Page 130 of Silver Sweet

“Yeah.”

He exits into the hall, and once he’s returned, I’m clothed like we didn’t just perform a carnal act on the bed where we plan to work. Fears try to infiltrate, until Phoenix starts talking chords, keys, music.

I smile down at the sky-blue guitar against my chest. What if hooking up isn’t as much of a distraction as I thought it’d be? My smile fades at another thought, and I cut him off to ask, “What happens when the album is done?”

“We go on tour.” He reads my expression fast, since I was referring more to what just happened between us, then he adds, “No sleeping with other people on the road. You want to be fucked, nepo baby, I’m right here.” His attention descends back to his journal. If I want more, it means switching to a green light.

How will I know if I’m ready for that?

It’s nearing dinnertime,and we’re struggling with the seventh song. I could so easily correlate the lack of progress with the fact that we just crossed a major boundary together.

But I’m not going to. We’ve hit two-day roadblocks before. An eight-hour struggle doesn’t mean I screwed the band. If anything, it’s making me dig into the chorus to prove to myself our physical connection isn’t the problem.

“This still isn’t right,” Phoenix groans, scratching out three lines in the journal. He ends up ripping the page and balling it in his hands.

His fingers and the edge of his palm are stained with red ink. His pen burst open about an hour ago. It looks like a full-on murder scene on my bed, and he apologized exactlyoncefor ruining my comforter. Especially when I told him I could afford five hundred of them.

“Thank you for reminding me you’re rich,” he snapped.

“No problem.” I looked at his stained hands. “Who uses red pen anyway? Other than teachers who grade papers.”

“Me.” He rubbed his jaw and smeared ink on his skin.

I’m blaming the pen and not Phoenix for the few times my concentration left my guitar. Like right now, I keep eyeing his face, his arms, his hands. Each red stain signals my brain to “look here,” but I had issues not staring at him before we hooked up.

Phoenix lets out a frustrated breath and ripsanotherpage. “We need to start over. This isn’t working, and we’re losing time.” He checks his phone. “Your brother should be coming home soon, right?”

“Don’t worry about that. You can meet Ben and stay for dinner.”

His body sags in relief, tension slipping out of his muscles. I didn’t realize how much he was stressing. Then he slings his head back with another groan, “Fuck. I forgot.” He cups his phone again. “I have dinner plans with my parents. In a couple hours, actually.” He’s texting. “I can’t get out of it. I already rain-checked them last week.”

After my parents met his parents, I asked my mom how the meet-up went. She just said a stilted, “They’re overprotective.”

“But like in a good way?” I pried.

“In a way that does not concern you. Just focus on finishing the album with him. Let me and your dad focus on his parents.”

That didn’t bode well.

The biggest stressors in Phoenix’s life seem to be his mom and dad. He says they’re supportive. They’re also just realistic and cautious. They’d rather Phoenix dedicate his life to the orchestra since it’s what he went to college for. Which soundsunsupportiveto me, but I have no room to critique the St. Pierres. They’ve worked hard for what they have, and I’m not saying my parents haven’t—but both were raised in high society. Neither one started out middle-class or even upper-middle. They had as many advantages as I do now.

Phoenix puts his phone away. “Ben is the nice one?”

“The nicest,” I say into a nod. “The one we protect at all costs.”

He gazes over at Ben’s side, the privacy curtain drawn open now. We let the cockatoo out so he could stretch his wings. Phoenix’s idea, actually. Mister Feathers is perched at the window, more interested in the golden orange sunset than us.

“You protect him because he’s the youngest?” Phoenix wonders. “Or is there something else?”

I think he senses I’ve been most concerned about Ben. That I’m overly in my head about my little brother, but I can’t exactly explain how Ben disappeared to Alaska last year without feeling like I’m ripping off Ben’s outerwear without permission.

But I don’t want to lie to Phoenix, so I land on saying, “It’s a little of both.”

“He’s different than your other brothers?”

I laugh. “Understatement of the century. He’s unlike everyone in my family. He’s…” I sigh out, and like I’m drawn to the mostBenthing in the room, my gaze lifts to an oil painting hung above his dresser.

The lush green almost makes my eyes well. Skies are painted a soft, heavenly shade behind a jutted mountain peak and a stone building. Morning light is cast over girls dancing barefoot in the grass, a figure playing a pipe, and so many sky-scraping trees.