First Look: Silver Sweet - Chapter Two (Patreon)

Happy Birthday, Tom Cobalt! What better way to celebrate this troublemaker's birthday than sharing the SECOND chapter of Silver Sweet. Tom is extra, so this extra chapter is in the spirit of our beloved troublemaker.

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We cannot wait for you all to continue the Cobalt Empire this summer with this gem 💜🤘🥁 Happy Reading!!

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“Two things you need to know before you go in there,” Jeremy says as we walk through the dead-quiet recording studio. It’s past midnight, and Jere, wearing his usual studded denim vest, unlocked the door when I arrived.

He’s fifty years old and Black, with a blue runway of hair, a septum piercing, and a penchant for dressing like he’s about to walk in an edgy New York fashion show.

That’s actually how I met him. At NYFW. He’d been in the audience watching my mom’s spring collection for Calloway Couture being modeled. I recognized Jeremy Shaw as the manager for Sepsis Ink, an old emo-punk band I loved when I was a kid for their outrageous, high-energy performances. The lead singer would swing his mic cord around his neck and vault into the crowd. They’d stopped making music years ago, but Jere had been a legend for discovering them when he was in his twenties.

I approached him after the show. I was sixteen and wanting to kick open as many doors as possible. So I introduced myself and asked if I could send him a demo.

He laughed. “Are you brave or cocky, kid?”

“Be my manager and you’ll find out.” I paused. “Also, not a kid.” I didn’t want to be treated like one, at least. I wasn’t being handheld by my parents. They didn’t even suggest I approach him. I was actively doing this on my own. I preferred the independence of carving my own path.

I still do.

It’s not like I’ve looped in my parents tonight. They’re both business-savvy. My mom with her fashion line. My dad with Cobalt Inc., a Fortune 500 he’s helmed since his early twenties.

I just want to prove I can solve my own problems. At this day and age in my life, running to a parent feels like needing help zipping up my own pants.

Slightly humiliating. Very demoralizing.

I’d just rather turn to my brothers.

At the fashion show, Jeremy’s eyes smiled first. “Let’s see if you have the voice to back up the ego.” He passed me his business card, and the rest is history.

Jeremy Shaw gets shit done. Without him, I would’ve never signed my first record deal.

Being a hot second from losing it makes me feel like I’m letting him down too. The guy who believed in me and not just because I’m a Cobalt.  

“Two things,” I repeat so Jere knows I’m listening. I almost jog to keep up with his long legs, and I’m not that short at six-one. But he’s as tall as my brother, Ben, who’s six-fucking-five.

“One.” Jeremy stops at the door to Control Room A, his hand on the brass knob. “This is your last chance. Understand that he is your only option left.”

I blink out the scratchy sensation in my eyes. “Only option left, yeah.” I swallow hard. “But I mean, I could—”

“Tom.” Jeremy clutches my shoulder, and I meet his pragmatism head-on. “You want to stay with this label. Riot Records Music—the biggest rock label I can land you in this industry—then he is your last chance. You’ve burned their time, which is money. This is the only realistic way to convince them The Carraways won’t be a financial loss.”

I need Riot Records. Smaller labels don’t have the same type of power if I want to make it big. It’ll also be a crater-sized ding to my reputation if other labels hear I had a falling out with Riot. I could be branded as a liability.

“Okay,” I nod, accepting this and trusting Jere. “He’s my last chance.”

“And two.” He cranes his pierced brows at me. “Give him an hour before you walk out.”

I flinch. “What’s wrong with him? Is he ugly?” I hold up my hands fast. “Because I can deal with ugly. It won’t bother me.”

He has an amused smile. “I told him to give you an hour too.”

My mouth plummets. “Why would he walk out on me?” I side-eye the control room door. “Is he already in there?” Who the fuck is this guy? I don’t even know what instrument he plays or if he does vocals.

“He’s waiting for you.” Jeremy opens the door, and I’m starting to believe he’s purposefully evading dropping this dude’s name. Which means I must know him and already dislike him.

Except I enter the control room…and I can honestly say that I’ve never seen this guy in my life.

Near the mixing console and desktop computers, he’s seated on a long black leather couch, bent forward and cupping his cellphone between two hands. As he sits upright, he pries his eyes off the screen and fixes them on me. I try not to intake a breath.

I’ve definitely never met him before.

Because those are eyes I’d never forget. Angry, intense, unusual. Around his pupil, the brown hue bleeds into blue.

His face is also one I’d remember. Pouty pink lips and a razor-sharp jawline and unfriendly, furrowed brows. He has a dark edge that fastens my gaze, and I instantly realize he’s ten times hotter than Phoenix, who gave me a hard-on in a thirty-second 2D video tonight.

Yeah.

I’m very fucked.

Last thing I want is to have a schoolyard crush on a fucking band member. He’s probably straight anyway. No, I hope he’s straight. No distractions.

It would’ve been better if he were butt ugly.

I run my stiff fingers through my hair. Neither of us speak yet.

Sleeves to his gray Henley shirt are pushed to his elbows. Various black tattoos scatter his fair skin. From bat wings to roses, thorns, snakes, a spider and skull. The etched ink resembles old woodcut engravings. Little Roman numerals underline some of them, making all his tattoos come together like an ancient, unexplored tapestry.

I can’t read it fast enough.

A black backward baseball cap holds down his dark brown hair. Based on his muscled forearms and cut biceps alone, I assume he’s a drummer.

His eyes flit hard to Jeremy. “Him?” He’s pissed.

I glare. “Oh great, you know who I am. Don’t know who the hell you are.”

He doesn’t even offer a sharp look back. I’m offended that he’s acting like I’m unworthy of his fucking attention.

“One hour,” Jeremy reminds this dick. “I’ll give you two time alone. Call me if I need to referee. I’ll be in the upstairs lounge.” He exits before we can respond.

Mystery Guy’s brown-blue eyes shift harder onto me. “I’m guessing Jere didn’t mention who he was pairing you up with either.”

“He didn’t mention I’d be with a diva, no.”

“A diva?” He leans farther backward. “If only he warned me I’d be with a judgy nepo baby.”

I grimace.

Being called judgy stings more than the nepo comment. The latter I’m more used to hearing. I’m born into billions since my family owns a ton of companies, the most notable being Fizzle—the most popular soda dynasty in the world.

I nod a few times and suck down my oversized pride.

He’s your last chance.

I don’t cut the distance between us, but I formally introduce myself, “Tom Carraway Cobalt.”

“We’re doing middle names?” He doesn’t stand. He just threads his arms, his legs still spread open. A confident, incensed masculine posture. I can’t even call it a slouch. He’s sitting too upright. I hate that I find it even remotely attractive.  

“Yeah, middle names. First names. Last names. Not in that order.” My tone is harsh. “Are you going to give me yours or do I need to guess? Because you look like a Patrick.”

He glowers. “Why? My hair isn’t even red.” It’s so dark brown, it’s almost black, and his skin is pale.

“You’re Irish though.”

His jaw twitches. Holy fuck, I’m actually right about his ancestry. I was prepared to be wrong. I contain my surprise and just smirk. “And I meant you look more like the pink starfish Patrick. Friend of SpongeBob.”

“How old are you? Fourteen?”

That shot almost penetrates my tough skin because he sounds seriously worried that I might be young.

I narrow my eyes on him. “Because I referenced a cartoon? Dude, adults watch SpongeBob.”

He gives me a once-over that solidifies my joints.

Heat tries to bathe my face. “You must know my age. You clearly know everything about me. I bet you did a research paper on my family. Or you have a shrine to the Cobalt Empire in your bedroom. You kneel at my poster?”

“You want me to worship you, nepo baby?” He sounds hostile. I crave to fan the flames.

“We can start there.”

“We’re not starting there. We’re not even finishing there.”

“You don’t like being on your knees. Noted,” I snap.

“You ever get on yours?” He aims and fires fast.

“Cobalts don’t kneel.”

“The fuck,” he mutters, eyeing me in a rough up-down. “We need to start with the fact that I barely know you except for your name. That’s it. Your rich family is a part of the fucking lexicon of this country. They’re famous for doing nothing—”

“For a long-ago scandal and being American royalty,” I cut in. “That’s definitely something.”

He stares at me like I come from Jupiter. “You seriously call yourself American royalty?”

“I call myself an American god.”

His brows hoist. “Tell me you’re joking.”

I put a serious hand on my chest. “My confidence isn’t a joke to me.” Then I flip him off.

He groans while pinching the bridge of his nose. His stiffened muscles don’t untense. “What the fuck am I getting into?”

I’m asking myself the same shit.

His hand shifts to his head, his arm flexing. I’d believe he were posing if he didn’t wear edged panic. “Really, are you sixteen or seventeen? Because I’m not working with a minor.”

He’s really pissing me off. “I’m twenty-one.”

He only slightly eases, dropping his arm.

“And you?” I flip my phone in my hand. “Stop taking what I’m giving and share.”

“I’m twenty-four.”

Same age as Charlie and Beckett, my oldest brothers. I can work with that. “I’m going to start calling you Don’t Dick Around if you don’t tell me your name.”

“I’m not dicking around with you,” he says coarsely, then stands…and fuck, he’s tall. I didn’t expect him to have about three inches on me. Oxygen cages in my lungs as he bridges the space between us. Tension stretches with each footfall forward, and heat blisters under my skin.

He stops.

Then he extends a hand and says, “Phoenix Wolfgang St. Pierre.”

He’s screwing with me. “And I’m Gerard Way. Come on, I need your real name.”

He doesn’t even crack a shadow of a smile. “That is my name.”

“No, that’s the name of the drummer from the band Nothing Personal, and that drummer isn’t you.” I would know. I literally just watched a video clip. He’d need a face transplant to be him. He’s also, very clearly, missing the red birthmark on his neck.

“That drummer isn’t me,” he agrees. “That drummer is my little brother. Birdie St. Pierre.”

It solidifies me.

I feel mind-fucked for a frozen second.

I wince. “No. No.” I shake my head firmly, disbelieving. “Jere must be messing with me.”

“Jeremy isn’t the type to play practical jokes on his clients.”

I’d agree. “And you would know that how?”

“He’s been my manager for years.”

We share a manager. Great. I don’t want to share anything with him. It’s a gut reaction when we’re supposed to be sharing a band. “You’re not Phoenix, dude.” I’m about to call my manager, only stopping when this guy digs in the cargo pocket of his dark pants, retrieving a leather wallet.

While his angered eyes are on mine, he slips out his ID, then passes it over between two fingers.

I swipe it and stare unblinkingly at a photo of the bitter-faced dude in front of me and the accompanying name: PHOENIX WOLFGANG ST. PIERRE.

My pulse has quickened and won’t slow. It dawns on me that I’ve had the hots for his brother.

He seizes the ID back. “Proof enough?”

Yeah. “That proves you’ve always looked like someone broke your favorite toy.”

He drills a threat in me. “Keep trying to read me for filth.”

“I wasn’t planning on stopping,” I combat. “But thanks for the warning. What are you going to do to me if I keep going? Walk out?” He’s your last chance, Tom. I grimace. “Or, you know, you could stay.” I swallow shrapnel. “And you could tell me why your brother is being called Phoenix all over Nothing Personal’s bio and at press junkets.”

I don’t mention that I’ve met his brother. I don’t mention that we have slight history. I don’t mention that his brother also introduced himself to me as Phoenix St. Pierre.

“He’s using it as a stage name.”

What? “Why?” I say like it’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. “Phoenix is a douchey name.”

“Says you, Tom. Owner of one of the most generic names in the world.”

Oh my fuck, really? “We’re not talking about my name, Phoenix.” I shove my phone in my jeans angrily and swipe two hands through my hair. “So let me get this straight—you’re Irish with the last name St. Pierre?”

“Mom’s side is O’Toole. Dad’s side is St. Pierre.”

“And your brother is the drummer—so why are you here?”

“I’m a drummer. Birdie is a…” His face twitches as unnamed emotions cross over his features. “Can we not get into him?”

My temple pounds. “I don’t even know if you’re any good at drums, dude. Maybe you fucking suck.”

He narrows his eyes on me. “Maybe you fucking suck at guitar and singing, Tom. Maybe it’s why everyone left your band.” Damn. “The song I heard could’ve been mixed to hide your shitty vocals.”

“So you’ve listened to my music?”

“The Carraways,” he nods. “Yeah. And you named your band after yourself. Big ego. Small dick.” His gaze plunges down, then rises back up.

My face is on fire. “You would know about dicks,” I contest. “You’re an even bigger one than your little brother.”

That felt wrong calling his brother little because I’m certain that I’m around the same age as Birdie.

Phoenix suddenly pushes past me, heading into the tracking room where instruments are spread out among the soundproof walls. I wedge into the doorway to keep it open. “What are you doing?” I call out.

He picks up a pair of wooden sticks off a drum kit. “I’m showing you that I don’t suck.” He slips on chunky black headphones and straddles the stool behind the toms and snare. “You know how to play a track in the control room?”

“Uh, yeah.” I scrutinize how comfortable he is in the live studio room. Like he’s recorded in one before, but he’s not a part of Nothing Personal. I have no idea how much experience Phoenix has making music. “You’ve done this before?” I ask him.

“I’ve been in multiple bands.”

Promising, and yet… “Jere gave me another band’s leftovers.”

“And Jere gave me the reject of a mediocre, failing band.”

“Did you put the emphasis on ‘failing’ because you know calling me mediocre is a lie?”

“Play the track, nepo baby.” He looks restless.

“What track?”

“Sum 41’s ‘Motivation.’”

I head back into the control room. Door shutting behind me, I bend over the mixing console and computer keyboard. I haven’t heard this Sum 41 song in years. Looking up, I see Phoenix clearly through the glass wall.

His leg jostles while he waits impatiently for me to hurry. He spins a stick between his fingers, his chest taut against his gray Henley tee. “Any day now,” he says, his pissed-off voice booming clear through the control room.

I flick a switch so Phoenix can hear me in his headset. “You need a countdown?”

“Just play it. I’ll drop in.”

“Fine.” I turn off my mic, then tap the keyboard. The song begins with a frustration-charged drum intro, and Phoenix seamlessly slides into the blistering tempo. His buff arms move so fast, I can barely see the sticks as they bang the drums in quick, heated succession.

I go motionless when the lyrics hit, and his furious eyes lift to mine through the glass. He never stops drumming, each powerful movement embodying Sum 41’s angst-laden vocals.

My eyes grip him.

I can practically feel him screaming at me as he bangs harder, faster.

My chest collapses. I breathe rougher, and I hunch over the controls in a lunge. The song reminds me of inner restlessness but also stagnation you can’t pry yourself out of.  

The situation isn’t ever what you want it to be. I know nothing about Phoenix St. Pierre. Not his motivation for being here or why he’d even consider joining my “mediocre” band when he’s…

He’s really fucking talented.

The kind of unmanufactured, raw talent that I’ve been dreaming about finding. He plays similar to his brother, but there’s more scorched earth under Phoenix. More fire, turmoil, and pain. It draws me in. Seizes. Refuses to let go. This familiar heart-fisting, fervent feeling is why I love music.

Passion unmitigated and passion unrestrained. When life is so confined to rules—don’t say that, don’t do that, don’t be that—music is releasing. It makes me feel untamed.

My pulse hasn’t calmed, and I hear my arduous breath. Until the sound of the creaking door steals my attention.

Jeremy slips into the control room, sipping a Fizz Life through a straw. He’s addicted to my family’s soda. I swear he drinks about five cans a day.

“And?” Jeremy asks me while Phoenix continues to play. Phoenix can’t hear in the tracking room since I haven’t switched on the mic.

I watch the drummer of my dreams. He never misses a beat. “What’s wrong with him?”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t play coy, Jere.” I spin toward my manager. He has a shit-eating grin as he sips from the straw. “You’ve sent me a drummer that should be headlining a world tour.”

“Hopefully he will be. With you. As part of The Carraways.”

 I shake my head slowly, like I’m trying to find the error in the code, but before I can prod Jeremy, the song ends, and Phoenix is rising from behind the drum kit. “Your turn, Tom.” He points at me with his stick. “Prove you don’t suck.”

I clench my jaw. “Jere, play ‘Fire You Feel.’”

“Roger that.” I hear the smile in his voice.

He shouldn’t be excited. Something about this feels like a catalytic trainwreck. Probably because when I exit into the tracking room, Phoenix and I exchange fuck you glares, and fire sears both my lungs as I fit on headphones, slip the guitar strap over my shoulder, and lower the fixed microphone toward my mouth.

Jeremy’s leveled voice comes through my headset, but he’s not speaking to me. “Phoenix, sit back down. I’m about to start the demo to Tom’s single. Come in on drums if you feel up to it.”

I’m not prepared for Phoenix to play my song. With me.

I’m barely prepared to sing to him.   

This is happening too fast, but can we go slow? The label wants to rush everything since I misspent all last year struggling to make an album.

I tune the guitar, then when I’m ready, I motion to Jeremy in the control room.

Right as the track begins, I rotate and face Phoenix. His brows tick up a little in surprise, but I’m not going to avoid him. He wants to hear me, then I’m confronting him head-on.

Lips near the mic, I belt out the feverish, caustic intro that feels like magma slipping into my bloodstream. My fingers move naturally on the guitar. My body shifts with the raging beat. When I sing, all my bottled emotion explodes out of me, and I detonate into the chorus.

I wrote “Fire You Feel.” The lyrics are personal. I’m more exposed as each word carries out of my body, but each one is also a weapon, a blade, aimed ahead of me.

You could never take the reason I woke.

You could never take my anger you provoke.

This voice, these feet, this heart of a thousand beats will go on.

Don’t worry, I don’t need you to see.

Any fucking part of me.

I don’t need you.

You’ll wish you knew.

Any fucking part of me.

The fire you feel is blue.

Don’t you wish you knew?

Any fucking part of me.

Phoenix shifts on his stool, almost forgetting to play. His gaze is latched to mine, and I don’t release him.

My throat burns like my eyes, and I tap my temple and point at him before giving him a middle finger and strumming into a guitar riff.

He animates on the second chorus, spins the sticks and plays with me. My pulse pounds and accelerates into a mind-whirling speed. He adds new drum beats I never thought of when I recorded the demo—ones that sound crisper, harder.

All I really know is when the song ends, my esophagus is torched like my lungs, and each breath hurts. That was too much.

Too raw.

Too real.

Too incensed.

Too good.

I don’t want to sound this great with this guy. I can’t put my finger on it—but there is something terrifying about this partnership. Like I’m making a deal with the devil to achieve ultimate success. What’s the actual cost?

Phoenix is scrutinizing me in the silence too. His breath heavy. He rubs sweat off his temple with the side of his fist. And the first thing he says is, “Who fucked you up?”

My ribs contract painfully.

He repeats the lyric, “‘You could never take the reason I woke.’”

I feel bare. My tongue is tied for once. Thankfully, I don’t have to respond. Our manager enters the tracking room with a bright grin and an approving nod.

Neither of us return the smile.

“Jere.” Phoenix stands from the drum kit. “What’s wrong with him?”

My eyes widen since I asked the same thing about him earlier. “Nothing’s wrong with me, dude,” I defend myself.

He snaps a hard look at me. “Okay, arrogant god. You have the presence and the voice of someone who should be selling out stadiums. But you haven’t even released an album.”

At least he knows I’m amazing.

Jeremy comes closer, and our heads swing toward our manager as he finally says, “I’m putting my two problem children together. Your previous bands said you’re not easy to work with, so let’s see if you can work with each other.”

This is a terrible idea.

But it’s the only one I have left. As Phoenix grinds his teeth, his annoyance verging on actual hate, I feel the same sentiment claw down my body.

I’m very, very fucked.

Maybe I was fucked the moment my dream was born. Dreams are infernos we try to start with our bare hands. I’ve been desperately cradling a flickering ember that might sputter out at any moment, hoping that it’ll spark into a real fire one day.

All I want is to burn alive.

PREORDER (Signed Copies)

The way we've been dying to share this chapter for months and months and months! We're so happy you could read Phoenix & Tom's meet-cute on Tom's birthday! So now that the cat is out of the bag and you now know a huge twist, you can expect Silver Sweet to be quite the wild, chaotic, extraordinary ride, full of the things that set your heart on fire.

As we've teased, this book means the world to us, and we feel so strongly that it's one of our best works to date, so we absolutely can't wait for you to see how Tom's story and romance unfold.

Prepare for 672 pages of Tom's dramatic self and the hot drummer he can't stand! Thank you for reading and for all the support here on Patreon.

And Happy Birthday to Tom Carraway!!

xoxo Krista & Becca

“Silver Sweet," Copyright © 2026 by K.B. Ritchie