tell everyone I need a drummer for the night. Give them my location. First guy who shows up and is decent enough, gets the gig. Send the rest home.”
“No,” Oscar rejects, along with Tom’s bodyguard Ian Wreath, who hovers close by.
Tom makes a noise. “It was just an idea.”
“A stupid one,” Charlie adds. “Unless you want to get your show cancelled tonight because you fucked up crowd control outside.”
“I’m calling Moffy,” Tom refutes. “He’ll actually listen.”
“Go ahead, call him,” Charlie says dryly. “Better yet, call our sister. I’m sure Jane would love to hear your ideas.”
Tom groans and pinches the bridge of his nose.
“Why don’t you play a track?” I chime back in. Akara can also play the drums, but I don’t offer him as a suggestion because I know he’s way too busy to fill in for The Carraways.
Oscar nods. “Someone can pretend to bang on the drums. No one will know the difference.”
“I already suggested that,” Charlie says.
“Ethically, I can’t play a drums track,” Tom tells us. “I’d rather cancel the show.”
Charlie smiles, “And that’s the other good option.”
Tom scoffs. “It’s also failure.”
Charlie rolls his eyes, and then we all turn as a white guy with dyed jet-black hair, styled into spikes, strolls in from backstage, a bass strapped across his chest. Warner, the other member of his band.
“Tom, you figure this shit out yet?” Irritation layers his green eyes. “Cuz this is your fault, you know. Daniel was doing fine on the drums, and I don’t blame him for quitting after what you put him through.”
“He never practiced,” Tom refutes.
“To your standards,” Warner argues. “Dude, no one can meet them. We’re going to go through drummers like fucking M&M’s at this point.”
“I’m not apologizing for wanting the members of the band to care as much as I do,” Tom replies. “You live up to my standards.”
“Barely.”
Cobalts place the bar so high for themselves, they can’t see the ground anymore.
Spending so much time with these famous families, I’ve seen them beyond their fame and money, and I’ve found pieces of each of them that I relate to.
My job has always been to showcase the human sides of them, and I only hope that when viewers watch We Are Calloway they find relatable pieces, too.
So hearing Tom, my heart clenches a little. I was twelve-years-old when I made a binder full of Ivy League colleges that I wanted to apply to. Didn’t matter that I still had middle school and high school left to go.
I mapped out my future. Placed the bar for myself in the sky. It’s how I’ve always operated.
Plan and achieve.
Rinse and repeat.
Charlie steps in, his gaze softening a fraction on Tom. “I’m going to take care of it,” he tells Tom. “Give me ten minutes.”
“How?” Tom asks.
“Eliot’s idea but modified.” He jumps off the stage and saunters to the abandoned bar in the back of the venue. Oscar and I follow him silently, but I count each heavy step that Oscar takes. Like his presence alone fills up the vacant sound.
Charlie hops up on the counter, his ass right next to a green bottle of absinthe, and he pulls out his phone.
I go for a question I’d ask if we were filming. “What made you change your mind and help Tom?”
Charlie doesn’t look up from his cell as he replies, “I was always going to help him.”
“You gave him a hard time,” I say, urging harder. It’s what I do. Push a little. And a little more. I know when to pull back and when to go deeper.
Charlie’s eyes flit to me. “You’re not filming. So why the questions?”
I wave my camera. “Testing out how this is going to go.”
Charlie smiles, but it’s a bitter one. “I’m an open book.”
“Then tell me something honest about you and your brothers. Something you wouldn’t care if the world knew.”
Charlie looks from me to Oscar and then back to me. “Ever since Eliot and Tom moved in with me and Beckett, I’ve been cleaning up their messes. If I’m going to be their janitor, they better know how dumb I think the shit they get themselves into is.” He pulls out a cigarette and types on his phone. “So fuck no, I’m not helping them without giving them a hard time.”
Oscar cuts in, focus drilled to Charlie’s cell. “What’s the plan?”
Charlie clicks his phone and jumps off the bar. “It’s the best plan I have, but also my last option.” He lets out an annoyed breath. “I know