Charming Like Us (Like Us 7)

Tom holds up his hands like he’s ready to throw in the towel. “With that level of sarcasm, you don’t deserve to hear a single one of my fantastic ideas. Plug your ears, brother.”

Charlie doesn’t make a move.

Tom glares.

Charlie’s brows rise. “Oh, you’re being serious? You do know I’m not a toddler.”

Tom lets out a frustrated noise before looking to me. “Option 2 is Eliot’s idea.”

Eliot Cobalt is Tom’s older brother by only eleven months, and they’re as thick as thieves.

My team on the docuseries is mostly in charge of filming the older kids of the families, which includes Jane, Maximoff, Charlie, and most recently Sullivan. We’d film Beckett too, but he’s private and always declines to be on the show.

So my experience with Tom and Eliot is more limited, but it doesn’t mean I haven’t filmed them or been around for rifts and family gatherings. Anytime they’re together, it’s a recipe for drama.

Charlie doesn’t stifle his laugh at Eliot’s name. “Your option will be better than his.”

Tom narrows his eyes. “I take offense to that on his behalf.”

“Let’s hear the idea,” I mediate.

“Instagram,” Tom says. “I 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.”