56. Phoenix St. Pierre #2
He gapes. “I’m not on the verge of death just so you can fucking dote on me, Phoenix.” He says my name with more heat. He strides toward the couch. “This is serious. Backbeat Ledger wrote about us.” He plops down on the cushion.
“What’d they say?” I ask. “Bad?”
He’s still ashen. “I don’t know. I haven’t looked. You read it.” He’s pushing the phone into my chest when I sit beside him.
Then he leans backwards with his fingers laced over his eyes.
“Take a breath. It’s not the end of the world,” I assure him.
He lifts his shoulders, still covering his eyes. “I mean, if they say we sound like garbage, that’s on them, right? They obviously need their ears checked. We could send them boxes of Q-tips. That’d be funny.” He mumbles, “I feel better already.”
“Before you go plotting your next petty move, let’s see if they’ve drug us through the mud.” I unlock his phone using his passcode: 060119
The first thing I see is the rating, and I almost black out. Me—the guy who didn’t fucking care about what critics say.
I don’t alert Tom yet.
I just start reading parts of the review to him, “‘The New York duo’s genre-blurring debut album is an emotive, seething cry of frustration and release. Ending on a gut-punching note of raw passion, this behemoth is a firestarter.’”
His fingers slide off his face. His surprised eyes shift to me.
I continue, “‘Lit by the undeniable, incendiary chemistry of its makers—a hell-raising singer/drummer pair—Silver Sweet has already begun taking the world by storm.’”
His lips part in shock. “That’s legit?”
“It’s legit,” I nod. “Don’t die on me because there’s more.”
“Keep going.”
I skip the middle section praising our songwriting (it will put Tom in a coma), and I read the end, “‘A sidestep from traditional punk rock while still paying homage to the emo greats, My Chemical Romance and Fall Out Boy, with a fusion of synth-pop and an alt-leaning nod to gritty staples like Cage the Elephant—The Carraways have made a beastly first stamp with one of the best, rawest, and most captivating alt-rock records of the year.’”
Tom blinks. “One of the best…?”
“Nine-point-two, Tom,” I let out a trapped breath.
“A what?” He careens forward out of a slouch. “A seven-point-two?”
I slide my arm around him. “No, they rated Silver Sweet a nine-point-two.”
He leans his weight into me, and I show him the review. 9.2 is circled in red with Instant Classic typed beneath. Receiving an eight is beyond amazing from Backbeat Ledger. A nine-point-two is…extraordinary.
Tom is in a daze.
“You going to cry?” I ask him.
“No, dude.” He is really choked up. “It’s just different when someone confirms what you feel about yourself.”
“I know. I feel it too.” My chest swells so much; breathing is more strenuous. I squeeze his waist, and he curves his arm around me, tucking me closer to his side. We share this ridiculously sentimental look.
“Nine-point-two,” Tom grins, but his lips quickly fall. “How are we going to live up to this?”
“Yeah,” I nod, understanding. “Second albums are harder.” Its quality will inherently be based on comparing it to the first. Even if they aren’t meant to be exactly the same. The bar we need to meet is now sky-high. “Are you really going to cut the back pats short, nepo baby?”
His grin reemerges. “Yeah, you’re right. Fuck the pressure. We should be celebrating tonight…” His voice trails off as an argument between Neil and Steffani enters the green room.
Steffi is twenty-four, brown-eyed, and Filipina—guns always blazing and ruler of our apartment.
Neil is usually such a teddy bear toward his girlfriend.
But they have been in a nonstop fight for the past week over Neil’s insistence that they spend the holidays with his family in Hawaii, while she’d rather they stay in New York with hers.
“Christmas is five months away,” Birdie says, following them into the room. “If you two need a mediator, just make a PowerPoint presentation, and I’ll decide who has the stronger argument.”
“You’re going to choose Neil,” Steffi argues.
“That hurts my heart.”
“Stay out of it, Birdie,” Neil warns.
“You’re making it all of our business, man. This cannot keep going on. It’s starting to affect every show.”
Neil ignores him to go chase after Steffani, who has marched over to the gourmet spread.
“Relationships in a band,” Birdie muses, approaching me and Tom. “See that cautionary tale?”
“All I see are two people who’ve been together for four years,” Tom says. “That sounds like a success story, dude.”
Birdie blinks, processing what Tom said. “I want to hate you, but I can’t anymore when I know you think I’m hot.”
Tom glares. “Your brother is hotter.”
“Great taste in men.”
Tom turns to me like, Kill your brother for me.
I shoot Birdie a look, but he’s already telling Tom, “I love when you look at Phoenix for an assist. Go jump into his strong, burly arms—”
“You hear that?” Tom stands up. “It’s the Billboard Hot 100 calling for The Carraways.”
“Don’t forget to tell them you go by your full name!” he yells after Tom, who just up and leaves.
I glare at my brother. “Thanks for running off my boyfriend.”
“He’ll come back,” Birdie plops down. “He’s attached to you like duct tape on a leaky faucet.”
“I’m the leaky faucet?” I glower.
He’s laughing under his breath and opening his phone. I shake my head, but I go rigid when he flashes me a video. A compilation of romantic-skewed touches and glimpses between me and Tom onstage.
Mostly of me toward him.
“It’s set to ‘I Only Have Eyes for You’ by The Flamingos,” he says.
“That’s cute,” I say dryly.
“You are obsessed with him. Maybe don’t look at him like you want to fuck him after each performance if you’re trying to hide your feelings.”
I shake my head to myself. “I don’t think I ever really could, Bird,” I say quietly.
“Yeah, you are a lost cause.”
I give him a sharper look. “Thanks for the useful tips. I wonder why I never ask you for them.”
“Sure, sure, that’s the reason.” He shuts off his phone. “Mom and Dad are coming to the New York show, by the way.”
They haven’t attended a concert yet—unlike Tom’s parents who’ve been to four shows. It’s not for a lack of desire. They don’t have the money to fly out, and they turned down Tom when he offered to have his family’s jet pick them up.
Sometimes I wonder if they would’ve accepted had they known my boyfriend was offering and not just my rich bandmate.
“Why New York and not Boston?” I ask Bird.
“They said they didn’t want to wait until the final show in Boston to see us. That bodes well.” He tips his head toward the door Tom walked out of. “You tell them about him yet?”
“No, no.” I frown. “Tom wanted to a while back, mostly to assure them he’d never axe me, but I told him not to. That it wouldn’t matter.”
“You really don’t think it would?”
“I don’t know…but it’s been nice not hearing, Your band is only going to last as long as your relationship.”
“Yeah, I bet,” he says quietly. “They are happy about The Carraways charting. Mom has already asked about ten times when your late-night segment is supposed to air. Dad was funny and said your merch could be more colorful. Too depressing.” We both start laughing, and Birdie has tears in his eyes chuckling, “Remember when he bought you rainbow boxers? God, how old were you?”
“Sixteen,” I laugh. “He tried so hard.” My smile softens in love for him.
“He did not want you to be this angsty little punk.” Birdie’s laughter fades. His frown deepens.
I look him over. My ribs constricting.
“I guess he got two of them, huh?” he tells me.
I can’t reply. Birdie doesn’t really let me. He leaves for the food spread, and I return to my stretches with the resistance band. An hour before Nothing Personal goes onstage, we’re all warming up for the show—only to be interrupted by Jeremy Shaw.
Our manager appears with a soda and a proud grin. He gathers both bands in a semi-circle. Waiting for Scally to untangle himself from Steffi’s guitar, I hang my bicep over Tom’s shoulder while Tom wraps his arm around my waist.
Jeremy slips me a warm, subtle smile of knowing. This time, I’m not shaking my head. I nod back, and his smile grows bigger.
“Now, I know there’s a month left,” Jeremy says. “But as I’ve been told via the CEO himself, this has been one of the most successful tours in Riot’s history for debut artists.”
All the members of Nothing Personal begin to applaud me and Tom, and I’m so not shocked when Tom claps for us too. I laugh into a humongous smile, and I touch the back of his head. When I join in, Tom can’t contain a winning grin.
“Which is why,” Jeremy continues, “they’re sending you on a four-month World Tour. You’ll have August off, and then through December, you’ll be in Europe, Oceania, and South America—and Nothing Personal, you’ll be on your own. Starting in the U.S., Canada, then Europe.”
My face drops. “Wait, we’re not touring together?”
“No,” Jeremy says, and my brother and I share a short, disappointed look. “They wanted separate dates, different schedules. You’re both popular enough to sell tickets, and it’ll be double the profits if the shows are split.”
“Can we request to tour together?” Tom asks this first, surprisingly.
“I already did,” Jeremy says. “It was a firm, firm no, Tom. Respectfully, I would not push on this. They’re fully funding both tours, which is huge.”