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 edges closer, and the oak tree blocks anyone near the tour buses from seeing us together. Only the ocean has eyes on us. His gaze lassos me in and makes it easy to talk.
I continue, “And we’re going on different tours in a month. I won’t know if he’s taking his meds, burning himself in a bathroom, or roadkill on the side of the fucking highway—and that’s the hardest part. I don’t know how to be okay with not knowing.”
Tom nods over and over. His eyes reddening. “I know. I get that. Why do you think I keep going home every Wednesday?”
I wipe at my eyes. “The tea parties, of course.”
“Those, yeah.” His smile is soft and slanted. He reaches up to wipe away the tear streaks on my jaw. “Dude, I’m terrified my brother will just vanish again. I need eyes on him every week. Maybe it’s fear. Maybe it’s me knowing I can’t handle it if he goes. So I need to be the reason he stays.” Tom plants his hands on my bare chest, his fingers brushing over the tattooed rose, the inky-bloomed petals. “I love how much you care about your brother. Like I love that about you so much it honestly scares me that I found someone like you.”
I sniff hard, my nose running now.
Tom adds, “And he’s all you’ve got, Phoenix. There aren’t three more brothers waiting in the wings for him.”
That cracks open something vulnerable in my chest. My throat swells so badly it hurts to talk now. I manage some words. “I don’t know what to do.”
Tom has no hesitation. No confliction. Like there’s already a clear solution in his head.
“We’re going to take a hiatus—”
“Tom.” I can’t breathe.
He cups my face with his hands. “You’re going to go on tour with Nothing Personal, with your brother—”
My world is spinning. I shake my head. “No. No. The Carraways—”
“Will be fine.” Tom nods over and over with the confidence of someone who’s seen the future. Is he just constructing this wall of strength for me? To get me through this?
“You’re talking about cancelling the World Tour,” I tell him. “Tom, listen to yourself. Really take that fucking in. Okay? Because a month ago, you were on Adderall so that you didn’t miss a single opportunity.”
“And that was fear, dude. It’s always been fear,” he says. “But I know I’m more scared of you not being there for your brother than I am of The Carraways disappearing into irrelevancy.” He drops his hands to my shoulders. There’s not a single ounce of uncertainty in his powder-blue eyes.
But this is killing me.
In ways he does not understand.
“The Carraways can’t go on hiatus,” I tell him. “Because I don’t know if I can survive destroying another band. Okay?” My stomach knots. My breathing labors. “Not after Sophomore Summer.”
I have to tell him.
There’s no way we can make this decision without him knowing everything.
The night of my arrest. I explain there’s a video of me climbing into the concert pit and assaulting a heckler. How I accidentally broke my singer’s jaw.
But I go back farther this time. I tell him where the pain started. “I got so drunk that night,” I say. “More drunk than I’d ever been in my life. And I was angry. So fucking angry…”
Tom’s holding me around the waist. He just listens, and I wait for the moment I scare him off. But it hasn’t come.
“Chase.” The name is pure acid on my tongue. “You remember him?”
“The songwriter ex from college.” Tom stiffens, and his mouth parts in sudden realization. “Did he do something to you? Like sexua—”
“No,” I cut him off. “He just emotionally eviscerated me. I thought I loved him.” I run my tongue over my molars. Breathing becomes hard because what the fuck. How could I have ever thought I loved that guy? I know what love is now.
I know it’s standing right in front of me.
My eyes burn. “He stole my journal,” I tell Tom. “All the songs I’d written in college, he sold every one of them to his contacts in the industry. Passing them off as his own.”
Tom’s chest rises and falls heavily, his face contorting into a wounded grimace. “Phoenix—”
“When I found out, I drank myself under. I’d never felt rage like that. Never been that devastated. I wanted to destroy everything I touched. And I did. And it cost me…everything.”
The band I created with my brother.
My dreams.
My future.
Emotions pool through me. “At least, I thought it did. Because I met you, and I started to feel like maybe I could have more than nothing.” I lean forward, running my hand against the back of his neck. I pull him closer to me, and more emotion surges when I see that he’s not drawing away. “In a three-minute song, I was already at your mercy.”