Series: Cobalt Empire Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 220
Estimated words: 215301 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1077(@200wpm)___ 861(@250wpm)___ 718(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 215301 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1077(@200wpm)___ 861(@250wpm)___ 718(@300wpm)
Tom’s eyes darken. “The ‘Tragic Hold’ guy?”
“Yeah. That’s the motherfucker.” I swallow the rise of bile.
“Things must’ve ended really badly with him…if you had such a visceral reaction to his song.” His song. My muscles tense. My breath shortens.
“You could say that.” I slide a hand against the back of my searing neck. “Last New Year’s, on my birthday—”
“Wait, you were born January first?” He jerks back like it’s a shocking factoid. “I feel like I should’ve known this before we…you know.” He glances at my dick for two seconds, then scouts the street like some random stranger is going to hear we hooked up.
He’s so fucking dramatic. No one is even paying attention to us. We might as well be the lampposts.
I blink hard at him. “You didn’t even know RJ did cartwheels for a fucking living, and you’re freaked out that you didn’t know my birthday?”
“I mean, this is a little different.” He gestures between his chest and mine. I open my mouth to respond, but he’s fast to clarify, “You’re my drummer. We work together. I didn’t work with RJ.”
“Right…” My head is spinning. We’ve confessed to having feelings beyond sexual desire, but we haven’t defined what we are. It’s more obvious now. “We’re just bandmates hooking up.”
“Right,” Tom nods, intaking a tighter breath. “Yeah. That’s all we are.”
My whole body is full of tension. I can’t even argue about wanting more when we have a tour ahead of us, and we need to grind and not worry about semantics. Our agreement to be exclusive is enough for me.
I cannot handle Tom fucking another guy right now.
He shoves his cold hands in his jean jacket. “Sorry I cut you off. What were you saying about your ex? On your birthday?”
“Yeah, I ran into him at a New Year’s party. It’d been the first time I’d seen him since we broke up.” My heart hammers harder. “Jesus, I never even told Birdie I ran into Chase.”
“Chase…”
Hearing Tom cast that fucker’s name in the air…it feels like my stomach falls out of my body. Tom lifts the hood to his black sweatshirt—the one beneath his jean jacket—over his head, shielding himself from more wind. He frowns out at the street, then at me. “Did you two hook up at the party or something?”
I let out a sickened groan. “No. God, no. It’s just every time I talk about Chase, there’s so much anger and disgust, and I can’t rip away from it. I hate talking about him. I hate saying his name. Hearing his name.” I suck in a shallow breath. “And I’m still repulsed at myself that seeing him was the thing that brought me to you.” The confession sends more bile up my throat. I might actually fucking vomit. I can barely look at Tom, but I do.
He’s shaking his head in confusion. “I don’t get it.”
“That night I saw Chase was the same night I asked Jeremy to find me a band to play in,” I explain. “I didn’t want to talk to Chase. Hell, I even made a move to leave the party. But he made sure to cross paths with me on the way to the door. Just so he could say, ‘I knew you’d still be a roadie.’” I swallow hard. “And I know it doesn’t seem like much, but those seven words cut me open so fucking badly that I basically quit Nothing Personal on the spot. So yeah, man, I wouldn’t be here without him.”
Tom glares into a harder shake of his head. “You don’t know that, Phoenix. You could have quit down the line for any other reason.”
“No,” I say, resolute. “I wouldn’t have.”
Tom’s shoulders deflate. “Okay, maybe not. But then does it matter why? You’re here now, and that’s what’s important. Not how you got here.”
I want to believe that, but there’s a part of me that will always feel like Chase has a hold on me. My past, my present, my future twisted in his fists.
“Hey,” Tom moves in close and puts a hand on my chest. His touch eases the tension in my muscles. “Just think about ‘Dirty Rise.’ Singing that song on stage. We’re going to get there. And you better hope I never meet this Chase guy because I will fucking fight him.”
I notice his bodyguard lingering in the background. “Are you allowed to get into a fight, nepo baby?”
He follows my gaze. “Try to fight him.”
“Just no biting.” I tap his cheek.
He swats me away, but he’s smiling.
I’m, somehow, smiling too.
This is one of the times I’m glad he has personal security. I don’t want Tom getting hurt for me.
31
PHOENIX ST. PIERRE
“She was wearing a Cartier watch,” my mom says over the phone. I almost didn’t answer the call for three reasons. One, I’m at Tom’s apartment. Two, we just finished writing another song (why ruin a good thing?). Three, I made him come from my hand again yesterday, and it’s occupying half my brain.