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)
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?”