Page 157 of Silver Sweet

The rest of the night, we write “Killer Ultraviolet,” and I doubt there’ll be a song that I love more than this one.

37

PHOENIX ST. PIERRE

The last four days of March, we completely lose ourselves to the music. Tom calls it post-sex bliss. Like we’re riding a euphoric high from finally fucking.

I can’t completely deny it.

The lyrics come easier. The music flows better. We’re in a deep groove as we barrel toward our deadline, and we don’t just finish the final song. After “Killer Ultraviolet,” we write and record two more. (Tom was correct about being an overachiever.)

The album is complete with fourteen total tracks, and it’s almost incomprehensible that we’re done.

There is no after-club celebration because Tom and I did not want a repeat of the half-baked celebration at The Trench. Instead, we grab a Sicilian pizza with black olives and eat it on the grass in Central Park while listening to the mastered tracks together.

Black headphones cover my ears while Tom has on slim AirPods, and the first song on the album plays. “Fire You Feel.” I am instantly transported to the moment I met Tom, and I won’ttell him—I’ll likely never tell him, so his head doesn’t grow five fucking sizes bigger—that this song is the whole album for me.

It would be nothing without it.

Tom pops an earbud out. “You think it needs mor?—?”

“No,” I snap, cutting him off. “Every time you ask that, you’re getting an olive to the face. Listen to your voice, man, and just hear how good you sound.”

“Maybe you should loan me your ears.”

“Come on, you know you sound amazing.” I look him over, up-down. “Don’t fucking doubt yourself now.” I kick his shin, wondering if I do need to tell him how much I love “Fire You Feel,” but then he nods robustly.

“You’re right,” he says into a smirk. “I’m a vocal marvel.”

“Even thelighteststroke of the ego does it for you, huh?”

“You could go harder,” he grins. “I won’t complain.”

“I know you won’t.”

Tom diverts his gaze as his face reddens. He stares around the park, but the weather isn’t bone-chilling anymore. Too many people meander around to pay any attention to us.

“No one cares that I fucked you, Tom,” I whisper.

His jaw tenses. I’m not sure why until his blue eyes hit mine, and he says, “I care.”

I draw my headphones to my neck and pause the second track. I’ve been inside Tom, and he’s not brushing that fact aside like it’s an ordinary occurrence.

Sex for me typically isn’t so emotional. It’s a physical act of release, and that’s it. I’ve known that what I feel with him is different. Everything is more heightened and intense.Buzzing.All my senses.

“You think I don’t care?” I ask with furrowed brows and a mountain of confusion because I thought I did a pretty decent job of showing I did.

His voice drops to a trained whisper. “Maybe I just care more than you, dude, because you were in me. You don’t know what it’s like.”

I cock my head. “I don’t know what it’s like?”

“Yeah…?” He makes a face at me.

I make one back. “I do, actually. I’ve bottomed before. Many fucking times.”

Tom blinks. “Excuse me, why am I just learning this?”

I laugh hard. “You never fuckingasked.That’s why.”