Page 172 of Silver Sweet

Still hope.

On top of this, the tour startstomorrow.Phoenix and I leavetomorrow. I cannot get shit-faced on my birthday. I will not start the first leg of a career milestone being hungover.

I heave a box of liquor bottles to the kitchen counter and pull out Don Julio 1942.

The tequila isn’t for me, clearly. I will be on the periphery of entertainment. An onlooker. The most gorgeous fly on the wall, which will cause jealousy among all the other wall-flies.

That’s the plan.

I will not fuck up the plan.

40

TOM COBALT

“Body shots! Body shots! Body shots!”

This is only aminorfuck-up.

The problem: Eliot and I excel at throwing parties—we excel too well. Two hours in and bodies cram into my apartment, raising the temperature to a sweltering, dizzying eighty degrees. Shirts have come off. Most girls strip down to bras. Lights are dimmed, andSilver Sweetplaying at high volume incites a raucous energy.

Let this be known: I did not ask for body shots. I didn’t even provoke this. I’m starting to believe I should’ve leftEliotoff the guest list, which hurts my soul to even consider for five seconds.

“Dude,no.” I raise my hands at my favorite brother. “I am not taking a body shot.”

“Not off Creighton.”

Of course not off Creighton.I grimace at the dude sitting expectantly on our round marble table near the packed living room. Vodka bottles and shot glasses are strewn around him. He’s a pretentious five-eight, blond-haired trust fund baby with a degree in one-upping. We figured a one-upper wouldn’t burndown the apartment. Maybe just annoy Charlie enough to bang his head against a wall.

Speaking of Charlie, I haven’t seen much of him. He weaves in and out like a mythic creature at our house parties. Never letting anyone speak to him for long. And last I saw Beckett, he’d been hanging with Ben in the kitchen.

“Phoenix!” Eliot calls out.

My heart rate spikes as my shirtless drummer pushes through the sweaty throngs to reach my side. I’ve learned Phoenix likes doing laps at parties. He can’t stand still. I’ve done a couple laps with him, and I can’t tell what I love more—that or this, where we reconjoin and my breath shortens with the rapid ascent of my pulse.

“Hey,” I say, eyeing the track of sweat slipping down his tattooed chest.

“Hey.” He holds my gaze. I don’t understand how one common word shared in the loudest environment could feel intimate.

But for the most powerful second, I feel like it’s just me and Phoenix. Then he leans into my ear. “You’re popular, nepo baby.”

“Body shots! Birthday boy! Body shots! Birthday boy!” is a prolonged chant around us.

I smile. “I’d love to take credit, but this is what happens on birthdays.” I’ve been wished ahappy birthdayso much tonight that it sounds like a lyric on every track of the album. Right now, I hear the organ pipes off “Dead Poets” blaring in the background.

“Wouldn’t know!” Phoenix shouts over the escalating commotion. “I share my birthday with the New Year!”

I laugh. “Sometimes I share my birthday with the Easter Bunny and the resurrection of Jesus Christ!”

“You still manage to steal their spotlight?!”

I grin. “Toujours.”Always.

“Je le crois,” he whispers against my ear.I believe it.

My heart thumps hard.

Eliot comes between us and flings his strong arms over our shoulders. “Body shots?”