Page 115 of Silver Sweet
“Key word:usually. We’re living in unusual times, Eliot Alice.” I pass him a piece of bacon, and he accepts it. Then I plugmy nose and swig the green smoothie. It goes down way thicker than a normal smoothie should, but I trust Eliot not to poison me. He’d sooner drink a poisoned draft himself.
Eliot stares at the plate he set on the bed. “The smell of bacon won’t make him run away. I believe that.” His concern downpours like a thunderstorm. “Do you?”
“No,” I say truthfully, pressing my skull to the headboard. “I’m still scared shitless of doing something that’ll set him off. Maybe you and Charlie feel like you could find him if he leaves again…but I…I don’t know if I could.”
“What does Dr. Carlton say?” Eliot asks. He knows I have regular virtual appointments with my therapist. Sometimes I just like hearing myself talk—I don’t even know if I do a lot of listening.
“Can’t live in fear. Can’t control my brother. Blah blah blah.” I rip another chunk of bacon with my teeth. “I like Dad’s advice better. He says that the more we try to bend an outcome to our will, the harder it will snap back. I’m sure he was trying to stop me fromtryingso hard, but it just makes me brace for impact.”
“Sounds like him.” Eliot grins while tossing his half-eaten piece of bacon back onto the plate. “The destroyer of chaos. The harbinger of calm.”
“The antithesis of us. I doubt he would’ve found himself in my situation.”
“What else can you remember?”
For the next ten minutes, I rehash the events in reverse. “…then RJ bolted when Beckett told him to go. Like in my head, he was Noah Lyles fast.” I stare off. “And you know, I didn’t even really care? I kept feeling this powerful emotion all night.” I nod dazedly to myself. “It was never doubting Phoenix would bail on me. I knew that he would stay before he even said a thing.”
Eliot begins to smile. “Should I name the emotion screaming at you?”
“Pass.” I share his smile, then I exhale a deep breath. “Dude, I don’t need to know what it’s called to know I’ve never felt it before him.” I chew bacon slowly. “How the downward spiral started is the worst part.”
“How so?”
I swallow the bacon like a jagged lump. I remember the dance floor. How much I wanted him. “It all started with me,” I admit. “Phoenix almost kissed me, and I basically saidno.” I glance over at Eliot’s deepening frown. “I’m afraid to risk the album.” I let out a laugh. “And I know what you’re going to say.” I wiggle my nubby piece of bacon at him. “Risk it all for a kiss, brother. I would’ve.”
“I should be following your lead,” Eliot admits, more tensely. “Instead of you always following mine.” He brings his knees up and rests an elbow on one. His head in hand while he flashes a grin at me, but I see through the bright veneer.
“What happened, Eliot?” My gut sinks. I set the smoothie on the nightstand, having to shove some manuscripts on the floor for space. He won’t care.
“Wesley Rochester happened. He tried to provoke me at work. He wasatthe theater. Apparently, he’s a friend of the director, and he was invited to attend the workshop.”
The Rochesters own a billion-dollar media corporation that just boughtCelebrity Crush, a trash tabloid that loves to drag my family through the mud. We went to prep school with some of them in Philly, and so it feels personal—their obsession with using our family as headline fodder.
Wesley’s also just a completeprick.It’s not often we run into him, so my jaw gradually unhinges. “What the fuck?”
“Exactly. This play could blow up my entire career,” Eliot confirms. “To be seen whether the blow up is good or bad.”
“It’s going to be good, dude,” I try to assure.
He glances at the door to see it’s shut. “With the amount of press surroundingAmadeus, my reputation in the theatre community hinges onit.I can’t drop out for any reason, especially to avoid him. I don’t want to give that conceited humanbacteriathe satisfaction of knowing he ran me out.”
“What’d he say to you?”
“That he was there at the Hamptons last summer.” He rubs his lips back and forth, wrath flaming his eyes. I can almost feel the heat radiating off him. He rips at a thread in the comforter. “He reminded me what I watched.”
I cover my face with my palms. “Dude.No way.” My brain hurts. My chest hurts. Everything fucking hurts.
Eliot had been invited to a summer pool party in the Hamptons, hosted by some hedge fund manager. The upper echelon. Despite my family being loaded, we don’t typically socialize with other billionaires.
We might cross paths at ballets, charity galas, other high society functions, but our parents preferred to raise us in Philadelphia next to our aunts, uncles, and cousins on a handful of acres in a gated neighborhood. We didn’t grow up in a seven-story brownstone in the Upper East Side with play dates arranged by nannies.
There were no birthdays at private clubs or forcing us to take fencing classes and piano lessons. Our mom grew up that way and despised it, so she’s been determined to keep us on the periphery of those social circles.
Eliot has always loved stepping into that world. He calls it his greatest performance. Where he gets to work on his acting chops and pretend to be someone else for the night.
Last summer, I went with him to the Hamptons party. In solidarity. We both thought it’d be the usual affair: free champagne, horrible conversation, and fake laughs.
I spent most of my time outside where the DJ was taking music requests. I wasn’t inside with Eliot when the host dropped down a projector screen and started playing porn.
