54. Phoenix St. Pierre #2
“I’m wearing more than underwear,” I snap, but yeah, I didn’t grab a shirt. Just gray sweatpants. “So you dug into my arrest? I’m guessing.”
“Correct.”
“And here I thought I was as relevant to you as the fifteen-day lifespan of a housefly,” I say tightly.
“The boyfriend has a good memory.” His tone is more bored than impressed. “And clearly your relevancy has increased now that you’re in a relationship with Tom.” He opens the door wider. “Field mice have a lifespan of about a year. That’s where you’re at.”
Calling him Britannica is on the tip of my tongue, but I have no time to get the words out—he’s heading back into his room. I follow before the door can slam in my face.
He’s staying in a presidential suite.
Fancy.
I trail him past a full bar and through a spacious living room with marble floors and a baby grand piano. A movie, maybe Children of Men, blares from the TV, but Charlie shuts it off with the remote.
We end up in a formal dining room—where his bodyguard, Oscar Oliveira, is eating breakfast from a spread of fruit, cheeses, croissants, and eggs. His expression is caged as he sips his coffee.
I remind myself he’s not out to get me.
I’ve chatted with Oscar post-show several times since he’s been following The Carraways on tour with Charlie. He cracks jokes and pumps up the Cobalt Empire like they’re his favorite sports team. Plus, I’m friends with his little sister.
Joana, Harriet, and I have kept up our Wednesday dinners every time Tom attends his family ones in Philly.
“You were arrested at a concert venue in Boston,” Charlie tells me, going to the head of the table. “That came out in the background check. I was perfectly fine not digging any deeper because frankly, I just don’t fucking care. But Beckett cares. So as a favor, I dug into it for him.”
My nose flares. “Favors, I get. I have plenty of those with my brother,” I say, a little stilted because I’m on edge, and I just grip the back of a chair in a half-lunge. “Charlie…” I trail off when he returns to me with an electronic tablet.
I’m caught off guard. He taps the screen, then spins it toward me. My insides twist so painfully, I almost black out. A grainy video is playing.
A video I’ve never seen but one I’ve lived. I didn’t know there was footage of that night.
The night I ruined Sophomore Summer. It was the last concert we ever played. Fuck, it was the last time we ever played period.
The concert was held at a tiny venue in Boston. Standing room only with two floors. Someone must’ve filmed from the balcony. Despite the bad quality, there’s a bird’s-eye view of the worst night of my life, and I can barely watch myself stand up from behind the drum kit.
I look young.
And so much angrier.
The heckler in the audience interrupts the fifth song in our set. “Lame ass music!! Guy on guitar!! Yeah, you, bitch!! Give me a refund!! YOU SUUUCK!!” He’d been shouting the whole concert, mostly at Birdie, and I finally snapped.
My response is raw fury as I reach the edge of the stage. “MAN, JUST LEAVE! STOP RUINING EVERYONE’S FUCKING TIME!!”
He laughs shrilly over the video, and I lose it, dropping down into the pit. The small audience doesn’t part like I’m a cannon blast. They tug at my clothes and touch me as I dig toward the heckler.
I throw one punch, then two. I have him on the floor.
My brother hurriedly unstraps and shrugs off his guitar onstage. I’ve never seen the fear in his eyes from that night. Not until now. He’s screaming, “PHOENIX!” and hopping down into the crowd after me.
I push the tablet into Charlie’s chest. “Shut it off.”
Charlie surprisingly pauses the video. He overturns the tablet on the table. “Does Tom know about Heath Foley?” He names my old college friend…the lead singer of Sophomore Summer.
“No.” My heart is racing. “How do you know about Heath?”
“The video.”
“Oh my God. It’s in the video?” I fall into a chair, my face in my hands.
My eyeballs feel like swollen balls of fire.
I drag my fingers up through my hair and try to breathe.
“I was only charged for assaulting that fucking heckler.” Birdie ended up dragging me outside. I went back in—second mistake.
I was charged with trespassing since the venue essentially kicked me out. I was really inebriated that night. I drank whiskey straight out of the bottle. I wasn’t thinking clearly.
The second time, Heath tried to pull me off the heckler, and I caught him in the face with my elbow.
I broke his jaw.
The lead singer of my band.
I swallow hard. “Heath never pressed charges that night. He knew it’d been an accident, so nothing about him made the report.”
“I know. I called him.”
I drop my hands to my jostling thighs, seeing Charlie resting his ass against the table. He grips either side and stares down at me like we’re talking mundane things. How flowers grow and trees die.
Charlie tilts his head at me. “Do you want to know what he said, or do you need a bucket to puke in?”
I laugh dryly. Yeah, I’m sure I’ve turned sickly pale. “Bucket doesn’t sound half bad.” But for as shitty as this feels, there’s no universe I can walk out of this room without knowing what Heath told him, so I nod Charlie on. “Let’s hear it.”
“He said you were so remorseful that night, you would’ve swapped places with him if you could’ve. He also told me why you drank so much before the concert—the things that aren’t in the video. About your ex-boyfriend.”
Chase.
I nod dazedly, staring at the marble floor.
“It doesn’t change the fact that I broke Heath’s jaw.
” I wipe my runny nose with the side of my fist. “I haven’t told Tom everything yet, but I promised I would by the end of the tour.
He hasn’t asked me for the details any sooner, and I’d appreciate you not telling him before me.
” I look up at Charlie. “Please let me tell him, man. Tom has wanted it to come from me. I don’t think he’d like you telling him. ”
Charlie forces a half-smile. “I have no interest in being put on his uncreative shit list.” He studies me for a quiet beat. “What about Tom made you want to join his band?”
I frown. This question feels more off-the-cuff and not prompted by Beckett.
Charlie adds, “Heath said you quit playing after that night. You promised yourself you would never play in a band again. So what the hell did you find so special about Tom?”
I’m trying not to fucking cry as I remember. “It was the song. The one he sang when I first met him.” I wipe roughly at the wet streaks down my face. “You might not want me to be with your brother—”
“You do know Tom, right?” Charlie cuts in irritably. “I’m hoping you do, and so you must know it’s a miracle he didn’t end up with someone with a harder rap sheet.”
I pinch my eyes, my lips quirking. “Oh, when he gets wind I cried in front of you, that’s probably it for me,” I say dryly. “Too soft for the nepo baby.”
“He’ll just tease you forever.”
“I might as well break up with him then.”
Charlie cringes. “Don’t. I’ll have to hear Tom mope forever instead.”
“What’s mopey Tom like?”
“The fucking worst.” Charlie sits beside me, sliding over the platter of fruit. “Have you ever seen Winnie-the-Pooh?”
I start laughing. “He’s like Eeyore?” I’m guessing. “The sad donkey?”
“If Eeyore stole every second of screentime from the entire cast.”
Tom. I feel myself smiling, then quickly frowning. I comb my hands through my hair again and watch Charlie cut a slice of honeydew. “There’s a bigger issue than my past,” I tell him.
“With Tom, I’m not surprised.”
“Can we redirect this energy then? Because your brother is on Adderall right now. And it’s not prescription.”
Charlie lets out a long, long laugh. “Of course he is,” he says dryly, then lets go of his fork, taking out his phone. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I don’t know how to get him to stop without hurting the band. I get it’s not coke or meth. But he’s taking it to stay awake during the tour. And our tour is likely going to be extended—”
“And he won’t stop,” Charlie finishes and puts the phone on speaker after dialing a number.
“Charlie Keating,” Tom says on the other end. “You calling to congratulate me?”
“Congratulations on being a pill popper.”
This is starting off great.
I chime in, “I’m in Charlie’s room,” and Tom replies tightly, “I’m coming up.”