9. Tom Cobalt #2
“Probably busy” sounds like barely busy. Meet me at 10 p.m. Pink Noir or the Ritz?
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
MAYBE LEO VALAVANIS
I’ll pick. Ritz, it is.
Charlie tears the phone out of my hand and passes it to Beckett. I’m so dead. Fucking deceased. Eliot. I need Eliot to come revive me. Like right now.
Beckett is on his feet as soon as he reads the messages. “He asked you to a fucking hotel?”
“I didn’t say yes!” I yell. “I literally said no.”
Charlie stands beside Beckett, peeking at the texts too. His ill-humored eyes meet mine. “You literally said probably busy.”
“Same thing.” I jump up. “Same exact thing. It’s what I meant. In my heart, I said fuck off, fuck you, go eat a bag of dicks.” I’m staring right at Beckett with a speeding heart rate. His vein is pulsing in his temple, his chest rising and falling so quickly. Have I ever seen him this furious?
I don’t know.
Maybe not.
Charlie touches Beckett’s elbow and whispers against his ear. Beckett isn’t moving a single muscle. Not until he sneers, “He knows exactly what he’s fucking doing, Charlie.”
I think he’s referring to Leo, but the slim chance it could be me has torn a hole in my body. I’m barely breathing.
“What’s going on?” Ben appears from the hallway with Harriet.
I’m not at all upset by his presence. “More witnesses,” I say to Beckett and Charlie.
“Harry and Ben know I have zero interest in Leo. I have never reached out to him. He contacted me.” I motion for Ben and Harriet to advocate on my behalf.
I need them to since Eliot is not here to reinforce my innocence.
Ben frowns at our brothers. “Yeah, Tom’s not interested in Leo. He knows Beckett hates him.” He sounds very convincing because it is the truth. It is.
“What Ben said,” Harriet deadpans, and I’ll take her little crumb. From Harry, it’s practically a five-tiered cake.
Beckett fixes his searing gaze on me. “I’m going to tell you again, Tom. He is using you to fuck with me. Do not entertain him.”
“I’m not.”
“Then how’d he get your number?” Charlie asks me.
I collapse back onto the sofa and smear a hand down my face. “I was drunk this one time. I wasn’t thinking when I gave it to him.”
“Tell me that’s all that happened,” Beckett says in a single breath. Or maybe he’s not breathing either. The air feels thin.
“That’s all that happened.” I look up at him. “Je te le promets.” I promise you that.
Beckett exhales his caged breath, then he bends down to my height on the couch. “Stay away from him.” He hands me my phone. “Promets-le moi.” Promise me.
“Je le promets,” I emphasize with my whole soul. I promise. I ease when he squeezes my shoulder.
Then he sits beside me. I can viscerally feel the tension in his rigid, perfect-postured body.
I rest my hands on my head again, leaning backward. “I’m sor—”
“I’m not angry at you.” He blinks a couple times, staring at the new footprints I left behind on the coffee table.
Fuck me. Charlie is already grabbing the Clorox off the kitchen counter where I’d set it. I wish I could say this is the first time I’ve accidentally made a mess that Charlie cleaned, but it’s not even the tenth time.
Beckett focuses on me. “I know the attention Leo gives you might feel good, but it’s not worth reciprocating when his intentions have nothing to do with you. You fall for him, he’ll hurt you.”
“Yeah, understood,” I nod.
Beckett is trying desperately to save me from a shattered heart and a mistake I can’t take back. “Just think about the type of guy who’d do something like this,” he adds. “You really want a jackass who’d lead you on just to piss off your older brother?”
“Tom is attracted to the conflict,” Charlie says like it’s a historical fact everyone should know by now.
He might be right on this account because I’ve never really been drawn to guys who are uncomplicated. I’ve never been enticed by dull and mundane.
Still, I assure them, “I’m not going to play into Leo’s hand, don’t worry. I already promised.”
Beckett stands and tries to take the Clorox from Charlie, but he won’t let Beckett clean it. I can’t tell what’s stressing him out more. The footprints or Leo.
The three of us simultaneously glance over at Ben. He’s retreating to his bedroom with Harriet. We hear the door click shut.
“Was he okay?” I ask them.
Beckett looks to Charlie.
“He was breathing hard,” Charlie confirms.
I frown. “So Ben must think he’s causing this rift, right?” It sounds absurd even saying it. Because Ben is such an outlier to this conflict, but his mind is warping this situation and telling him he’s the source. The domino that pushes all the other ones down. That hurts us.
Just in case Ben heard me, I raise my voice and add, “And so it’s clear, Leo is the one to blame! Everything is his fault!”
Charlie hasn’t taken his eyes off Beckett. “He’s with Harriet. She’ll calm him down. He’s fine.” He says it so bitterly, you’d think he’d wish for Ben to remain panicked. Really, I think he just hates seeing Ben in love.
Or anyone in love for that matter.
“I’ll talk to him tomorrow,” Beckett says, keeping his hands to himself. Not touching anything. So it’s obvious to me that he’s not doing well either with his contamination OCD.
I could say I am a trigger, but this is definitely on Leo. I did not send those texts.
On my feet again, I take the cleaner from Charlie and wipe down the coffee table. Successfully shiny and smudge-free.
Then I snatch the neck of my guitar. I might just go hang out in Eliot’s room until he comes home.
Beckett and Charlie are speaking in hushed French, and I don’t strain my ears to hear them. I’m about to walk down the hall when Beckett calls out, “Tom.”
“Yeah?” I spin back around to meet his concern. It seems different. More confused.
“Dad called me on the way home,” he says. “The background check for Phoenix St. Pierre is complete.”
I feel a little bad about that. Phoenix wants this whole partnership to be equal. Technically, if he wanted, he could run a background check on me too. But I could’ve also warned him that my parents run background checks on pretty much anyone who is in constant contact with us.
“Any skeletons in his closet?” I ask playfully.
Beckett furrows his brows. “How well do you know this guy?”
I think about our short encounters. The twenty minutes at the studio, the half hour at the diner, the briefest presentation at Riot’s office, and then the various phone calls bitching to each other about font.
“I know we can’t stand each other.” I rest my shoulder on the wall, gripping the guitar loose against my leg.
Charlie and Beckett share a look I can’t decode, before Beckett tells me, “You need to be careful around him.”
I grimace. “What does that mean?”
“He’s been arrested before. Multiple charges under his name. Assault. Public intoxication. Disorderly conduct. Stuff like that.”
I’m hardly shocked. “Yeah. He’s a drummer of a rock band. He parties. Probably gets in fights and does coke.”
“This is reassuring,” Charlie cuts in dryly.
Charlie has done many drugs. He’s not some D.A.R.E representative. But for the past couple years, Beckett has been trying to keep me and Eliot away from anyone who offers us speed, coke, E—party drugs. He even dropped a couple friends who gave Eliot LSD.
Beckett and Charlie moved to New York when they were only sixteen—Beckett to join a ballet conservatory and Charlie because he graduated high school early and wanted to be with his twin.
In a way, we all followed Beckett here. I think he feels a responsibility to protect us from the dark aspects of the city.
The question is whether Phoenix St. Pierre is one.
And really, I don’t even know the answer.
Beckett cautions, “Between this and his need to be deceptive about his name, he seems like trouble.”
“You already incite enough on your own,” Charlie says in a more bored tone.
“I agree,” I tell them, pushing off the wall. “But I’m not going to watch my band fade into oblivion. I need him.”
I’m not letting Phoenix go because of a prior arrest. Which means my standards have either lowered or…I know he’s a great drummer. And I don’t want to let another St. Pierre get away.
Not again.