11. Tom Cobalt
TOM COBALT
“Are you lighting a candle, brother?” Eliot asks with a wry smile. “Setting the mood?” I regret putting him and Luna on a video call. It is a serious character flaw that I can’t even be alone in this apartment without calling my two best friends.
But they’re the first people I dialed as soon as I had the place to myself.
“Dude, it’s not like that.” I blow out the candle I just lit.
“I thought the candle was nice,” Luna tells me, her camera so close to her round face, I just see a blur of glitter on her cheeks and her light brown hair twisted in space buns. She’s been jostling the phone while she rushes to a 7 p.m. business seminar at Manhattan Valley University.
Luna Hale is my twenty-two-year-old cousin and the third component to our dynamic, unbreakable trio. Our family dubbed us “the troublemakers” ever since we were teenagers caught climbing trees and vaping between the branches.
Now we’re in our twenties and our dreams have become bigger and more important than doing cartwheels on a golf course and partying till sunrise. Eliot’s in the last round of auditions for a new play on Broadway, and Luna is being mentored by our Uncle Stokes on all things Fizzle while in college.
Our Grandfather Calloway built the soda empire, and when he kicked the bucket last year, he made a stipulation in his will that one of his grandchildren be named successor. Just so there’d be time to mold us into the perfect CEO.
After the board considered a handful of my brothers and cousins, Luna became that someone. She’s now contractually obligated to take over the entire company. Luna Hale being the Fizzle heir is still hush-hush in the press, but the stress on her isn’t invisible.
It feels like the three of us are gripping onto our dreams by our fingernails. We don’t have a solid hold yet, but sometimes I think about what happens if they do seize everything they’ve ever wanted.
What happens if I don’t.
I can’t bear an outcome where Eliot’s a world-renowned actor, Luna’s the CEO of the biggest soda corporation in the world, and I’m struggling to fill seats in a small local venue.
Like I’d be so fucking happy for them…but it’d crush me. Even envisioning it causes instant tortured breathing and sheer fucking panic. That makes me a shit person, right? That I can’t even find a way to be happy for my best friends without envy and despair. I hate that future.
I will become my worst self in that future.
It can’t happen.
Happy thoughts, Tom Carraway. Those come in the image of a tall jerk-off named Phoenix St. Pierre.
He’s my last hope for success at this point.
I stare harder at the three-wick, pine-scented candle as smoke billows. Ben bought a ton of these soy candles when he moved in. I think it was to set the mood for his girlfriend—but that’s not what I’m doing here.
Not…at all.
It’s not like I’m dressed for a candlelit dinner. I have on ripped jeans and a dark muscle tee that says BOWIE.
I move the candle to the other side of the kitchen counter. Then back to the first spot on the marble near the sink. I look up and realize the door is literally right there. This’ll be the first thing Phoenix sees when he enters the apartment.
All my brothers are MIA tonight. Ben, at a game board club thing on MVU’s campus.
Eliot, at the theater. Beckett, ballet rehearsal.
Charlie, unsure—but I would guess Central Park.
The city might contain millions and stretch for miles, but it’s not big enough that I haven’t run into Charlie reading at the Ramble by the stream.
He has spots.
Routines.
With everyone occupied doing their own thing, I figured it’s perfect timing to invite Phoenix over to work on songs. Less chances for Beckett to interrogate him about his arrest history and for Charlie to do Charlie things.
I’m smart enough to know prolonging that meet-and-greet is better for my sanity.
But now I’m freaking debating on whether a candle is too much. Come on. It’s not like it says I wanna bang you. Right.
Right??
“The candle might be a necessity,” I tell them over the phone. “Ben burnt his vegan pizza bites before he left. The apartment smells like ass.”
“I have cologne in my bedroom,” Eliot offers. He looks like he’s calling from a dungeon. The blue glow of his phone brightens his stretching grin, but the rest of him is obscured in darkness. I think he’s in a broom closet. I don’t ask.
Luna sounds out of breath hustling on the quad. “I think cologne might be more suggestive than a candle,” she pants.
“Would it?” Eliot has a wicked smile.
I cringe into a groan. “Eliot Alice, don’t fucking set me up. Now’s not the time.”
“I like the candle,” Luna says again.
“I’m going with Luna’s advice.” I flick my Zippo lighter open. The flame eats the wick. I click the lighter shut.
Eliot wags a finger at me. “Better idea. You two just fuck. Get it out of your systems. Then you can focus on the band. Sexual tension can’t be ignored, brother.”
I’m shaking my head so hard, my neck aches.
“Or maybe, you just do what you’re doing?” Luna offers. “Aw, fuck!” She goes off screen, and the camera shakes violently.
“Luna?!” Eliot and I call out. My heart slams against my chest.
“I’mokaydon’tworry!” she says so fast her words slur together. She rights the phone quickly. Her chin is scraped and bleeding. “There was a duck.”
“A duck?” My brows rise. “Like quack-quack kind of duck?”
“Did it hurt you?” Eliot asks. “Because I know how to make duck à l’orange.”
I laugh, and I’m thankful Ben isn’t here. He wouldn’t appreciate that joke.
Luna touches her chin in a wince. “The duck is innocent. He was just crossing the sidewalk. I didn’t see him.” Her bodyguard reaches down for her hand and helps her to her feet. Luna nods at something off screen, then says to us, “I have to go. Tom, keep me posted.”
“Will do, Luna with No Middle Name.”
After she hangs up, I’m left with Eliot, and his burgeoning grin that I know all too well. “No, no, dude. There is no sexual tension between me and Phoenix. He’s not even gay.”
“He said that?”
“No, but I’d bet three million on red that he’s straight. That’s how sure I am.”
Eliot doesn’t like this conclusion, so I’m not surprised he’s trying to find holes in my logic. “Has he checked you out?”
“He mostly looks like he wants to shove a fork in my neck.”
His eyes darken. “And you’re home alone with him?”
“Dude, don’t be Beckett. I need you to focus.”
“Okay, first step is to find out if he’s attracted to men. If the answer is yes, you fuck him. You create a bond that lasts eternity. Music to thine ears, brother.”
I bend over the kitchen counter, my face in my hand.
“Dude.” I love Eliot the most of all my brothers, I do, but he is a certified manwhore.
“He’s not gay.” My nerves are shooting through the roof.
Why am I acting like this is a hookup all of a sudden?
We’re bandmates! I swear Eliot has incepted my brain.
“You could start with a blow job,” Eliot says casually.
Oh my fuck. I run my hands through my hair. “No. Rewind. We’re not fucking. We’re not blowing each other. He’s my—”
There’s a knock at the door.
Eliot smiles. “Is that him?”
Holy shit. I’m stressed. I refocus on Eliot as I make my way to the door.
“I’ll figure this out. Just go kill your audition,” I tell him.
“Merde.” I say shit in French, wishing him good luck.
It’s like the superstitious “break a leg” colloquialism.
Though Eliot isn’t nearly as superstitious as I really am.
He will pretend to be for shits and giggles sometimes, but he believes in curses about as much as our dad believes in the Easter Bunny.
We hang up just as I open the front door.
Phoenix is…tall.
Don’t know why I forgot that.
But he stares down at me. Chunky black headphones are hooked around his neck, and what looks like a motorcycle jacket is already off and folded over his arm. The muscles in his jaw tic like he’s gritting his teeth. I shouldn’t find that even microscopically attractive.
I swing the door open wider before I get a semi from staring at this dude’s face. “Welcome,” I greet, waving him inside.
Phoenix doesn’t enter.
He turns his head to the long, carpeted hallway beside him. Deep red walls, dim lighting, and a shiny elevator all exist outside of apartment 2166. “Fancy,” he says so tightly I can’t tell if it’s a dig or just an observation. “You always full-body cavity search your guests?”
I’m guessing security went hard on him in the lobby. “Only the ones I really like.”
“Then you must be in love with me.” His eyes travel over my face, likely reading my abrupt concern.
“Wait, all they were supposed to do was take your ID and check your bag. If you had one.”
He cocks his head, looking me over again. “Yeah, they did more than that. Patted me down.” He motions his finger from his face to his feet. “Pockets overturned. Shirt came off. They asked if I was wearing a wire. I asked if they wanted me to bend over and cough too.”
Anger torches my face. “I will be having harsh words with them.” Right fucking now. I’m not even an inch into the doorway when Phoenix pushes my chest, keeping me inside the apartment.
“Don’t worry, they didn’t do any psychological damage. It was, at most, irritating to be delayed coming up here.” He studies me. “I thought you must’ve asked them to strip me down.”
“Did not do that.” I run my fingers through my hair. “I’m betting my two oldest brothers told the building security to be extra thorough with you.”
“They knew I was coming here?” He seems unconcerned. Like it’d be fine to have a run-in with Charlie or Beckett. He is severely underestimating how this would play out.
“No, but they probably just gave security your name in case you ever showed up.”
“Overprotective and mistrusting, got it.” He arches his brows at me. “You going to let me in, nepo baby?”
I’ve been blocking the doorway ever since I tried to exit.
Moving back, I gesture him inside.