46. Tom Cobalt
TOM COBALT
One of the hardest things about being on tour is the shower situation. The tiny one on the bus is like showering inside a coffin. The water pressure also blows. I imagine it’s what being pissed on feels like—not that I care to verify that.
And look, I am not the only one who’s been complaining about our shower. Okay—Hannah and Stan also hate it, and my bodyguard has avoided it for days. I am getting sick of smelling Ian’s body spray.
Let’s also not forget my six-foot-four drummer who has to do neck gymnastics to wash his hair under the showerhead.
So when Delia tells us we have to be wheels-up right after a show, there’s always a collective groan. It means no time to use the venue’s showers.
Tonight is not that night.
Steam flows out of the bathroom into a private dressing room as I knot a towel at my waist. My skin is pink from the hot water, and I catch Phoenix pulling a black tee over his head.
“Dude, I think I just reached nirvana in there,” I tell him. “Ten out of ten. No notes.”
“You’re rating the venue showers now?” Phoenix zips up a duffel at his feet. His damp, freshly washed hair is hidden underneath a backwards baseball hat.
“Yeah, and they’re all tens just for being bigger than a sci-fi cryopod.” I dig around in my own duffel for a change of clothes. “Maybe I need to revisit the budget. It wouldn’t be too much to add in hotels, just so everyone can shower outside the bus when the venue showers aren’t an option.”
Phoenix sits on the edge of a chair, pulling on a pair of socks. “No. You’re already personally funding enough shit for the show.”
“Yeah, but how much are hotels actually? Morale is important, dude. The label won’t pay for it, but I can.”
Phoenix cocks his head at me. “What about Roland Fairchild?”
I wince. No regrets in telling him the story about Roland—but I knew it’d bite me in the ass.
Roland is another trust fund baby, but he had a dream to become a big fashion designer. Dumped all his money into his company and it never took off. Anytime I see him, he’s always on the phone with his parents, begging for a deposit into his account.
He’s not even an anomaly. So many of my rich party friends blow their allowance trying to start a company or fuel a passion that goes nowhere.
I’ve tried to be smarter for my own pride and because my money isn’t bottomless.
Even though my parents’ wealth is in the billions, I’m personally not worth that much, nor do I have that kind of cash to spend.
Still, I have more than enough to live beyond my means, but my trust fund has actual rules. My parents give me a giant lump sum every May, and it needs to last me through the year.
Not all my siblings are good with their finances. Ben gave all his savings away in a mental breakdown. Eliot spends exorbitant amounts on clothes, food, and luxury brands. Dude has like five pairs of red-bottom Louboutin oxfords in his closet.
Mostly, I invest what I’m given and put as much as I can into retirement.
For the tour, I set a cap on what I’m willing to spend out of my personal finances, and I even sat down with Phoenix to discuss where the money would be put to best use.
We mainly amped up the staging for the show.
Special lighting, custom risers and backdrops, stage outfits, the jean jackets I give to fans, and I’m flying in a videographer for weekend shows.
It’s safe to say—I’m at my cap.
“Dropping the Roland Fairchild card is a dick move,” I tell Phoenix.
“If you didn’t want me to use it, you wouldn’t have told me about him.” He shoves his feet in a pair of sneakers and watches me zone out. “Stop thinking about it, man. You’re not breaking open your personal piggybank for some hotel showers.”
“It’s a big piggybank, dude.”
Phoenix glares at me. “Yeah, and it’s going to be an empty one if you use it to make this tour feel like a luxury cruise. We agreed that’s not even a good use of your money if you wanted to spend more. Which you shouldn’t. You aren’t.”
“Yeah. Yeah.” I let out a heavy sigh. “I just feel guilty, I guess. Like Hannah said she can’t shave her legs in the bus shower. That has to be annoying.” I change into a tee and sweats.
“We’re all making concessions,” Phoenix says. “Once we start selling more tickets and book bigger venues, the band will be able to afford the comfort upgrades. This doesn’t have to be a forever thing.”
“Great, another bullet point on why I’m desperate to become the next big rock band. List is getting way too long—longer than my Christmas naughty list by the time I was ten.”
“Jesus Christ. I do not want to know.” He has a shadow of a smile, so he definitely wants to know.
I tell him that, and Phoenix retorts, “I’m sure you would love to tell me every minute of your life like it’s a nine-hundred-hour movie.”
“And you would love watching it.”
“While I’m taking a nap, yeah.”
He doesn’t relent and let me have the final word, not even when I tell him he’d be sleeping through an Oscar-winning Best Picture. We banter for maybe five minutes, and before I know it, we’ve closed the distance, and his lips are on mine.
I fist his shirt. Dizzy. Holy shit, why does he still make me feel like I’m about to fall over?
My lips sting when we tear away from each other. My thoughts are jumbled, but I don’t try to sort through them right now.
We both grab our duffels and head outside. Midnight closes in on this cool California night, and a black Escalade idles by the tour buses as it waits for us.
Gunther leans up against Evening Glory’s bus, smoking a blunt. “Hey, Tom!” he calls out. “When are you going to invite us on the PJ?!”
When you stop smelling like skunk.
“TBD!” I yell back. “Not my jet! I don’t have control over the manifest!” I make an aw-shucks face.
Clint and Asher approach with two girls laughing on their arms. I am more than happy to be leaving for the next couple of days.
Tonight was our last show in California, our twenty-second day on tour.
And like every Tuesday night, Phoenix and I drive to the nearest hangar to fly back home for our two days off.
My chest rises in overwhelming excitement.
We’re in the air somewhere over Kansas in the smallest jet of my parents’ private fleet. Outfitted with eight white leather club chairs: four by the galley and four facing a varnished table at the back of the plane.
No flight attendant. All self-serve. My bodyguard sleeps reclined in one of the forward club chairs, while Phoenix and I sit at the table.
“Your parents own four planes?” Phoenix’s jaw is still on the floor.
“They’re all different sizes.”
“Like that changes anything. Four planes.” This is not computing for him. But unless he actually attends a trip with my entire family (aunts, uncles, cousins) it’s hard to grasp how many people we’re flying around. With personal security. It’s my normal. Definitely not his.
“And one helicopter,” I add. “But the helicopter is a new addition from late last year.”
Phoenix frowns. “Your dad is a CEO of a massive company. Doesn’t his type fly in helicopters every day?”
“Maybe, but he hates them. Says they’re loud, shaky, and grounded too often because of bad weather.
But my mom bought one after Audrey got slipped fentanyl.
She doesn’t want to be stuck in traffic again trying to get from Philly to New York.
So you know—if I OD on anything, my parents will be here in under forty-five minutes. ” I flash a smile.
“That’s not even a little bit funny.” Phoenix glares and studies me for a second.
He’s sitting across from me, my vocal steamer on the table between us.
I just finished using it for twenty minutes.
Singing “Hellbent” for five days straight every week has swollen my vocal folds.
I considered calling my ENT for an appointment tomorrow, but I don’t want to worry Phoenix.
If I keep consistently using my steamer, I’ll be fine.
He’s still examining my face. “Are you doing coke?”
The question comes out of left field; it might as well sucker punch me in the jaw. I rock back against my seat. “Hello? What? Because I made a joke about OD’ing? Yeah, I get that it’s probably insensitive and in poor taste due to a variety of reasons. So I apologize for that—but what the fuck?”
“It’s not because of your unfunny joke.” He rubs at the edge of his eye. “We’re nearing three a.m., Tom, and you aren’t even yawning.”
“So I’m on coke?”
“Maybe, yeah? You haven’t exactly refuted that you aren’t, man,” he snaps at me.
“And I’ve been around you twenty-four-seven for the past three weeks.
I know your sleep schedule. You get tired between one and two.
You might fight to stay awake, but you’re exhausted.
That all changed two days ago—you haven’t been tired at all. ”
I didn’t realize he was so perceptive of my sleeping habits.
I try to think about his, but really, he’s a weird sleeper. He naps at random times. Stays up super late. Always wired or strung out on coffee and energy drinks. He’s been that way since I met him, so I haven’t assumed he’s on anything.
“I think I’m just riding a high from Jere’s call two days ago,” I tell him. “It’s natural adrenaline. I promise I’m not on coke. Gunther offered me some. I said no.”
I did say yes to the Adderall, but I don’t mention that.
My stomach cramps.
Phoenix looks like he’s staring through my fucking soul. I’m not lying to him exactly, but I do feel like bottomless shit omitting a fact.
I’m about to change the subject when he does for me. “The call didn’t stress you out, did it?”
The call. Jeremy rang us up when we were in Anaheim. I didn’t delude myself into thinking it’d be “pop the champagne” kind of news. Nothing monumental like record-breaking streams or charting the Billboard Hot 100.
But it was amazing news in my book.