15. Tom Cobalt
TOM COBALT
Except for Wednesday.
Spending hours upon hours with him has been exactly what I feared when I first met him at the studio. It’s too much.
Too raw.
Too real.
Too incensed.
Too good.
Only good is starting to feel extraordinary. “Nuclear Winter” is one of the best songs I’ve ever created, and I wonder if it’s because it wasn’t all me. It was him. It was us. Together in a bedroom. Digging under each other’s skin.
Jeremy had the biggest grin on his face when he heard us play the finished arrangement. He clapped his hand against a can of Fizz, and he said, “Keep going. I like this momentum, boys.”
I love this momentum. I never want to slow down.
“No, dude,” I say to Eliot while I do a lazy sit up on the rubber flooring.
Working out in the gym at our high-rise means waking at four a.m. so it’s not jam-packed.
Right now, I’m so tired, I could curl up and sleep beside a rack of dumbbells.
But I force myself awake to tell Eliot very firmly, “I am never having sex with Phoenix St. Pierre.” I point at Ben, who’s supine on the weight bench.
“Write that down, Ben Pirrip. Notarize it. Seal it.”
“For all time,” Ben banters with a bright smile while hoisting a barbell and heavy plates over his chest. “Never to be reopened.”
I echo to Eliot, “Never to be reopened.”
Eliot towers behind the weight bench, spotting our little brother. “Never is an awfully long time.”
“He’s a bad temptation, Eliot.” I lie flat, then crunch upward.
“The universe is testing me, and thankfully, I am, if nothing else, resilient and dedicated to my craft. Which is music. And not boning my insanely talented, moody, angry…” I trail off picturing Phoenix’s dark glare.
“Dangerous, short-tempered…” I picture him pushing my jaw with two fingers, so my eyes meet his. “Hot drummer.”
I barely hear Eliot’s response. I’m in a haze of remembrance. Of Phoenix behind the drums, pitching his whole body into the tortured heart of the rhythm. He deeply understood the song we were making. Deeply felt it.
“We’ve lost him,” Eliot says.
My arms are on my knees. I try to blink out of the stupor.
“He said he’s dangerous,” Ben grunts raising the barbell. I hear him set it in the rack. “Should we be worried?”
“I doubt he’s chasing after Patrick Bateman,” Eliot says to Ben, then calls out to me. “Right, brother? You aren’t into the next American Psycho?”
I nod, unblinking. “I wouldn’t care if he has blood on his hands, he’s that good.”
“No one is that good,” Ben contests. “Because no Patrick Bateman is worth dating.”
“We weren’t talking about dating,” I lie back on the floor, my hands on my abs. I feel out of breath, and I think I’ve done one partial sit-up. “He’s just my drummer.”
“Hot drummer,” Eliot corrects.
Ben adds, “Insanely talented, moody, angry, dangerous, short-tempered, hot drummer.”
I smile and crunch back up. “I knew your memory was above average this whole time.”
Eliot wags his brows at Ben. “Tu ne peux pas jouer l’idiot avec nous, petit frère.” You can’t play dumb with us, little brother.
Ben slings a towel over his broad shoulder.
“I’m not playing dumb. I just have an average memory.
Dad and Charlie are the ones who can retain information like they’re human computers, and Eliot”—he twists backward as Eliot slides heavier plates onto the barbell—“you can recite full plays by heart. I can’t do that. ”
It is mind-boggling that he thinks he’s below that caliber. I have literally seen Ben recall assistants of our dad’s assistants at Cobalt Inc. years down the line after we met them once. I can barely remember the name of the clerk at my favorite bodega.
“You can remember faces and names just as well as the three of them,” I say with certainty. I don’t even care if it’s seventy percent true. It’s true enough.
Ben is doubting himself. “I don’t think I do.”
“So humble,” Eliot muses. “I wonder what that’s like.”
“No clue,” I add. “Let that affliction never befall me.”
“Nor me.”
Ben laughs hard, but the bright noise dies out and his eyes bug at the fourth weight plate Eliot slides on the barbell. “Eliot, man, that better be for you.”
“You can go heavier.”
“Yeah, no,” he laughs. “Not that heavy.” His baby blue eyes almost veer to me, but Eliot catches his attention as he squeezes his shoulder in encouragement.
“You have this, brother,” Eliot says. “I’m right behind you.”
Ben towels off the sweat dripping down his six-pack. His brawn is starting to mirror Eliot’s. I can tell Ben has been hitting the ice more. He’d also claim he’s nothing special in hockey, but all my siblings see what he can’t recognize in himself.
He’s good enough to go pro.
It’s why the hockey coach at MVU spent so long trying to recruit him.
Ben quit hockey when his OCD took control of his life, but he’s slowly taking it back.
He just gained the courage to join the college team.
It’s a big deal, and I keep telling myself, you cannot miss his first game, Tom Carraway. You will not miss it for anything.
Don’t know when that will be. Ben said he’s going to gradually get there. Which means he’ll be warming the bench at first.
With more confidence, he lies back on the weight bench, and Eliot places the bar in his hands. “Prêt?” Ready?
“Oui, je suis prêt,” Ben replies. Yes, I’m ready.
Eliot flashes me a smile. I smile back. Both void of mischief. We’re just happy Ben feels okay enough to handle over two hundred pounds around us. Last week, he panicked that he’d smash Eliot’s finger while Eliot was just trying to spot him.
I offered to spot. Thinking maybe he wouldn’t care if my finger were smashed. Unfortunately (and fortunately) he loves me just as much as Eliot. Really, he was more concerned because I can’t even bench-press over a hundred pounds.
Two deep breaths later, Ben takes control of the bar as Eliot lets go, and he grits his teeth bringing the weight down and up twice.
“Eliot,” I call out as Ben struggles the third time.
“I have it.” Eliot seizes the bar from Ben.
I applaud.
Ben salutes me with a heavy pant. “Jock of the Empire, reporting for duty.”
“Better watch your stereotype, Ben Pirrip,” I tell him. “I might come for it.” I stifle a yawn. “I’m gonna come for all of them. Strip every sibling of their titles.”
“So none of us have a box to be put in?” Ben smiles. “Go ahead. Take mine.”
I cringe. “It’s not fun when you give it.”
“Tom must earn this,” Eliot agrees, then pats the bench beside Ben. “Your turn.”
Hell no. “On second thought, enjoy your box. Let it shelter you from the rain. I can’t leave you naked in the elements. What kind of brother would I be?”
They laugh, and Eliot switches spots with Ben.
The gym slowly starts to fill. Middle-aged broker types jog on treadmills. Probably preparing to crunch numbers and screw someone over. The corporate world is sharky and ruthless, something my dad excels in and something I have zero interest in touching.
It’d be fun to play a duplicitous game to scale a corporate ladder, but the cost is all the bodies you crush to get there.
I’m fortunate that I don’t need to pay that price. That I can spend my days fixated on this album and not worrying about which soulless prick I need to step over.
I’m on my back, scrolling through texts from Phoenix about the arrangement to our third potential single. My eyes start heavying, and I fight to read each word, hating that slumber is trying to steal me away from our music.
“Tom.” Ben shakes my arm.
I flinch into a light groggy groan. Knew I’d fall asleep. Thank fuck I didn’t hug the dumbbell. “How long was I out?”
“Twenty minutes, maybe. We’re going. You ready?” The gym is packed now. I don’t care who’s staring. I’d stare at me too. Sleeping Beauty should’ve been named after me.
“Yeah.” I reach for Ben’s hand, but he’s already grabbing mine and pulling me to my feet.
A week later, I’m out celebrating Eliot landing the biggest role of his acting career with tickets to Chicago. I thought about inviting Phoenix, but before I could, he was already saying, “I have a gig at the Symphony tomorrow night. That okay?”
“Only if you plan to make it up to me,” I said.
He glared. “What do you want?”
I began to grin.
“Jesus, what do you want that’s not going to ruin the band?” he added.
“I take great offense that you think my ideas are band-ruining. I was simply going to ask for thicker chords in the third, untitled song.”
“Fine. Thicker chords.” His eyes tried to drip down me. He stopped himself halfway there.
Phoenix couldn’t walk away from me.
It was a feeling I wanted etched in my bones. I wanted to feel it every time I lifted a foot and moved.
Chicago hasn’t begun. Eliot and I are in the bathroom. He’s zipping up his fly after taking a piss. I’m already washing my hands as he says, “I better meet your hot drummer before Charlie.”
“You will,” I assure.
“I’m in the role of Phoenix’s namesake. Who better to meet him first than me?”
Eliot has been cast as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in the stage production of Amadeus.
It’s been the talk of the theatre world all week.
Mostly because he’s a towering six-four and Mozart was a petite five-four—and the casting director was quoted saying Eliot Alice Cobalt’s audition was simply too true to Amadeus to dismiss on height alone.
Once Chicago ends, we’re swarmed outside the theater, and not because we’re famous. Everyone exits the various Broadway shows at the same time, and a crowd naturally forms and floods the street.
“Where are Harriet and Ben?” Beckett asks me in his leveled, calm voice. Even if his eyes dart around like we might be meeting a tempest.
Between the lights, sounds, and people, I’m disoriented. “Just look for him,” I say. “Harry is too short to find.”
Beckett sends me a what the fuck side-eye.
“I’m not saying we leave her,” I defend. “Okay, I am not your twin.” I wave my hand toward Charlie who is evicting himself from this situation. He’s already climbing into our Range Rover that can’t drive off with the surrounding bodies.
Eliot sees over us. “There he is. brOTHER!”
Ben pushes his way through the masses with his bodyguard. Eliot, Beckett, and I rush to help him through the crowd. People just stand in place obstructing the flow, waiting for directions, a cab, a clue—who knows.
Where is Harriet? Panic shoots to my throat, and I swing my head around until I see her blonde hair peeking out from behind Ben’s broad shoulder.
He’s carrying his girlfriend piggyback.
“She fell,” Ben says. “I think someone shoved her.”
“Who?” I ask.
Eliot searches the street with his eyes. “The bastard must be flayed.”
“I’m fine, dude,” Harriet says in a flat tone. “Just some scraped knees. You don’t need to break out the homicidal tendencies for me.”
“Where’s the fun in that,” Eliot and I say in unison. We share a grin, the night better with some unpredictable chaos. Sorry that Harriet’s knees had to be sacrificed.
Strangely…wouldn’t be the first time.
That…that memory is a weird one. She knelt on broken glass after she offered to blow Charlie in exchange for him to stop antagonizing Ben.
Blow job did not happen, let it be known.
Charlie rejected her. Ben consoled her. We all realized she’s a little messed up—and I don’t mean that in a rude way, even if it sounds rude.
While everyone piles into the SUV, I glance backward at the street. The Manhattan Symphony Hall isn’t too far away. I could go watch Phoenix play in the orchestra. The desire balls up in my lungs, and my breath becomes shorter and hotter.
“Tom,” Beckett calls out. “You coming?”
They’re waiting for me.
I look back and forth, my loyalty stretching painfully. How does watching Phoenix tonight help the band? It doesn’t. I am a good brother. Then I nod. “Yeah.” I climb inside.