Serge

Class doesn’t start for another hour, but I’m already in the cramped little room getting ready — not that there’s a whole lot to prepare. There’s a milk crate by the door with folders full of sheet music, each one labeled with someone’s name. The piano’s as in tune as it’s going to get — not that I do it any justice with my sausage fingers — and I’m just kind of sitting here, anxiously straightening things.

We’ve got the go-ahead from Joey to use Ian’s funding for the competition and today’s the day I get to tell the kids the good news. I’ve even got secret donuts in my desk for them. Can’t have them on display before class or nothing will ever get accomplished.

But that’s not the only thing that’s happening today. Today’s the first time Tori’s going to be working with the kids and I’m not sure about her. I know she hasn’t got much of a choice in being here, though I don’t know why. I didn’t look her up, I didn’t bother trying to learn her sordid past. I respect the skeletons people want to keep in their closet until they feel it’s time to open the doors. If anyone knows about that, it’s me.

But it’s not the why I’m worried about. I’m worried about her shitty attitude making a reappearance. It’s been fifty-fifty up to this point with whether she’s normal and pleasant or whether she’s snotty and too good for everything and everyone. I don’t want her bringing that attitude into this room. Not with my kids.

I know I’m just some music teacher at a community center in a bad neighborhood, but I’m protective of these kids. I was there for Eddie when his older brother got locked up for gang involvement. Here when Bria’s mom OD’d and she wound up with her chain-smoking grandma that treats her like she’s Cinderella, pre-glass slipper. And Jose… I don’t know how much longer he’ll be around. I know he worries every day that his parents are going to get deported, and even though he was born here, he’s going to have to go with them.

There’s thirty-five kids in this room three times a week. Thirty-five stories, thirty-five people that need someone in this fucked-up world to have their back. For many of them, I’m the only person they’ve got and I’ll be damned before I let some stuck-up sanctimonious singer ruin the safe space I’ve created for them here.

I hope all my worrying’s for nothing. I hope that Tori sees the merit in this program the way I do and doesn’t scoff at it. Because I won’t hesitate to kick her sweet ass out of here and then what would happen? Probably off to jail if she can’t fulfill her community service here. So at least I’ve got that for leverage.

Only now I’m stuck thinking about her ass in those cut-offs, entirely too short for being around hormonal kids with just the hint of her ripe ass cheeks hanging out the back, covered only by a tease of frayed denim. And if it wasn’t for me looking out for these kids, that attitude of hers wouldn’t be so bad. The challenge in her eyes, the way her rebellious lips basically dare me to do whatever I have to to make them part, moaning my name. Even while she was tuning my instruments the other day, I couldn’t stop my eyes from wandering over her ink, following the swirling lines as they dipped into her cleavage, her tight little body barely covered by the wife-beater tank top.

She was basically exactly the kind of girl I would have gone after back in the day. The kind of girl that practically had TROUBLE written on her forehead for a guy like me. The kind of girl that would probably put an end to my long-fought battle for sobriety. Because I can see myself making very bad decisions with a girl like Tori. That’s exactly why I’ve gotta stay focused on my kids. She’ll only be in my life for the requisite number of hours and then I can forget all about the beacon of her bright red hair or the fantasy of those long tanned legs wrapped around me.

The door opens and I freeze. Of course she would appear right now, right in the middle of me telling myself why I shouldn’t be thinking about her.

“Serge!” It’s not Tori, and I grin big as Kamala charges into the room and tackles me in a big hug.

I lift her up and spin her in my arms, squeezing her tight. I know you’re not really supposed to have favorites as a teacher, but come on… I can’t help it.

I set her down and offer a salute. “Commander, status report?”

She grins, but then forces her face to be completely serious. “Good on all fronts, General.”

“No news is good news,” I say, cracking a smile.

She grins back, then whips her backpack off and pulls something out.

“I drew you a new picture,” she says brightly, producing a colorful paper. There’s a room of stick figures, all smiling, with colorful music notes floating up around the room.

“I love it!” I say, beaming. “It’s going on the wall right now.”

She’s beaming too as I fish tape out of my desk and get to work finding her new drawing a place of pride amongst her other works of art.

“Looks like I might be running out of room soon. You wouldn’t be offended if I took some of these home to enjoy them, would you?”

Her eyes go wide, big and brown, and she shakes her head.

“Awesome. My house is lacking in amazing artwork.”

The other kids start filtering in the room, taking their folders and their seats. They’re all arranged based on voice-type which cuts down a lot on the distractions with friends being next to each other.

Tori’s one of the last people in the room and suddenly half the conversations stop, kids dipping down to whisper, some of them pulling out cell phones to snap pictures.

She’s wearing more reasonable clothes today, and I’m not sure if I’m relieved or disappointed. Still, her jeans hug her curves in all the right ways, and her faded Mötley Crüe t-shirt is doing things to me that I don’t even want to acknowledge. She gives me a little wave with a half-smile, lingering toward the door.

It’s not what I expected from her. I don’t know what I expected — snark and attitude maybe? — but she’s almost acting shy around the kids.

“Class, this is Tori, she’s going to be joining us for a couple of weeks. I want everyone to treat her the same way you’d treat me —”

There are some snickers and I give them a mock-stern look. “Okay, better than you’d treat me. Got it?”

“Yes, sir,” they say half-heartedly before going back to cell phones and whispers.

Amanda raises her hand, which might as well be a miracle in itself. But she’s not looking at me. She’s looking at Tori, who’s completely oblivious, still staring at the class with wide-eyed panic. I clear my throat and her eyes jerk to me, before she nods toward Amanda’s raised hand.

“Uh… yeah?” Tori asks.

“Are you like… actually Tori Winters?”

Tori nods and there’s a new flurry of excitement. I guess DCoy is more popular with this age group than I thought. I didn’t expect her to be recognized.

But Tori takes it in stride, opening up a little with a smile when Amanda asks for an autograph.

“After class,” I butt in. “We’re here to sing, remember?”

Amanda gives me one of those trademark caustic looks that fourteen-year-old girls are so good at, but she folds her arms and flops back into her seat without any more arguing.

They’re all troubled kids, but the truth is they like the structure and discipline. It took me a while to figure that out, since that’s pretty much what ruined me, but these kids are craving stuff like that with their chaotic lives. So even though they rebel against me from time to time, they respect my authority, which is still a little weird, but regardless, you can’t let them see you sweat.

“Okay, so Tori had some ideas about our song that I think might make it even better, so let’s run through that. Tori, are you comfortable working with the altos?”

And then we’re singing. The whole room is filled with music and nothing is wrong with the world in those minutes. For a long time, I thought the best feelings were in a needle or on a stage, but being with these kids and hearing the beautiful music being made is a hell of a lot better. And I’m not ruining anyone’s life to do it.

We work through the tempo change a few times in sections, then try it all together, but I can tell that Tori’s getting frustrated because some of the kids are off-key.

“Stop, stop, please, you’re killing me,” she says, marching over to the piano. She bangs out the chord and sings the note, looking at the alto section. “Match this note.”

They sing with her, but it’s a little wobbly still and she hammers the keys again. “This. Note.”

They go through it again, but I wince before she even reacts, anticipating the blow-up.

“Tori? Can I talk to you for a second?”

She looks over at me like she’s forgotten I’m here and then her lips go in a thin line and she nods, clearly thinking I’m wasting her time.

“We’ll be right back, guys. Don’t get too loud, okay?” And then I lead her out the door into the hallway.

The door’s barely closed when she crosses her arms and says, “What the hell?”

I fold my arms too, lifting my brows at her.

“What?” she huffs, still annoyed. But I can do this all day until she throws the fit she’s determined to. So I stay silent and she growls.

“You asked me out here, now what the hell do you want? Or can I get back to making them not sound like nails on a cheese grater?”

She reaches for the doorknob, but my hand goes out, palm flat against the door, stopping her from budging it.

“What the fuck is your problem?” she hisses, so close to me that I can smell the jasmine scent in her hair.

“You need to relax,” I say.

She snorts. “There’s a competition to prepare them for.”

“The competition doesn’t matter.”

She looks at me like I’ve just climbed out of a flying saucer. “Serge, they have potential. They could sound really good with some hard work. Kids that talented don’t need someone relaxed coaching them. People with talent don’t get to relax,” she says, haughty and so convinced that I could never understand.

“You sound like my mother,” I grumble, my jaw clenching.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“It is. Trust me.”

Her cheeks are flushed, but her mouth drops into this surprised little O, and her arms drop to her sides.

“Look, I appreciate that you want to help them win, but this program isn’t about winning. It’s about having fun, having a safe space to be yourself and to be away from the stresses outside that door. Going to the competition, that’s a nice distraction, and winning would be a great bonus, but none of it matters if they’re not having a good time because you’re being a slave driver, got it?”

She frowns, blue-green eyes going to the window in the door. “But don’t you want to win? These kids seem like they could use a win.”

I nod. “They could, but not like that, Tori.”

She nibbles on her bottom lip, drawing it up between her teeth, making me wonder if they’re as soft as they look. How sweet and silky they’d feel sliding down over my—

“All right, think you’re ready to get back in there?” I say, forcing myself to stop thinking about Tori naked and panting for me. Trying not to imagine pinning her up against this wall right now and kissing her until that ‘I know better than you’ smugness is gone. Tori is everything I don’t need in my life right now.

“Yeah, I’ll try to relax, I guess.”

“Thanks,” I say, opening the door back up for her.

After that, class goes way smoother. Tori relaxes, starts joking around, and the kids relax in turn. I don’t know if it’s some secret ability all famous people have, but that ability to turn on the charm when needed, to become a completely different person, never ceases to amaze me.

“Great job everyone!” I say, glancing up at the time. A bunch of the kids are already gathering their stuff, getting ready to head back into the real world. “One more thing before you go,” I call, causing some of them to stop in their tracks, turning to me with questioning looks.

I reach into my desk drawer and pull out a stack of boxes.

“DONUTS,” Eddie cheers, dropping his backpack and vaulting over chairs.

I hold up a hand.

“Not just any donuts,” I say. “These are celebration donuts.” I open up the boxes and lay them out on my desk. There’s enough for everyone to have at least one, but since I suspect a few of them are going to try to take two or three with them, I got extra.

“What are we celebrating?” Kamala asks from my hip, flakes of sugar glaze stuck to her cheeks.

“We got the go-ahead for regionals! Joey’s got permission slips for you all. I want you to go by her office this week sometime to get one. Get it signed and bring it back to me so you can go, okay?”

There’s a bunch of excitement around the room — excitement about the trip, excitement about the donuts, and from the opposite corner, there’s a small group gathered who are excited about Tori and getting their promised autographs. But the one person I thought would be the most excited looks suddenly sad, her hand with the donut dropping down, sugary crumbs snowing on the old faded carpet.

I kneel down to Kamala’s level, frowning. “What’s wrong, Commander?” I hope the nickname will bring a smile to her face, but there’s nothing.

“Permission slips,” she says, putting the donut on the desk and slinging her backpack over her shoulder. “It’s okay… I probably shouldn’t go on a trip that far anyway.”

A fist tightens around my heart and I just want to scoop her into a hug and make it all better. But that’s not something you can really do for someone in Kamala’s position — a kid with no family who’s spent more time in a hospital bed than her own.

“I’ll talk to Ava. I’ll bet she can sign off on the trip. And you’ve been doing great lately. Two days out of town should be fine.”

Her eyes flick up to mine, going wide and bright. “You think so?”

“I know so,” I answer confidently, hoping I’m not going to let this sweet little girl down. I can’t. I’ll do whatever I have to to make sure she can go on this trip. She needs it more than anyone. And it wouldn’t be the same without her for any of us.

Kamala flings her arms around me and I don’t even care that I can feel her sticky fingers leaving bits of sugar on the back of my neck as I hug her back.

“Don’t worry, Commander. I’ve got your back,” I say, squeezing her tighter before she lets go. “Don’t forget your donut,” I remind her as she starts to leave, grinning the same way she was when she came in.

That is why I do this. I know it’s a small difference that I make, but it’s a difference and it matters to me.

Once the kids are all gone, it’s just me, Tori, and the carnage of the donut boxes.

“Well, you made it through your first day with them,” I say, collecting the garbage. I’m kind of surprised Tori’s sticking around to help clean up, but she’s gathering the folders that got left behind, forgotten with the excitement of my announcement and the offering of pastries.

“Wasn’t too bad,” she says. Then, after a long pause, I turn to look at her, feeling her eyes on me.

“What?”

She shakes her head, orange hair dancing around her face. “I just don’t understand how you can be so carefree about the whole thing.”

“About the thing that’s meant to be fun and relaxing, you mean?”

She purses her lips. “You’re just teaching them bad habits telling them it’s okay to lose.”

“Did you hear me once say that it’s okay to lose?”

Tori drops a stack of folders in the beat-up milk crate by the door and cocks her hip to one side, leaning on the wall with her arms crossed. “Not in so many words, but you didn’t have to say it like that. You’re not emphasizing how important the competition is. It’s never going to be more than a hobby if they don’t put real work into it.”

“What’s wrong with that?” I ask, a prickle in the back of my throat, a torch going off in my bloodstream. “What’s wrong with it just being a hobby? So what if none of them ever become famous musicians or whatever? Who cares? They’re here to have fun. They’re here to remember there’s more to life than just trying to stay alive and stay out of jail. Winning a competition like this wouldn’t really make any kind of difference in their lives, but this time together does. Maybe it’s hard for you to understand, but I had a mom that drove me to be successful. That told me I’d never amount to anything if I didn’t work harder than everyone else. If I didn’t put three-hundred percent into everything I did. And it nearly killed me. So forgive me if I’m going to do things my way with my kids.”

Tori’s cheeks bloom pink, then the color fades and her jaw drops, her eyes losing that challenging sparkle to just look… sad. She steps forward, her arms dropping to her sides, and takes a seat on top of my desk, facing me.

“What do you mean it nearly killed you?”

I glare at her, trying to decide if it’s really worth telling her. If it’ll really make a difference. But I see something in Tori. She’s got an attitude that drives me crazy, yeah. And that rebellious spark that makes my hands itch to rip off every shred of clothing between us. But it’s not just annoyance and lust. I saw a glimmer of something in her today with the kids. Maybe she doesn’t know it yet, but she’s good with them. She’s got some learning to do, yeah, but so did I.

And I know she’s only here because she has to be, but I don’t know. Something about her makes me want to tell her. Maybe she needs to hear it. Hell, I don’t know.

“Ever heard of Nuclear Kool-aid?”

She looks at me like I just asked if she’d ever heard of the Beatles. “Uh… yeah, obviously. I’ve got all their albums in my Spotify. Ian Monroe is one of our generation’s greats,” she says, kind of dreamily, definitely a fan, which makes me smirk remembering her ‘don’t you know who I am’ moment a few days ago.

“Well, I was their drummer.”

She stares at me for a long moment in open-mouthed silence. “Holy shit,” she whispers. “You’re Serge Davenport?”

“How many Serge’s do you really think there are in the world?” I tease.

“You’re serious?!”

I nod, swallowing thickly. Maybe this was a mistake. Maybe telling her about my past was the wrong tact.

“You’re a drummer,” she says smacking her forehead. “Of course.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She grins. “It means I’ve seen you fumble with more than one instrument.”

“Yeah, well, I prefer sticks to strings,” I say defensively.

“Well, yeah, with your talent, I’d guess so.”

That just earns an eye roll from me. “So you know about my band. Do you also know what tore us apart?”

“Yeah, obviously— you’re the one that almost died, aren’t you?”

“I know better than to blame anyone else for the mistakes I’ve made in my life, but I can tell you that the pressure to be somebody is what drove me to heroin in the first place.”

She’s got her elbows on her knees now, her chin in her hands, looking like a kid that’s just met Santa for the first time, her eyes glittering with wonder.

“When are you going to get back to performing? I’ve seen videos of your performances… You’re a beast.”

I try really, really hard not to feel too proud about that, but I can’t help it. It’s been six years since the band split and it’s not like the drummer’s ever the one to get any recognition anyway, this little bit of fan excitement might be all I ever get again. Might as well enjoy it, right?

“No, that’s all behind me now,” I say. “I’ve got more important things to worry about now. Sobriety, mainly.”

She’s looking at me like she’s waiting for the punchline, but there isn’t one. I mean it. I almost died and it was a huge wake-up call for me. Ian, too, and now look where he’s at. He couldn’t be happier with his new wife and their jet-setting lifestyle on tour. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy really. Ian’s been my best friend for ages, so of course I’m happy for him.

But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little jealous. Jealous that he’s able to be on tour, able to do shows, meet with fans, and go to press tours, all without needing any help from our old friend. I just don’t think I can do it. Even getting on his plane from Atlanta last year made me itchy under my skin. And knowing the stuff was on board — thanks to someone trying to tarnish his good name — only made it worse. Sheer force of will was the only thing that got me through the following couple of weeks while Ian was too busy with his romantic interests to listen to my problems — not that I called him with them. I didn’t want to step in on his happiness.

But I know how close I came to ruining it all again. I know how tempting it is. I know how easy it would be. And above all, I know I need to keep my goddamn distance.

“You can’t mean that,” Tori says, voice full of disbelief. “You’re amazing. You—” She pulls her phone out of her pocket and quickly finds a YouTube video. “Look! Look at you!”

There’s a video of us playing live on stage probably seven years ago. I’m sweaty and pale, hammering out drum lines without a problem even though my eyes are barely open.

“Pretty sure I shot up right before that song, actually,” I say, my arm itching. I look away from the phone, that guy inside of it a stranger. Someone I don’t even know anymore.

“I can’t believe you have all that talent and you’re just going to throw it away,” she says.

“What good does it do anyone if I’m in a pine box?”

Tori sighs, shaking her head as she slips the phone back in her pocket. “I guess I’ll see you Friday?” she asks. I nod, trying to will the twitchy feeling under my skin to go away. As she leaves the room, she’s still sending glances over her shoulder at me, confused and defiant. I don’t really care what Tori Winters thinks about my life choices. There was a time when it was pretty fucking unlikely I’d make it to thirty, but here I am, and it’s without help from people like her thinking I’m wasting my talent, thank you very much.