12. Tom Cobalt #2
“Hypothetical boyfriend.” I squeeze the fretboard and the sound cuts out.
“So you’re literally single,” he says in this dickish tone.
“Yeah. I’m single. And you’re clearly not in a relationship because there’s no sane person who’d date Raisin Bran.”
He holds up two fingers. “Two exes.” Then he puts one finger down to flip me off.
I almost smile, but my stomach is a washing machine. Churning. I don’t understand why. “Recent?”
“One from high school. One from college. They each lasted a couple years.” Based on the clench of his jaw, I’m guessing things did not end amicably with one or both.
“Should I be expecting an angry ex on my doorstep?”
“I wouldn’t let him get five feet near you.” His voice is almost a whisper, but I hear him, even over the squawking cockatoo. He taps his pen repeatedly against his journal, looking me over. “How many do you have, nepo baby?”
“None,” I answer honestly. “But not for lack of trying. I’m just extremely picky when it comes to who I even hook up with.” I stare at my guitar strings. “I’d love to have a boyfriend even if it went south one day, but the guy I’m on-and-off with isn’t into relationships.”
His frown darkens. “Are you currently on or off?”
“Off.” I feel more exposed, and I play a few more chords on the guitar before eyeing him. He’s watching me intently. “Any current hookups?” I ask. “Guys you think about when you jerk one out in the shower? Other than me, of course.”
He glowers. “It’s not you. That’d be Josh Hutcherson circa The Hunger Games.” He doodles in the margin of the journal. “I don’t have a friends-with-benefits or anything. These days, I just meet someone at a bar, fuck, then never see him again. I’m not into relationships.”
Not into relationships.
Not into relationships.
He is NOT into relationships, Tom Carraway.
I try my best to transcribe this into my frontal lobe so that my brain understands flirting or fantasizing about Phoenix leads to no solid ground. It will be the world’s worst mistake. He is exactly what I don’t want. A bandmate and a fling.
But his face…
I don’t look at his dangerous face. My eyes are on my guitar. My stomach cramping as I keep repeating the words in my head. Not into relationships.
I can feel his intense eyes on me.
“Peeta?” I blurt out. “Really? From The Hunger Games. Like the guy who makes bread in the movie? That’s the one you’re rubbing it out to?”
“You can cry into your pillow later that it isn’t you.” He catches my gaze. “What’s his name? The on-and-off guy?”
“RJ. And no, I don’t know what it stands for.” I nod to his journal. “Are you going to actually write something or are you just drawing hearts and stars in there?”
He folds the journal over his thumb so I can’t see it. “I’m trying to determine if this RJ guy is a good well to pull from.”
“You want to write a song about my situationship?” I ask, narrowing my eyes.
“Heartbreak is a good source for material.”
“He hasn’t broken my heart,” I say firmly.
“Are you going to let him?” Phoenix asks with more seriousness to his tone. “Isn’t that the path you’re riding down, man? Wanting something he won’t give you.”
“So you think I’m an idiot for seeing him,” I grumble and strum an angry hand down the strings.
“Tom, you’ve got to stop inferring what I’m saying and just listen to me.” He grabs the neck of my guitar, sliding it off my lap. He sets it aside. “Come here.” He motions me closer.
Phoenix wants me to sit next to him?
Fine. Yeah. Easy.
I end up at his left, trying to relax, but I’m nervous with anticipation. This isn’t a hookup. Somehow, knowing that we’re not going down an intimate road is making this more nerve-wracking for me.
Our thighs are touching, but Phoenix isn’t looking down. His gaze is cemented on mine as he twists toward me. “This RJ guy? Does he know you want a relationship?”
Why does it feel like this isn’t about the song? It’s almost like he’s…concerned about my dating life. But he just told me to stop inferring, so maybe I’m totally off base.
“Yeah, he does,” I tell Phoenix. “I brought it up once, and he said he wanted to keep it casual. Which is fine. I know what I’m getting myself into. You don’t have to be worried about me.”
“I’m worried about my bandmate not showing up to work because he was crushed over a guy. One-night stands are easier. What you’re doing is messy.”
“If you saw him, you’d understand, dude. Guy’s a twelve out of ten. Anyone with eyes would nosedive into a landfill for him.” I lean over, my shoulder brushing against his chest, to grab my Martin off the pillow.
Phoenix doesn’t stop me.
My pulse is climbing as my arm scrapes against his muscled body. I clear my throat. “And he’s always available. No matter what day or time, if I call him for a quickie, he comes over.”
“Maybe he’s jobless and living in his mom’s basement. Ever consider that?”
I did not. “I…I think he works.”
“You don’t know?” Phoenix’s brows hike. “Tom, you’re not serious. You’re fucking a guy off-and-on for…” He waits for me to fill him in.
“Two years.”
Phoenix looks at me like I’ve lost it again. “Two years. And you don’t even know what he does for a living?”
“My family runs background checks on anyone who spends time with their kids, so he definitely passed that at least.” Shit. I wince as Phoenix starts putting the dots together.
His eyes darken on me. “You did a background check on me, nepo baby?” Wow, the nickname feels super fitting at the moment.
I run a hand through my shaggy hair, holding the guitar on my lap with the other. “Technically, my parents did. They found an arrest, but nothing I’m sweating about. My brothers, on the other hand, might be a little more…” Stop talking, Tom Carraway.
“A little more what?”
“On edge. You’ll have to earn their trust.”
“I’m not earning their anything,” Phoenix growls. “I couldn’t care less what your rich brothers think about me.”
Awesome. “Yeah, okay. That’s your funeral, dude.”
He snatches my guitar off my lap. He sets it aside on my pillow again, and I blow out an annoyed breath. “Why do you keep doing that? At some point, I’m going to have to play to create new music.”
“I’ll give it back to you when we have something to play. Right now, it’s distracting me. You keep strumming it every five seconds.”
Do I?
I bend forward, elbow on my knee. “Why don’t we write about your ex,” I suggest. “The college one.”
The look in his eye could wither all of Ben’s plants. And it’s not directed at me. It’s aimed at the bedspread.
Fire ignites inside my lungs. I have no fucking clue what this dude did to him, but I’m imagining fun ways to make his life miserable. “Should we slash his tires? Fork his yard?”
“Sure, we can egg his door next too,” he says dryly.
“I’m open to egging.” I take his sarcasm and run. “Two cartons or three? I’ll buy since I’m loaded. Obviously.”
“Obviously.” He gives my arm a small push, and every muscle in my body responds like he’s slid on top of me. He adds, “I can afford a carton of eggs.”
“Obviously.”
His lips tic upward, then they flatline as he admits, “I already wrote about my ex. ‘Tragic Hold’—ever listened to it?”
Holy.
Shit.
“Yeah…” I nod in a daze. “Over the radio. On accident.”
“Bullshit,” he calls me out.
“Dude, I do not actively listen to my rival band and give them a hike in streams.”
“Fucking petty.” I swear he almost smiles.
“Thank you for defining what I am. I concur, and just so you’re aware, I am not a fan of the guitar riff during the bridge on ‘Tragic Hold’—it takes away from the lyrics.
” His lyrics. Which is the only redeemable thing about that song, but what do I even know?
“Tragic Hold” is Nothing Personal’s biggest hit yet with three hundred million streams on Spotify.
“It’s not my favorite song of theirs,” Phoenix admits. “I would’ve arranged it differently.”
Maybe this bodes well. I stare off as some of the lyrics crash back into me.
When you said, ‘I’m always here’
Did you mean, ‘you should fear’
Rubble inside tunnels, you buried me
You buried me
I can’t get out from underneath
The dirt, the rage, the tomb, my grave
You buried me
Your tragic hold
Release me
You buried me
Phoenix tries to read my features. “Say something.”
“Not every line rhymes.”
“I don’t always do the rhyming thing, yeah.” He stares deeper into my eyes like he sees the rhyme scheme isn’t what’s circling my head. “Don’t hold back now. Just say it.”
I nod a couple times. “Has he released his hold on you yet?”
“No. When I think about him, I want to tear his head off his body.”
“Metaphorically,” I add.
“No, literally,” he snaps. “Yes, Tom. I’m not going to commit murder. Don’t worry.”
“I was about to run to Home Depot for a chainsaw. Decapitation isn’t beneath me. Heads will roll.”
Phoenix smiles a little, then he must see my next question because he says, “I’ll tell you what happened if we make it through a tour.
” It’s clearly a painful past, so that’s fair.
He adds, “Don’t let this go to your head, but ‘Fire You Feel’ is better than ‘Tragic Hold.’ I thought maybe your demo had been about an ex, but you don’t have one. ”
A knot balls in the back of my throat. “It’s about Warner, my former bassist.” The thought of wading through that low is already causing me internal distress. My abs tighten, and oxygen feels scarce. “I’ll tell you what happened if we make it through a tour,” I echo what he said.
“Deal,” he says, then taps his pen on the journal. “We should at least get on the same page with what we want this album to say.”
I feel restless without my guitar. Instead of taking out my Zippo lighter, I just place my palms on my knees.
“I’ve thought a lot about where I want the album to go, especially since you joined the band.
It’s only us on stage. Just two people. I think there’s a lot of vulnerability in that, and maybe this album should speak to our insecurities. Our fears. Maybe someone can relate.”
“You want to be relatable?” Phoenix asks in surprise.