“What happened to your lip?”

“Nothing.”

I watched Everett struggle to move his fingers from one chord to another. He was a lot better on guitar than the day I gave him his first lesson, but he still had a long way to go. I’d love to ride his ass about not practicing enough, but he was a street kid and I knew that that life gave you nothing but time and nothing to do with it.

“Can I show you a trick?” I asked.

“Yeah, whatever,” he said.

His bangs hung over his eyes. He snapped his head to the side and threw his hair back, but it fell forward a second later. He was still boyish and young with bright blue eyes. Probably a young girl’s parents’worst nightmare. I told him straight up that when he practiced enough, playing guitar for girls when he was older would definitely pay off.

I held my guitar and leaned back against my metal chair in the small room in the musty smelling basement of an old church turned coffeehouse. I was lucky enough to know the owner - a guy we called Cheeky because he only smiled when he was in pain. He bought the building for his daughter Stephanie and helped her get it fixed up and running.

“Watch my fingers, Everett,” I said. “I’m playing my G chord, right? Now watch the transition to the D. Leave your ring finger, lift your pinky, and move your pointer and middle finger down to the second fret…”

I strummed the chord. A perfect, clean sound.

Everett bit his tongue as he copied me, making the transition. His chord was a little choppy, meaning he needed to practice holding his fingers steady, pressing harder against the unforgiving strings, and mastering the positioning on the frets to get the best sound.

“That’s good,” I said.

“It fucking sucks,” he said.

I laughed.

We made a pact when I first met him. I could smoke in the basement and he wouldn’t rat me out, and he could curse as much as he wanted without me busting him on it.

“What’s wrong, kid?” I asked. I moved the guitar off my lap.

“I suck at this shit,” he said.

“No you don’t. Just keep practicing.”

“I don’t want to. I want to quit.”

“So then quit,” I said. “Put your guitar in the case. I’ll give you a hundred bucks for it.”

“You would?”

“No,” I said. “What’s wrong?”

From the moment I realized Everett was a kid living on the streets, learning life the hard way, I took to him. I knew I couldn't save him, and I didn’t want to save him, but if I could point out a different path here and there, then I could say at least I tried.

I reached and grabbed the neck of Everett’s guitar and ripped it away from him. On the back of the cheap wood body, I saw a girl’s name. Amber. It had an X over it though, and under that, another name was carved into the guitar. Sarah xoxo.

“Girl problems?” I asked.

“No. Sarah thinks I like her. I don’t.”

“She carved her name into your guitar. That sounds serious.”

“Please. I’m sure that’s happened to you before.”

“Hell no, kid. Nobody touches my guitar but me.”

Everett’s cheeks burned red.

I grinned. I slid my foot toward him and kicked his well-worn, scuffed up shoe. “What is it? Don’t piss me off. Not today. I’ve got a gig tonight and I’m working through some new lyrics.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “I hate my name.”

“What?”

“Everett. What kind of name is that?”

“Proud?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“See? That right there. Even a guy like you doesn’t like it. You have a cool name. Foster. That’s really cool.”

I spun Everett’s guitar around in my hand and leaned it against a workbench that I found in the basement and used to work on guitars. I was sort of a jack of all trades when it came to surviving. Giving guitar lessons. Fixing guitars. Playing gigs that rarely paid in cash, mostly in booze.

“You do know my name isn’t really Foster, right?”

“It’s not?”

“No,” I said. “That’s what I got nicknamed when I was younger.”

“Why Foster?”

“Because of how many times I bounced around,” I said. “House to house. Family to family. I just started telling people to call me Foster. You know, for foster kid.”

“Wow,” Everett said. “Maybe that’s what I need to do.”

“There you go.”

“I’m going to be… Viper.”

“Viper?” I laughed. “Come on, kid. Be real.”

“How about Throat Punch?”

“Why not Rhett?”

“Huh?”

“Rhett,” I said again. “Short for Everett. So you don’t sound like an old mountain man eating sardines out of a can over an open fire.”

“See? Fuck. You hate my name.”

I laughed again. “Rhett is cool. It’s bad ass.”

“How about Ratt?”

“Rat?”

“Ratt with two t’s. Bad ass.”

“No,” I said. “You call yourself Ratt and I’m going to give you cheese to eat.”

Everett sighed and rolled his eyes. “Fine. Rhett. How do I get people to call me that?”

“Respect.”

“Huh?”

“Get respect and show that you’re tough.”

“Pick a fight with someone and win?”

Yeah, that’s a good idea, kid. Live like I did. But if you want to be really tough, get a gun. Wave that fucking thing around. Almost get put away for years and years…

“No,” I said. “Learn guitar. Your name is Rhett, and you play guitar.”

Rhett picked up his guitar and practiced his chords again. This time, he transitioned with ease. Perfectly from a G to a D, back to G and then down to a haunting E minor.

I smiled and nodded. “There it is. Now we just need to wo-”

Rhett’s phone beeped in his pocket. He scrambled with a sense of fear to check it as quickly as possible.

“Shit. My ride is here.”

“You still have ten minutes, kid,” I said.

“I have to go. Right now.”

Rhett hurried to pack up his guitar and notebook.

At one point, he was damn well shaking. I grabbed his wrist. “Hey. Is everything okay at home?”

“You know that answer, Foster,” he whispered.

I nodded.

I looked at his lip again.

“That happen at home?”

“No.”

Probably a lie.

Rhett stood and took money out of his back pocket.

I jumped up and put my hand over his. “Not today. This one’s on me.”

“You can’t keep giving me free lessons, Foster.”

“I’ll do what the fuck I want, kid. Take that cash and hide it in your guitar case. Then get yourself something good to eat. Forget about Amber and think about Carrie.”

“What? Girls…?”

“Hey, you never know when the right one will pop up and scratch her name on your guitar.”

“I thought you said nobody ever touches your guitar?” Rhett asked.

I grinned. I looked up. My heart warmed over in a way that I hated. “Well, there’s only one girl that carved her name into my guitar…”