Series: Cobalt Empire Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 220
Estimated words: 215301 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1077(@200wpm)___ 861(@250wpm)___ 718(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 215301 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1077(@200wpm)___ 861(@250wpm)___ 718(@300wpm)
“You want me to come to your family events?” I ask in surprise. “I thought those would be forbidden to anyone who doesn’t have seven figures in their bank account.”
“You will be an exception.” He adds quickly, “Not because of your bank account, dude. More so because your last name isn’t Cobalt. We are highly exclusive by design. But my family knows how much I’ve been grueling to get this band going, and they know you’re my last hope. I think they’ll respect that.”
He thinks.
Tom takes a deeper breath. “But this will mean you’ll be meeting my brothers.”
“So?” I frown. “Is that a big deal?”
“Most people would find it a massive deal.”
“Lucky for you, I don’t worship the ground your family walks on.” I slip my cigarette back in the pack and toss it into my end table drawer. “I’m in. I’ll attend whatever functions I can. Resend your schedule without the boxes on the ones you’d let me come to.”
I can already hear him typing on a keyboard. “Your schedule is interesting, by the way. What’s a TMS? You put that down on a few days.”
“The Manhattan Symphony. I’m on their sub list, so I get called to fill in when someone is out sick or on vacation. And in full transparency, I’m also on the sub list for the New York Ballet Company Orchestra and The Manhattan Opera Orchestra, and I take some other random gigs around town. Sometimes it’s last minute, and it’s really not what I want to be doing. But I have to pay my loans some—”
“I’m sorry,” he cuts me off. “You’re in the fucking orchestra?”
He says it like I just dropped down from outer space. “Is that a problem?”
“Why the fuck do you want to be in my band?”
I rest my skull against the headboard. “Why don’t we do this in person and not over the phone? That way you can see me glare at you.” I reach for my laptop and skim his calendar. Today, surprisingly, isn’t filled with a black box. “Meet for breakfast? There’s a good pancake spot between us.”
“Can I pick the place?” he asks.
It doesn’t bode well for “cooperating” and “collaboration” if he can’t even agree to a breakfast joint that I offer. One that I suggested for him. I don’t even love pancakes.
“And I’m the diva?” I reply.
He groans into an exasperated sigh. “Dude.”
I think I poked a nerve.
He adds, “I’m not like that. We could eat on the hood of a car. But I do have a bodyguard trailing me, and it’s easier going somewhere I’ve been before.”
“A bodyguard?” I didn’t notice his bodyguard at the studio. Maybe he waited outside?
“My whole family has private security.”
I’m shocked he’d need security for breakfast. It’s not like he’s that famous. At least not like his parents are, but the way he talks, I’m starting to feel like I’m joining a band with the president’s dickhead son.
I really don’t get it, but I’m not about to ask. Pushing his buttons is fun and all, but not if I push them so hard he runs away. The Carraways failing on Day One isn’t how I want this to go.
“Send me the location,” I say.
My apartment is located in a five-story brick building in Chelsea, right above Pasquale’s, an Italian restaurant that has the best garlic rolls in a twenty-mile radius but always scorches their pepperoni. I have to fight my way through the burnt-pepperoni smell on the daily.
This morning, I tuck my gray Henley above my nose to cut off the stench. My eyes still water. I hurriedly hike down four flights of stairs and greet the outside by releasing the breath I’d been holding.
I head to Hell’s Kitchen by subway. Partially reading. Mostly spent relistening to Tom’s demo. “Fire You Feel.” I get lost in the lyrics a few times.
Don’t worry, I don’t need you to see.
Any fucking part of me.
I shut my eyes. The fury and pain rampage through me, and my pulse goes on an ascent.
You’ll wish you knew.
Any fucking part of me.
I picture Tom.
The fire you feel is blue. I tear my bulky black headphones to my neck. Breathing ragged like he’s injecting a drug in my veins. Considering I’m verging on addicted to this song, Tom might be lethal to my system.
I rub a hand over my lips, then do a ruinous thing and put the headphones back on. I listen again and again and again, and my fingers twitch on my knees as I crave to wrap them around drumsticks.
What does this song even mean to Tom? I can’t stop thinking about the context of it. I just don’t know enough about the guy.
But I want to deeply know the music we’re making, and that means diving into who he is and emotions and hurt. I’ve never really written music with someone else. I’m more worried he’s going to try to steamroll me and push me out of this part.