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)
This chokes him up more. “Which…which song?”
“What do you think?”
Tom has to look away, his breath coming out like a fist is in his chest. “‘Fire You Feel.’” He swings his overcome, earnest eyes at me. “For that long?”
“For that long,” I rasp out. “You’ve had me, Tom.”
He’s not boastful or smug. His blue eyes skate affectionately across my features. “Being loved by you has been the greatest pleasure of my life.” He steadies the tremor in his voice. “And I hope being loved by me will be yours. Because I’m not going anywhere, Phoenix. I love you too damn much to let this all fall apart now.”
I’ve understood his love for me, even without words. I’ve felt it like a bellowing, unstoppable melody inside me. But I think he knows I need the words now.
I need them so fucking badly that I feel myself hanging on to each syllable. I hold him so close, our foreheads pressing together. Until I kiss him gently, achingly, painfully. His fingers dig into my back.
When our lips break apart, he takes a breath and says, “It makes perfect sense now—why you’d give up being in a band after that. Art isn’t just words on paper. The person you trusted most stole the most vulnerable parts of you, then sold them to the highest bidder. He robbed your soul.”
Christ. I pull back and pinch my eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he apologizes quickly. “I’m making it worse.”
“No, Tom.” I shake my head and bring my lips to his in a softer kiss. “You’re making it better. I’ve never had anyone put it in those words. But that’s exactly how it felt. Like he took me and just…”
Buried me.
Rubble inside tunnels.
Tom nods. “I know. I know.” He looks me over in a deeper sweep. “The Carraways isn’t Sophomore Summer. We will survive a four-month hiatus. I know this because what we created together isn’t fused together by just rhythms and melodies. It’s your flesh. My bone.” His reddened, passionate gaze punctures the tender parts of me.
I pull him into a tighter embrace, our jaws skimming, our lips a desirous distance away. We share a quiet moment where I just listen to the soft beats of his heart. I want to stay like this forever. But that’s not how this is going to go.
Tom draws back to look up at me. His resilience is so clear. It tries to reinforce mine. “The right choice is for you to be with your brother,” he says. “I think you know it too.”
I do, but my face cracks anyway. “Both options suck.”
“This one sucks the least,” Tom tells me. “And maybe it’s a blessing in disguise. I haven’t been around Ben as much. It could be a sign I need to be home with my brother, too.”
That’s how we start making a game plan to tell Jeremy that we’ll finish out the last four shows of our U.S. tour, and we’ll try to work on the second album in August, but after that we’re done for a while.
Cancel the World Tour.
Become a long-distance couple.
We start discussing whether we’ll see each other during Nothing Personal’s tour. Tom offers to fly to me, but we realize it’ll just be more painful every time he has to leave. He needs to be home with Ben anyway.
We both agree that we’ll meet up whenever I’m back in New York. I don’t have the schedule, but I’m sure I’ll have a week off here-and-there between legs.
“We can do this,” Tom says after we’ve mapped out the next several months of our lives.
That’s the thing about Tom—he makes me believe we can do anything.
That nothing has ever been out of reach.
60
PHOENIX ST. PIERRE
SEPTEMBER
Nothing Personal’s tour bus chugs along the rainy Pacific Northwest, and the feeling of forgetting something grows stronger throughout the week.
I left half my soul in New York.
Tom isn’t on the bus, and I’m trying not to be an angsty fuck about it. Maybe I didn’t fully comprehend how attached I’d become to him after spending every single day together for eight months.
Or maybe I knew being here for my little brother is worth this momentary painful longing. Tom knew it too.
“You aren’t missing much.” Tom’s voice plays through my headphones. An audio message. I listen to my favorite noise while I lie on my bunk. “New York has a stench.”
I murmur out loud, “It always has a fucking stench, Tom.”
The message keeps going. “Ever since you left, the odor is pure piss and trash. You were making it smell like heaven on Earth here. You think eucalyptus is the scent of the gods? Just don’t come back right away, dude. Like I will suffer endlessly in smelly Manhattan. I am already full-on thriving. So…” I hear him swallow a knot in his throat. “And I…” He intakes a sharp breath. “I really love you, Phoenix. It keeps building and building every day. My love for you grows so powerful in your absence, I wonder if it’s to torment me or to protect me.” He pauses for so long.