “Yeah.”
He’s twisting the two stacked black rings on my pinky. I have a thicker onyx ring on my middle finger, and he thumbs that one before kneading the pit of my palm. “You think I’d like you less if your hands shook?”
My eyes sting. “I don’t know, dude.” I shrug. “Maybe I’d like myself less if they did.”
His knitted brows darken his features. “Expand on that.”
My chest is tight. “I have brothers who bulldoze. Parents who can slaughter. I do not want to be the Cobalt that people look at and see weakness. I’ve wanted to be exactly what is expected when people think of the Cobalt Empire. Intelligent, unflappable power.”
Phoenix processes this with his usual puncturing glare.
It feels familiar. It helps me continue on, so I add, “When guys are looking to hook up with me, they’re expecting a Cobalt—and I get you don’t know the extent of what that means.
But it’s unbridled confidence. It’s composure and control.
You think they want to be with someone who’s unsure and scared?
I mean”—I laugh at the old memories of being propositioned at parties—“everyone wants to sleep with a Cobalt god. Don’t you? ”
“No,” he says. “I want to sleep with the guy who shared his fears with me in his bedroom. I want the guy who can get scared and nervous. I don’t want to sleep with steel and iron that can’t hurt.
I want to be with flesh and bone that can.
I just want you, Tom, and you’re so fucking far from being weak.
You’re just human to me. You’ve been human. ”
It barrels so deep into me that I sway backward from the force of his words. His hand is in mine, so I don’t move far. I’ve never been with someone who wanted this side of me.
“Wow,” I murmur, almost speechless. I fight to speak more than monosyllables. “I think… you’re the first person who’s ever said anything like that to me.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” I nod. “Maybe there’ll be more after you. I’m sure I have a whole line of suitors clamoring to be with this new vulnerable me.”
“Wow, should I barricade my door so they don’t bust through here?”
I smile at his dry tone and head tilt. “Probably. It’d be kind of hot.” I nod a lot.
He nods back.
I am nervous. Really nervous for this next part. “I, um…” I scratch the back of my head and side-eye the bed. “I don’t know if this is a turn-off of yours, but I’m not that experienced, dude. Like I am, but I’m not.” I read his gaze so fast.
Phoenix is very, very unsurprised.
My chest caves. “Wait, could you tell?”
Holy shit, did I give a subpar blow job? No way, no way. I’ve given A+ epic blow jobs that’ve had his eyes rolling backward. I add quickly, “Because I am experienced when it comes to what we’ve fucking done so far.”
“Tom.”
I’ve ripped my hand from him. My palms slide to my head while I back up. My legs hit the bed, and I sink down on the edge. My pride feels lightly sucker-punched. Lightly. I am not letting this knock me over. I run my fingers through my hair and intake a sharp breath.
“Look at me.” Phoenix is right in front of me, thwacking his foot against mine.
I raise my gaze. “I don’t know if I like this whole vulnerable thing. We might need to reverse. Or hey, maybe I can return it. You think customer service is open?”
“Yeah, let’s go to Target and return a moment in time.”
“Great. You want to take your Suzuki?” I’m antsy, twisting my rings.
“Just listen to me, Tom.” Okay. “I would’ve assumed you were really experienced. This whole time. It would’ve never crossed my mind that you weren’t. Honest to God.”
The reassurance isn’t hitting. “Then why did you look so unsurprised, Phoenix?”
“Because your brother said—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” My eyes explode. “Which brother told you what?”
“Charlie said you’ve only taken one dick in the ass, and that was his wording, FYI.”
An inhuman noise comes out of me. “I’m going to kill him.” I fall backward on the bed and reach for a pillow.
I smother my face in it. Charlie?!?!
The mattress undulates as Phoenix crashes down beside me. He tears the pillow off me and throws it at the headboard. “You’re making great strides toward murder,” he says. “Already halfway out the door.”
“Yeah, I have to resurrect myself first, Phoenix. It’s not every day your older brother tells your drummer that you’ve taken a dick in the ass.”
“On the plus side—”
“There’s a plus side?”
“I had incorrectly assumed you’d been with more than just your on-off thing up until Charlie told me. It didn’t cross my mind he was the only guy you’d ever slept with.”
I press my palms to my burning face. “So you already knew because of Charlie.”
“Yeah, but I’m glad you told me, man. You proved your brother wrong. He didn’t think you would.”
That does feel good. Uncovering my face, I perch up on my elbows.
Phoenix is turned toward me, his forearm on his bent knee, seated more like he’s a nude model posing for art students to sketch his figure. He’s so unguarded with me that he might as well be unclothed.
It makes me feel like I can ask him anything I want.
He glances at my lips. “You being inexperienced would turn me off because…?”