Main Bonus #94: Tom’s Mistake at Pink Noir (Patreon)

IMPORTANT: Please do not screenshot and post any part of this bonus scene to other sites or share with non-patrons. All of the Patreon content is exclusive to Patreon and for current patron's eyes only.  Thank you!! xoxo Krista & Becca

RESOURCES:  Check out this narrative timeline graphic to visually see when this bonus scene takes place.

MUSIC: We listened to “Tell Me Why – Original Mix” by Supermode and “Seen’ Red” by Unwritten Law while writing this bonus scene.

“I just need a backup plan!” I shout over the music while we’re in the nightclub’s dance pit. There is no sign at Pink Noir that says, You must fucking dance. And if there were, I would disobey it tonight. I have more important shit going on than hopping up and down to EDM.

“Is that not what Harriet is?!” Eliot shouts back, his head still shifting to the electronic beats under the strobing pink lights and disco balls.

“She’s my only plan right now, dude!” Holy shit, I sound distressed. I shouldn’t be. Harriet is a viable solution here, and my label seemed game for a two-person band when I pitched the concept. Maybe they believe I won’t be able to find a third member in enough time anyway.

That sucks, thinking Riot Records Music has lost that much faith in me, but can I even blame them? I cringe. Last thing I want is a reputation for being wishy-washy or undependable. I want them to believe I’ll succeed as much as I believe in myself.

“She’s a good plan!” Eliot reminds me. “If she didn’t want to play drums, she would’ve already said no!”

That’s true.

It’s also true that she’s waffling between my offer to join The Carraways as my permanent drummer and staying in college to become a doctor.

I’ve pointed this out enough to Eliot, and he’s already said, “Let’s convince her.” To which I said, “Hell no.”

I’m not bribing Harry. I want her to want to be in The Carraways because that’s where she wants to be. For so many reasons.

Reasons Eliot has also heard me voice about five times before tonight, so I don’t surface them again.

He catches my shoulder, drawing my gaze to his. “Don’t waste away in the what ifs, brother!”

I exchange a brighter grin with Eliot, and I nod to myself. Yeah, he’s right. I didn’t come out tonight to try to fix my band.

I came out tonight to run into my long-term hookup. In hopes to get laid? Maybe. More like, in hopes for things to progress in a new, deeper direction.

I’ve never seen RJ at Pink Noir, but there has to be some possibility he appears since his cousin, a ballerina, frequents this nightclub after NYBC performances. It’s a Saturday night, and the club is already packed with ballet dancers.

RJ and I could’ve had missed connections here, and tonight could be the night we’re both at Pink Noir. Something has to go in my favor. Like I cannot be that unlucky.

As though Eliot can see my thought loop, he urges me, “Text him!”

“No, no!” I move more to the rhythmic synth. “It should be organic! I can’t force it!” Before he asks for RJ’s number, I remind him, “Dude, I’m not desperate!”

“Of course you aren’t! You don’t need him!”

“Exactly!” I down the rest of my vodka soda. “I’m going to grab another drink! You want anything?!”

“I’ll join!”

 As much as I would love to occupy my favorite brother’s attention, he’s been subtly flirting with a tall brunette who’s now within ten feet of him. She’s biting her lip at Eliot. One of us should be excelling in the “getting laid” department. Even if it’s not really my end goal—it is his.

“Solo mission, Eliot Alice!” I tell him. He knows I hate solo-anything, so before he rebuttals me, I add, “I’ll be right back with vodka shots!”

 He approves.

I end up at the packed bar and wonder if I should text Luna to bring her date night with Donnelly to Pink Noir.

How selfish is that? Pretty selfish, considering he was taking her to some late-night cocktail bar in Brooklyn that has been solidly booked out for the next two months. It’s a pop-up and galactic-themed.

Even if they make a pit stop here afterward, it might take them forever to actually get back to Hell’s Kitchen. I don’t bother her.

Charlie, however…

I shoot him a text.

TOM CARRAWAY: Any backup plan ideas if Harry falls through?

He replies fast.  

I am clearly Charlie’s favorite human being. He definitely misses me after leaving our niece’s first birthday yesterday in Philly. He didn’t return to New York afterward, and if he comes home earlier than planned, I will chalk this up to Charlie needing to be in my aura.

CHARLIE KEATING: For you? No.

I scoff and type quickly while Kevin, the bartender, helps the complete opposite end of the bar.

TOM CARRAWAY: I always knew Eliot had the better ideas.

CHARLIE KEATING: Here’s an idea. Don’t listen to Eliot.

TOM CARRAWAY: 🖕 This is why you should come home, Charlie Keating. I make you nicer.

CHARLIE KEATING: Who says I want to be nice?

TOM CARRAWAY: Old and miserable. Eliot and I will engrave it on your tombstone. Don’t worry.

CHARLIE KEATING: Don’t forget “tired of his little brothers”

TOM CARRAWAY: Not an epitaph, dude. That’s obviously your cause of death.

CHARLIE KEATING: Right for once.

I laugh, and I’m about to ask him to help me be right twice by giving a solid backup plan to Ben’s girlfriend. But I’m not at a place where I need to beg Charlie. Hopefully I don’t get there. Harriet is still on the table.

Kevin suddenly places a tequila shot in front of me.

I bend over the sticky bar before he turns around. “I didn’t order this!”

“He did for you!” Kevin points down the bar at a dude in a typical button-down like he stopped here after work on Wall Street. He looks mid-twenties, maybe older, and as he slips me a smile, I look away and down the tequila shot like it came from a robotic arm.

Then I whisper to my bodyguard beside me, “Don’t let him approach me, Ian.”

He nods and shifts away to stop the business-clad guy from coming near. It’s not that he’s older. It’s not even that he looks like a corporate gooney. It’s that in the chance RJ shows at random, I don’t want to be flirting with someone else.

No thanks.

But thanks for the shot, I guess.

“You good?” Beckett suddenly sidles to my left, wiping sweat off his brow with his wrist. His dark brown hair is damp. He’s been dancing with Beth Anne, his best friend in their ballet company, for the past hour. I haven’t really searched for RJ’s cousin, but she has to be here. It feels like the entire first and second casts at NYBC has shown up tonight.

Not that I’ve hung out with them. Eliot and I have been doing our own thing.

“Yeah, dude, just trying to order a drink,” I tell Beckett.

“What’s that?” He points to the shot.

I drum the bar, shifting my head to catch Kevin’s eyes. “A drink that was bought for me by a guy my bodyguard is currently telling off.”

Beckett’s yellow-green eyes cut around the bar until he sees the corporate gooney. “You and Eliot want to call it early with me?”

I make a face. “It’s not even midnight.” I frown, then spin more toward my older brother. This has to be about our little brother, who made an appearance here with Harriet for a solid twenty minutes before they left to go watch a movie at our apartment. Which means one thing. “Ben is getting laid on the pull-out, Beckett Joyce. Okay, let’s not interrupt him because I don’t need to walk in on that.”

Beckett seems uncertain.

“Dude, he’s better than fine,” I stress. “You said it yourself—he looked happier than you’d ever seen him at Maeve’s birthday. He doesn’t need us hovering all the time.”

He nods, considering. “Two more hours, then we go home.”

Can I please solve my issues in two hours? I slide my fingers through my hair, then wave at Kevin. He comes back, and I order half a dozen vodka shots so I don’t have to go through this again.

“Don’t drink all that,” he tells me while Kevin pours the shots.

“Not at one time, duh.” I lean on the bar with a sigh at my brother. “Charlie thinks Harriet is going to choose medicine. He’s said as much yesterday.”

It wouldn’t be the first time the universe has tried to laugh in my fucking face, but I will laugh back. I have to.

Beckett’s brows crinkle. “Charlie doesn’t know Harriet well enough to make that judgment call. Ben does, and he says she’s fifty-fifty.”

“Yeah, she’s firmly fifty-percent sure, Beckett Joyce. I need someone who’s all-in, without question, who won’t turn around when shit gets hard. I want that to be Harry, but I’m…” I’m afraid it’s not her.

She’s really good at drums. She’d be perfect if she wanted this as much as I do.

I grimace. “It would be karmic justice for her to reject me after I rejected her.” I push shaggier pieces of my hair out of my eyes.

Beckett lifts his brows. “Maybe start by calling her Harriet.”

“She calls me Thomas,” I defend.

He starts to smile. “And Tommy.”

“See,” I nod hard. “It’s mutual distaste for each other…” I trail off and scrunch my face in thought. “You don’t think I need to beg her? Because I’m not begging someone—dude, I can’t.” I groan into the palms of my hands.

“If she doesn’t join The Carraways, someone else will, Tom,” Beckett says. “The person you need will come around.”

I drop my hands with a harder sigh. “Why do you sound so sure?”

“Because I’ve never seen you give up music in your life, little brother.”

It stings my eyes for a second.

Likewise, I’ve never seen him give up dancing.

I hand Beckett a shot. “Cheers to that.” We clink glasses before throwing them back. The top-shelf liquor goes down smooth.

He rests a consoling hand on my shoulder, then whispers in French for me to call him if the corporate gooney gives me trouble. He doesn’t name him that, but I know who he’s referring to.

I down two more shots. Then I deliver Eliot the rest, but I am buzzing. It’s nearing 2 a.m. when I realize I might’ve had too much to drink.

I’m fucking unsteady on my feet and barely paying attention to Beckett trying to convince Eliot to go home with us and not to another bar with the brunette.

“Gonna wait outside for fresh air!” I shout to them, patting their arms and backtracking to the door.

Ian carves a path for me, so I’m not tripping over anyone on my way to the exit, and once I’m outside in the November chill, I rest my shoulders against the brick exterior of Pink Noir. It dawns on me that RJ never appeared.

Like usual.

“He never shows up here,” I mutter under my breath, listening to the city noises. Honking, chatter, screeching car tires. I’m beginning to think RJ doesn’t even know what Pink Noir is.

I drunkenly tilt my head to the left, and I suddenly see golden hair and a radiant smile on the hottest body ever.

Greek god levels.

Leo Valavanis. He laughs to a much shorter curly-haired brunette girl. She’s blurry in my gaze. He’s like…all I can see. Haloed in the dark.

Then his glittery eyes veer toward me, and I look forward, then glance back. His smile stays on me. Is he flirting with me? Beckett can’t stand him. I know that. I wouldn’t try to get with his ballet rival. I would never.

This is harmless though.

Looking.

I can look.

I look again.

Leo’s grin is even livelier, then he rotates and fully faces me. Holy shit, he’s approaching me. I sit up straight. Sit up? I’m standing. I stand up straighter.

That’s right.

I’m standing. I’m cool. I’m a fucking Cobalt. Confidence is written in my genetic code. I am not flustered or drunk at all.

“Tom,” Leo greets with a smile so bright, I might be squinting. “Alone out here?”

“Never alone, dude,” I say without slurring because I’m awesome.

He takes out a pack of cigarettes. “You want a smoke?”

No. “Sure.” No. “I mean, no.” I try to stare ahead, but he’s glowing. It’s so hard not to look at him.

Leo puts a cigarette between his lips, grinning at me, then cups his hand around the end while he lights it. He sucks in, then plucks out the cigarette and blows smoke upward. I’m very stuck on him at this second. To where, I take the cigarette as he hands it to me.

I put it between my lips, not thinking really. Just doing as my brain whirls.

“What’s your number?” he asks me.

“My number?”

“Phone number. Cobalts have those, don’t they?” He tips his head. “I don’t believe in the mind-reading bullshit, but you can try to convince me.”

I blow smoke out, my heart racing at a terrifying speed. “Not in the convincing mood, dude.” I pass him the cigarette back. “We do have numbers. Mine is the best one.”

“And that would be?” He takes out his phone with the cigarette in his other hand.

I mutter out something.

He’s typing in his phone, then shoves it into his pocket. He responds, but my brain is garbling his words.

A steady stream of smoke leaves his lips, and then he goes to pass the cigarette to me again. Beckett suddenly intervenes, pinching it out of Leo’s hand and throwing the thing on the concrete. He squares off against Leo, sneering something at him, and Leo is laughing.

I eject myself with my hands raised in innocence. “I did nothing,” I tell Eliot, who’s at my side. “He approached me.”

Wait, when did we get into a cab?

Fuck. I am drunk.

I dig my fingers into my eyeballs and groan. Beckett is telling me to drink water, and I do that all the way into our apartment. I can’t even say where Harriet and Ben are. I go straight for my room and pass out.

It’s only in the morning that I try to mentally replay the blurry end of the night. “No, no, no,” I mutter fast.

My face is on fire when I remember the Leo Valavanis interaction. Did he ask for my number?

“There’s no way. There’s no way.” I dig underneath my pillow for my phone. “You did not give him your fucking number.” I scroll through my texts and calls. I have none from Leo. So I relax backward in a deep sigh.

I didn’t make a mistake.

Loyalty intact.

I’m resolute with this idea. “There is no way Leo has my number.” No way.

No fucking way.

Oh how we love Tom's POV! We have finally unlocked his point-of-view on Patreon, so from here on out, he is game for bonus scenes, and this is officially the first to grace Patreon. We love writing bonuses that perfectly tie into the novels, and we can't wait for you to read more of Tom in Silver Sweet!

But before Silver Sweet, there is one more Tom POV bonus left for July. So you'll be in his head once again before his novel releases, and both are right around the corner!

xoxo Krista & Becca

“Tom's Mistake at Pink Noir" Copyright © 2026 by K.B. Ritchie