Page 289 of Silver Sweet

“You still live with him,” I remind my boyfriend. “You aren’t far.”

“Yeah,” Phoenix nods, trying to shift out of his rigid stance. He eyes the ascending numbers, and the elevatordingsat 21.

I push and he pulls this time.

“I’m surprised you didn’t hire movers,” he says.

“Nothing says ‘I love you’ like manual labor,” I tell him. “And also, we didn’t want anyone stealing her stuff.”

He nods. “Checks out.”

We guide the cart down the hall, and I hook one of her Prada backpacks to my shoulder that tries to plummet to the ground.

“Do you hear that?” Phoenix asks.

“Yeah…I hear it.” A grin spreads across my face. Raw, feral vocals and melodies echo down the hall.

Music.

My grin takes on new heights as “Gold Lion” by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs beckons me to my siblings.

Phoenix pulls the luggage cart past my apartment. The neighboring door is ajar.

Apartment 2168.

We go inside as music flows out.

Decked out in heavy floral drapery and tapestries of mythological scenes, the living area feels rich, opulent, and cluttered like poets of the late 16th century made a home here. Elizabethan. Romantic. All velvets, damasks, silks, and warm tones.

It’s my closest brother come alive.

“Wow,” I hear Phoenix say, even over the noisy, howling, pounding song that has me throwing my head forward in pure delight.

Eliot is standing on the wine-red chaise, and he spins around the same time Audrey pops up from the settee. Their grinsmatch mine, and I reconsider all my iffy feelings about my sister moving into our high-rise.

If she raises the volume this loud, I’m going to love having her here.

Therapy bills might increase, but love will be had, nonetheless.

After much back-and-forth, we decided to split up between the two neighboring apartments. Eliot and Audrey are living in this two-bedroom, and Ben, Beckett, Charlie, and I are still in 2166. We all agreed on this outcome, but some—namely, Charlie—called this a walking disaster.

He’s not a fortune teller. Just a naysayer.

Eliot hops off the chaise. “Welcome to our humble abode,” he greets me and Phoenix.

“We’ve found the abode,” Phoenix says. “Humble is missing.”

I applaud over my head. “Great song choice.”

“Harriet made me a playlist,” Audrey says. “I quite like it.”

Phoenix spins to me. “You like this, Tom?” Like it’s a shock I would be in love with a rock song.

“Uh, yeah, dude…” My voice tapers off at his strange grin and incoming laugh. “What am I not processing?”

“That’s practically a four-on-the-floor, nepo baby.” He points upward. “You hear it?”

The drum pattern.