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)
I was wrong to think he wouldn’t be committed. He is overly committed to the point where I’m sure he pissed one or two of his bandmates off.
To me, the constant barrage of texts and voice memos means he cares, and I’d much rather be partners with someone who obsesses over the band than someone who couldn’t give two shits.
I click into the voice memo. The sound of water hitting tile is in the background. Did he…did he record this in the shower?
“Shower thought,” he says in the memo. Jesus Christ, he is in the shower. I hit pause on the recording just to give myself time to…breathe.
Setting my phone on the countertop, I grip the ledge into a half-lunge. There’s not enough room to fully spread out but just enough for my joints to untense. Do not picture Tom in the shower.
With my head dipped as I stare at the floor, I hit play.
“Digital organ pads,” Tom says. “They’d pair with the synth bass. We layer them into the songs to amp the moodiness. I mean, if we have to use the synth, we need to use it well. Right? Like let’s go full tilt on this shit. That’s it. Bye.” He abruptly hangs up.
I’m starting to think he just likes talking to someone even if that someone is going to listen to his morning ramblings over the phone.
I play the memo back again.
And again.
I’m honestly torturing myself at this point. I’m starting to think I love the sound of his voice.
And I can’t deny…it’s nice being involved in this part of the process. I’m not just handing in some lyrics and calling it a day. I get to be there for every step. With Nothing Personal, it was never equal. When they let me join studio sessions, it was as a courtesy…as a friend. Not as a part of the band.
Instead of replaying the voice memo again, I check Tom’s schedule.
The coffee pot beeps. I fill up a cup with one hand and then send Tom a voice note with my other.
“First off, no more shower thoughts. Wait until after your shower to call me. Second, it looks like we’re both free tonight. Where do you want to meet up?”
11
TOM COBALT
“Are you lighting a candle, brother?” Eliot asks with a wry smile. “Setting the mood?” I regret putting him and Luna on a video call. It is a serious character flaw that I can’t even be alone in this apartment without calling my two best friends.
But they’re the first people I dialed as soon as I had the place to myself.
“Dude, it’s not like that.” I blow out the candle I just lit.
“I thought the candle was nice,” Luna tells me, her camera so close to her round face, I just see a blur of glitter on her cheeks and her light brown hair twisted in space buns. She’s been jostling the phone while she rushes to a 7 p.m. business seminar at Manhattan Valley University.
Luna Hale is my twenty-two-year-old cousin and the third component to our dynamic, unbreakable trio. Our family dubbed us “the troublemakers” ever since we were teenagers caught climbing trees and vaping between the branches.
Now we’re in our twenties and our dreams have become bigger and more important than doing cartwheels on a golf course and partying till sunrise. Eliot’s in the last round of auditions for a new play on Broadway, and Luna is being mentored by our Uncle Stokes on all things Fizzle while in college.
Our Grandfather Calloway built the soda empire, and when he kicked the bucket last year, he made a stipulation in his will that one of his grandchildren be named successor. Just so there’d be time to mold us into the perfect CEO.
After the board considered a handful of my brothers and cousins, Luna became that someone. She’s now contractually obligated to take over the entire company. Luna Hale being the Fizzle heir is still hush-hush in the press, but the stress on her isn’t invisible.
It feels like the three of us are gripping onto our dreams by our fingernails. We don’t have a solid hold yet, but sometimes I think about what happens if they do seize everything they’ve ever wanted.
What happens if I don’t.
I can’t bear an outcome where Eliot’s a world-renowned actor, Luna’s the CEO of the biggest soda corporation in the world, and I’m struggling to fill seats in a small local venue.
Like I’d be so fucking happy for them…but it’d crush me. Even envisioning it causes instant tortured breathing and sheer fucking panic. That makes me a shit person, right? That I can’t even find a way to be happy for my best friends without envy and despair. I hate that future.
I will become my worst self in that future.
It can’t happen.
Happy thoughts, Tom Carraway. Those come in the image of a tall jerk-off named Phoenix St. Pierre.