Page 270 of Silver Sweet

NOVEMBER

Ihelp load instruments in a semi-trailer in Zurich, Switzerland. My headphones on, I hear Tom’s voice message and almost drop Scally’s guitar case on my foot. “I got a back tattoo.”

“The fuck,” I mutter and heave the case into the trailer, sliding it toward Marcus, another backline tech like me, who draws the instruments farther into the vehicle.

The message continues, “And I know you’re asking,what is it?And how big. It’s not a tramp stamp, so save the enthusiasm.”

I roll my eyes and push Birdie’s snare toward Marcus.

“It’s not small,” Tom warns me. “You can’t see it until you see me.” I can already picture the smirk spreading across his face because he knows this is going to torture the fuck out of me. “And this is the start of your obsession with my back tattoo. Mark it on the calendar. It’s a special day.”

He must really want me to fuck him from behind. I’ll be telling Tom that when I’m not on a street curb.

Suddenly, my headphones are wrenched to my neck, and on instinct, I swerve around and shove a chest.

I relax when I see Birdie.

He stabs me with a look. “Go home to your rich boyfriend.”

I glare back. “We’ve been over this, Bird. We’re fine doing long-distance. He wants to be around for his brother too.” I wait for Marcus to jump out of the trailer, then we shut the rear doors. I latch them closed.

Birdie hasn’t moved, so I turn to face him.

His Adam’s apple bobs. He touches the tiny black gauge in his ear. Then drops his hand to say, “Truth?” He motions to me. “Did I want you here?Yeah.Of course, I fucking did.I do, but some things are bigger than my fucked-up feelings.”

“Bird—”

“No, this isn’tonlyabout your sappy cartoon, embarrassing love life.”

“Wow,reallyconvincing me here.”

“It’s about the music. The Carraways?—”

“We’re not done. We’re just on pause,” I cut in.

“An idiotic pause. So dumb, man. I’ve seen people sob like babies at your shows. Think of all the people you could be impacting during those ninety minutes, Phoenix. That’s bigger than me. That’s bigger than even you and Tom.”

I rake a hand through my hair and shift my weight. Then I stare deeper at my brother, cradling his gaze with all the strength inside me. “I can’t care about the people I couldimpact. I care about my little brother standing right here.”

Birdie blinks away anguish in his eyes. His jaw flexes, chin quakes, then he sucks in a sharp breath. “Fine, I’ll try to pull your head out of your ass tomorrow.”

He does try.

He tries the next day and the next after that, but I’m going to see this through. I don’t know if I could live with myself if something happened to him. I don’t even know if Tom could.

5 p.m. in Munich,Germany, and the only sound in this large venue’s green room is Birdie crunching on a potato chip beside me. We’re all standing while Steffi streams theliveGrammy nomination announcement on the TV above a well-stocked mini-fridge.

I glance down at the phone in my fist. Tom is on video call with me. He’s squished between his tallest brothers, Eliot and Ben, on the couch in his Hell’s Kitchen apartment. His eyes are on the television they recently bought for their living room.

“And the nominations for Best Rock Performance are…‘Nuclear Winter,’ The Carraways—” The shrieking on Tom’s end and mine drown out the other nominees. Birdie is jumping around me, chips go flying, and Eliot is rattling Tom’s shoulders so much, he drops his phone.

Shock has frozen me. I can’t look at anything other than my phone. If I can’t wrap my arms around him, then I just want to see him. Tom must scramble to pick up his phone because his overwhelmed smile is back on mine in seconds.

“Dude…” He nods to me. “We did it.”

I laugh. “Was this the goal?”

“One of many.”