47. Phoenix St. Pierre
PHOENIX ST. PIERRE
Tom crashes as soon as we make it back to his apartment. The sun has risen, and it definitely does not feel like nine in the morning. Going from pacific time to eastern two days out of the week has wrecked my already busted circadian rhythm. I’m off-kilter.
Do not know when I will sleep, but I’m just glad to have Tom tucked next to me on his bed. Really, I’m on my back, and he’s clung to me like I’m a body pillow—one leg draped over my legs, arm curved over my abdomen, and head pressed to my chest.
His ear is right over my heart, and I know he hates sleeping to total silence. But it does something to me knowing he’s fallen asleep to the rhythm of my heartbeat.
I intake a deeper breath and shift my hand down his back.
Watching him pass out has eased the residual tension in my muscles.
I can’t believe I asked him if he’s using cocaine. Then again, I can. Because I still have Beckett’s threat riding my ass. Beyond that, I would never forgive myself if Tom got swept up in hard drugs on this tour.
Mister Feathers makes tiny chirps from his cage across the room. The one time I woke to him right beside my face, I almost slapped him off the pillow in shock (not fright, like Tom believes). Thankfully I didn’t harm the bird, but Ben locks him up now whenever I spend the night.
The warmth of Tom against my body is soothing. Even if my eyes feel rough. Heavy. I close them.
“Phoenix.” Tom nudges me awake.
I’m startled for a second. “The fuck—what time is it?” I ask, sounding more alert than groggy.
“Time for me to go.” He stares at my eyes. “Stay here? I’ll come back tonight after dinner.”
“You sure?” It’s a lot of travel. It’s easier for him just to spend the night at his parents’ McMansion in Philadelphia and meet up tomorrow.
“Yeah. You should sleep.” He’s scrutinizing me harder. There might be dark half-moons under my eyes. I wonder if he can finally tell something’s not right with me.
I haven’t been actively trying to hide anything.
I’ve just been existing how I always exist, but there is a part of me that prefers Tom not knowing I’m an insomniac.
Or else I would’ve told him already. I haven’t wanted to worry him over something I’ve dealt with for years, but it might be a conversation that needs to happen at some point.
He’s my boyfriend.
It’s such a warm feeling that I wonder if I’ll be able to fall back asleep when he leaves. I lie in his bed under the black silk sheets, slowly processing that I just slept for six uninterrupted hours. Six.
I can’t remember the last time that happened.
What was so special? I wrack my brain. I didn’t even fuck Tom. I just held him against my chest—but I’ve done that before. I slept on my back. Done that before too.
I can’t figure it out.
Was it this room? The bed? Is his mattress made for a literal god?
Mister Feathers squawks from his cage. No…the bird…it’s not the bird. Is it? I skim the stark-white feathers and bright yellow crest of the cockatoo. “You a good luck charm?” I ask him.
He chirps into a low-pitched, “Tally-ho!”
My breathing is hard. I hate the idea that it’s just random. Which is most likely the case. It’d be easier, if there were a reason. If I could replicate it. But I need to just be glad it happened at all.
Closing my eyes, I try to drift off again, but my brain won’t stop spinning. Defeated, I pull back the sheets and take a quick, blue-lit shower in Tom’s fancy bathroom. The apartment is dead silent. All the Cobalts have evacuated for their tea party.
I’m about to go out for ramen when I get a text.
HARRIET
Want to do dinner?
A while back, I exchanged numbers with Ben’s girlfriend. Tom and I were at her place of work one night—this cool dive bar called Where You Want to Be at the End of the World.
She bartends with Ben, and while Tom and I worked on the album, one of my favorite movies played on the bar’s projector screen: The Day After Tomorrow. All about New York freezing over in an apocalyptic superstorm.
Tom’s commentary during the film should’ve annoyed the shit out of me, but I couldn’t stop laughing every five minutes. Remembering how he made me feel actually causes me to turn and look for him behind me.
Right. He left. No one is there, and we’ve barely been apart for that long.
“Jesus,” I mutter to myself with the shake of my head. I knew I was attached to him, but fuck.
Harriet is usually alone on Wednesday nights like I am. Before I can reply, she sends me two more rapid texts.
HARRIET
You can say no if you want to, dude. No pressure.
But I’m not saying I don’t want to do dinner with you.
I laugh. When I first met her, she never struck me as someone who overthinks shit. I honestly assumed she wasn’t even interested in being friends with me.
I’ve learned Harriet is tough, independent, and very, very considerate. The girl never slams doors, never leaves her toiletries out, never raises her voice at night.
She apologized to me for taking the last clean towel from the bathroom that Ben, Tom, and Eliot share.
“I can stick it in the laundry.” She smelled the towel.
“It’s not dirty if you want to reuse it—I mean, I’m not gross.
” She cursed under her breath, then scowled so hard like she prepared for me to yell or call her names. “Sorry—”
“You don’t need to apologize twice, let alone one time,” I cut in. “It’s a fucking towel. Not the last drop of water on Earth. Which I’d probably give to Tom anyway—don’t tell him that.” I rolled my eyes at myself.
She eased so much, her shoulders sunk down and she appeared even shorter. “I’d rather listen to babies wailing for forty-eight hours than stroke Tommy’s ego.”
I laughed. “We have that in common then.” I reached for her towel. “If you don’t care—”
“It’s all yours.” She handed it over. “Godspeed, St. Pierre.”
Once, when we found ourselves alone in the living room, I asked her what her childhood was like because she seemed so hyper-aware.
She just shrugged and said, “Most of it was just me, my mom, and whichever dickhead she was dating.” Harriet had these defensive eyes, but I pushed because the worst she could do was tell me to fuck off.
“Dickhead how?” I asked.
“He threw shit,” she said. “My mom kicked me out when I was sixteen, but it’s not that big of a deal.”
I nodded in realization. “You don’t want me to make it a big deal, you mean.”
“Yeah, I guess.” She chewed the corner of her lip, and we talked a little more about drums, how she got into them in Pittsburgh where she grew up.
I told her most of my friends from high school were into music.
Scally, being my closest friend. She recoiled as soon as I said his name and mentioned Nothing Personal.
“You hate their music?” I guessed.
“They’re okay.” She poorly hid a cringe.
“No, you look like you ate a fucking rotten egg.” I almost laughed. “I’m sleeping with someone who calls Nothing Personal their mortal enemy. I think you’re okay to dislike whoever around me. But I will judge you if you have a problem with the Rolling Stones.”
“Sorry to say, they’re in my bottom tier, St. Pierre.”
I choked on a sound. “You’re joking?”
“Nope.”
I gave her shit the rest of the night, and she took it in stride.
Harriet and I haven’t really hung out one-on-one outside of the Cobalts’ apartment. Ben or Tom has always been around, but there’s no hesitation about wanting to change that now.
PHOENIX
Sure. Send me the location.
She texts back quickly, and I sputter to a stop right at Tom’s door. Towel knotted at my waist, beads of water roll down my chest. The fuck. She just sent me the address to the Cobalts’ building—but a different room number.
This dinner is happening down the hall.
Who the fuck lives down the hall? To afford even the smallest square-foot apartment here, you’d need more than a million bucks.
It doesn’t take me long to jump into a pair of cargos, a Henley, and walk the twenty steps to room 2172. The last door on the hall.
My hair is still wet when I knock.
The door flings open, and I get a waft of a sharp, putrid odor. I pull my Henley over my nose.
“Fuck,” I curse harshly.
“Shit,” the curly-haired brunette grimaces at the door.
She shouts back into the apartment, “Harriet, the shrimp is confirmed spoiled!” She twists to me.
Loose raven-dark curls frame her heart-shaped face.
I’m drawn more to the bruise purpling the golden-brown skin underneath her left eye.
She explains casually, “We couldn’t figure out if it was normal-shrimp smell or bad-shrimp smell. ”
“Wow. Feeling great about eating dinner here now.”
“Warranted.” She swings the door wider for me. I already considered she might be a trust-fund brat who’d judge my attire, but she’s not dressed up. Just in black sweatpants and a cropped hoodie with fuzzy pale purple socks.
When I walk in, I see Harriet in her usual 2000s low-rise plaid pants, and she’s throwing shrimp into the trashcan.
“St. Pierre,” she nods.
“Fisher,” I greet and watch the brunette, who looks around my age, move to the marble counter where food is piled unsystematically. Cheeses, grapes, salami.
She uncorks a wine bottle. “I promise we won’t poison you. Intentionally, at least.”
“Thanks,” I say flatly, taking in the dark woods, vaulted ceiling, and industrial lighting. The studio apartment resembles more of a standard bachelor pad, and I can see a bed in the loft. It’s still fancy as fuck. The view.
Just wow.
“I’m Joana Oliveira, by the way.” She pours a glass of white wine. “Master of picking out the spoiled shrimp at the supermarket.”
“Oliveira…” I recognize the last name. “You’re related to Charlie’s bodyguard?”
“Oscar, yeah,” she says into a nod. “Big brother. Also lives here when he’s in New York. He coerced me to move in so that he could keep an eye on me. As big brothers do.”
“Wouldn’t know,” Harriet says.