Page 3 of Silver Sweet

“I can’t deceive the label. If I get caught in a lie, then I’m going to be known as the Liar Liar Pants on Firekidto maybe the whole music industry. No one will take me seriously, and it’s already an uphill battle when everyone believes my last name got me through the door.”

And maybe it did.

Maybe being a Cobalt is why the label even gave me five minutes of their time, but I’d like to believe they’ve kept me around because I have actual talent and promise.

Eliot nods, accepting. He passes his phone from hand to hand. “Another idea: we create a reality show together. You play your music on-air. Everyone hears. They love you. You’re revered. A legend is born.”

I rub at my eyes. “I haveno band. I can’t even think about signing on to a trashy reality show when I am at the first stage of this crisis.”

It’s not where I’m at right now.

I drop my hand with a sigh. “I’m fucked.”

“Cobalts don’t get fucked, brother. We do the fucking.”

I would love to inject our family’s pride in my veins as raw copium. Because I am not coping well with the fact that my label will likely axe me by Monday morning.

“Fuck Mondays,” I groan out. “They’re now the worst day of the week. Should be ripped off the calendar.”

“Mondays are over,” Eliot banters. “I only know of Tuesday through Sunday.”

I nod hard. I almost smile, but really,fuck Mondays.Fuck this timeline.But I will find a solution.

I will.

He squeezes my shoulder, then bends over to take a closer look at the laptop. Even when people quit on me, I know Eliot never would. He’d drown in my problems with me, and I’m afraid that I’d let him.

So as he silences a phone call for the third time, I force myself to say, “Okay, stop bailing on the girl.”

“She’sagirl.” He scrolls on the track pad. “Thegirl is still elusive.”

I shut the laptop.

He careens backward as I leave his antique desk where leather-bound books cover the surface. All a part of his rare collection of 16th-century classics.

Thick, velvet drapes hide the nighttime view of the city. It’s always dark in here. Made even darker with the raven painting on his blood-red walls. I love hanging out in his room.

Not because I prefer the cluttered, macabre thing Eliot has going on.

It’s just what I grew up doing. Sneaking away into Eliot’s bedroom when I was a little kid. I hated whenever I had to retreat into the quiet four walls of mine. So I’d drown my room in music. Pumping bass, raging vocals, heady vibrations that’d shake my bed.

The stillness unsettles me. I don’t know how to sit in calm. I want everything to have sound. Even when I can’t hear, I hope noise will throttle my body.

“Tom—”

“No, Eliot, I’m not occupying your whole night with this shit.” I head to his door. “Go fuck Gertrude.”

“Say it a little less bitterly, brother, and maybe I’d believe you.”

Yeah, I would rather Eliot choose me over a girl tonight, but I’m trying to do this thing where I don’t make everything aboutme.

It’s hard.

I exhale a breath and say morenicely, “Go fuck Gertrude.”

“Gemma,” he corrects, pulling out his phone. Eliot is dressed like the billion-dollar wealth of our revered family. Pressed navy-blue slacks. Ironed white button-down. I’m betting he has a late-night date with this girl at a high-end cocktail bar. He’ll eventually bring her back to our million-dollar-plus Hell’s Kitchen bachelor pad for a one-night (or two-night) stand.

Eliot’s fuck-and-chuck routine is so predictable at this point, I could set the time to it.