18

sebastian

 

“Okay, so this is my kit,” I said, stretching my arms out toward the seven-piece DW Collector’s Series kit with a tobacco stain burst finish and the Devin O’Leary logo emblazoned on the bass drum. “And this, is yours.”

I didn’t think it was possible to get any big emotion from Greyson, but his eyes damn near popped out of his head as he lunged into the room and bolted straight for my kit.

“Holy shit,” he gushed, running around and gingerly sitting down on the stool. “These are your real drums?” 

“Well, I didn’t pull them out of my ass,” I laughed.

“Holy shit,” he repeated, running his hand over the glossy wooden shell of a tom before reluctantly standing. He slowly edged toward the seven-piece Pearl Export set. “This is mine?”

“I mean, if you want it, sure,” I said nonchalantly.

“You already set it up for a lefty,” he mentioned breathlessly, sitting down on the leather stool.

I nodded. “Yeah, I noticed you’re left-handed. I can play both, so that’s no biggie if you need to mirror me.”

The ragged breath Greyson drew in worried me. Was the kid going to cry? I hardly knew what to do with a kid at all, let alone one that was crying. Was he pissed at my attempt to impress him in the only way I truly knew how?

“You, uh … you really want to play with me?” he asked, looking up at me with an expression I couldn’t begin to read.

With a shrug, I ran my finger over the edge of a cymbal. “I mean, you’re fucking good, man; I’d love to jam with you. And I thought I’d offer to teach you some stuff, if you were interested.”

Greyson exhaled and his lips twitched before he shrugged. “My, uh … my teacher said there’s something new to learn from everybody.”

I nodded. “Your teacher’s a smart guy. I actually learned this new stick trick from my tech a few weeks ago. I’ve been traveling with the guy for three freakin’ years and I only just picked this thing up.” I grabbed a pair of sticks resting on the rim of one of my drums and held them up. “Wanna see?”

Greyson’s eyes lifted to mine and he shrugged. “Yeah, sure. I mean … whatever.”

 

***

 

I never thought I’d have a kid of my own, let alone one I could share my passion with. I’m not sure there’s anything in this entire universe that could make me feel more alive than that.

I wished he was smiling as much as me. I wished he laughed more when I cracked a joke, or snapped a drumstick in half after hitting the snare’s rim too hard. But it was okay, because he was there and he was enjoying himself more than he would’ve a few days ago when we first met.

“Okay,” I said breathlessly, sweat dripping from my forehead, “I need to fucking rehydrate. Let’s take a break.”

“How much do you practice?” he asked, swiping his arm across his brow.

“Oh, fuck, kid. Uh …” I squinted up into the light, trying to pull the numbers. “I don’t really time myself or anything, but it’s usually a few hours a day when I’m not in the studio or on the road.”

Greyson nodded intently, taking in the tiny sliver of information. “I can’t practice too much.”

“Why not?” I asked, laying my sticks down and getting up to walk to the door. “You should be practicing as often as you can.”

“Yeah, but Aunt Tabs doesn’t let me unless I’ve done my homework, and, you know …” He shrugged, as though that were a good enough finish to his sentence.

“Well,” I said, sighing and opening the door, “you do need to practice and hone your skills. But you should also be doing your schoolwork too. Education is important.”

“Why?” He followed me down the stairs. “You didn’t go to college.”

“No, I didn’t.” I walked across the living room to the kitchen, talking over my shoulder as I went. “Not every path leads to college, and I’m a firm believer that you shouldn’t push it if it genuinely isn’t for you. No sense in blowing that type of cash on a degree just because society tells you to.”

“See? That’s what I tell Aunt Tabs,” Greyson replied, nodding enthusiastically as I opened the refrigerator and grabbed a couple bottles of water. “I don’t need no education.”

“Hold up, Pink Floyd,” I interjected, raising a finger while closing the fridge. “Just because I knew I didn’t want to go to college, doesn’t mean I didn’t keep my grades up in school.”

“Why does it even matter?” he grumbled, taking a bottle from my hand.

“Because the reality is, kid, you might not go on to do what I do. You might play your first show and realize you fucking hate performing in front of people. Which is cool. It’s not for everybody. But then what? What if you decide to become a music teacher? Or open up your own studio? You’re gonna need that education then, and if you don’t have it, well …” I cocked my head and grimaced. “Can’t be that teacher if you’re a high school dropout, you know what I’m saying?”

Greyson’s brows knitted together, his brow crumpled with thought, and he nodded. “That makes sense.”

Maybe I’m not so terrible at this dad shit after all. “But hey, if that first show goes well, I have connections out the ass, so you’ll be set for fucking life.”

Then he grinned, uncapping his bottle. “You better hook me up, man.”

Man. I would’ve given my right arm to hear him call me Dad. But I settled for the smile and the bonding experience.

“You’re a lot cooler about this shit than Aunt Tabs,” he muttered, after taking a sip of water. “You explain it better, instead of just getting mad.”

Folding my arms against the counter, I sighed and carefully selected my words. “Yeah, but you know, your aunt’s trying really hard to do what’s best for you. You’ve both had some shitty stuff happen recently.”

“Yeah,” he mumbled, casting his gaze toward something distant. “She doesn’t want me though.”

There’d been times in my life where I’d wondered about my own sense of compassion and whether or not I still had a heart, or if it had been hardened by the road. But that moment reminded me of the organ still thumping in my chest, as it pulsed with an ache too real to be phantom.

“Greyson, she does,” I nodded assuredly. “She just wants to help you.”

“Yeah, by making you want me instead,” he snickered, shaking his head.

For a second, I actually wondered if he was right, until I remembered there wasn’t much a teenager said that wasn’t a gross exaggeration of the truth.

“Well, I’m sure that’s not true,” I said, my tone sure and firm, before I decided to add, “But if you ever want to get a break from her, you can always come and hang out here. I’ll keep your ass in check, and let you beat the shit out of my drums, okay?”

Dark brown eyes met mine, searching for the assurance that I was serious. That I wanted him. That he wasn’t a burden.

Then, he nodded. “Cool,” he said simply, unsuccessfully hiding his smile.

With a glance at the clock, I noted the time. It was a little after four in the afternoon. My mom would be over soon. Where the hell was Tabby? I knew I shouldn’t be keeping tabs on her, but she’d already been gone for nearly six hours. How long did business meetings usually take? And why the fuck did I even care?

Because she kissed me.  

The thought made me smirk, and I turned to grab an apple from the opposite counter, letting Greyson get a good look at my back while I stewed in my thoughts.

Why did it matter if she kissed me? Plenty of women had kissed me. Hell, most of them had done a lot more than just kiss. It never made me feel at all like I had to keep tabs on them. More often than not, I never had a way of staying in touch with them in the first place. So, what the hell was it about her that gave me that feeling? Why did I care?

The front door opened and that only meant one thing.

“Bastian!” My mom announced her arrival with her signature shout.

I spun on my heel, staring at Greyson. “That’s my mom,” I whispered to him. “You ready?”

Greyson shrugged. He had no idea what he was in for.

“In here, Mom,” I called, leaning against the counter and eyeing the doorway.

“I brought your lasagna and I made some Itali—” Her voice caught in her throat at the sight of the fifteen-year-old boy. A shaking hand covered her mouth as she stepped forward, approaching him warily and eyeing him with the worry that he might be a mirage. “Oh my God, you’re real. You’re a real boy.”

My ridiculous brain danced with images of wooden puppet boys and I shook my head, pushing a hand through my hair. “What were you expecting? Pinocchio?”

She looked to me and shrugged with the tray of lasagna and loaves of bread still in her arms. “W-well, I … I don’t know, Bastian! I thought you were kidding! I never know with you,” she practically screeched, turning to Greyson before saying, in a much friendlier tone, “I never know with him. He’s always calling me with one ridiculous thing or ano—”

“What? I never do that,” I disputed.

“There was that one time when you called and told me that you broke your sister’s leg and—”

“I was twelve!” I laughed. Greyson was staring at me, jarred and unsure, and I shook my head at him. “Don’t worry. My mother’s insane, but she’s harmless.”

Mom walked over to me with purpose, swatting at the side of my head with a loaf of garlic bread. “Don’t you tell him I’m insane. Do you really want that to be his first impression of me?”

“You don’t need me to say it, Mom. You’re doing just fine on your own,” I winced, rubbing at the spot on my head and rolling my eyes back to Greyson, only to find him smiling. “Greyson, this is my mother, Ronnie. Mom, this is Greyson.”

With her eyes fixed on him, my mother slid the metal tray onto the counter, and clapped her hands over her heart. “Hi Greyson,” she uttered in a whisper, her voice immediately choked with emotion.

“Hey,” he replied, surprising me with a friendly tone to his voice. Surprising me more with his smile.

“Bastian didn’t tell me what a handsome boy you are. God, will you just look at you? You look just like …” She turned to me, looking into my eyes and revealing the tears in hers. “Well, you look just like your father.”

“That’s what my mom used to say,” Greyson said, and both my mother and I turned to him with a mutual gasp.

“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry about your mother,” Mom spoke over me as I found myself asking, “She did?”

With a smile directed at Mom, he thanked her with a politeness I hadn’t seen in him before. Then, when he diverted his attention to me, he answered, “Yeah. I don’t … I don’t think she wanted me to hear it, but she’d say it to Aunt Tabs sometimes.”

I nodded. “Right.”

“Didn’t you say his aunt was here? Is she eating with us?” Mom busied herself with preheating the oven and unwrapping the loaves of bread.

“Uh, I don’t know when she’ll be back, but—” The broken chime of the doorbell pierced my eardrums as the three of us winced in unison. “Fuck, I really have to fix that thing.”

“We both know you’re not fixing shit,” Mom muttered under her breath. “You might as well pay someone—”

“I’m not paying someone to do something I can do myself,” I shot back at her as I headed toward the door, opening it to reveal an exhausted Tabby. Her high-heeled shoes from the morning had been replaced with a dirty pair of Converse. “Thumbelina, lovely for you to join us.”

“Oh, you’re not going to ask how the meeting went?” she chided, pushing past me and into the house, before dropping her briefcase on the floor like she lived here.

“So sorry, sweetheart. Please, tell me; how did your meeting go? Can I take your coat? Rub your feet? Should I fix you a cocktail?” I quipped, smirking at her as I closed the door and headed back into the kitchen.

“Oh, ha-ha,” she drawled while following me, only to gasp at the sight of my bustling mother. “Sebastian, why didn’t you tell me you had company? I wouldn’t have—”

“Been so rude? Yeah, I wanted my mom to hear how you talk to me before she tries to set me up,” I told her with a grin before making the introductions.

“Tabby,” my mom grasped Tabby’s hand between both of hers, “it’s lovely to meet you, and aren’t you gorgeous! Bastian, isn’t she just stunning?”

“Smokin’ hot, Mom,” I agreed halfheartedly, but meaning every word, as the oven announced it was sufficiently preheated.

“Wow, your mom is so nice, Bastian. That’s surprising,” Tabby quipped with a teasing smirk as I opened the oven door to shove the lasagna in. “What happened to you?”

Mom released Tabby’s hand only to grip her shoulders, smiling the way she had when meeting my sisters’ husbands. Like she knew something we didn’t. Some sixth sense only mothers are bestowed with. It took everything in my power not to tackle the woman who had birthed me, pick her up like a football, and send her sailing out the front door.

“Trust me, my boy was raised with my three daughters. He sure knows how to push buttons, but underneath all that? He is as sweet as a newborn calf,” Mom assured Tabby, squeezing her shoulders and making me increasingly more uncomfortable with every tick of the clock.

“The barnyard analogies, Mom. Seriously.” I scoffed, shaking my head.

“It’s what I know,” she shrugged, never taking her eyes off Tabby.

Speaking over my mother’s head, I looked Tabby in the eye. “You’d never know this woman was raised in the heart of Brooklyn. Just, you know, throwing that out there.”

I waited for Tabby’s usual jab in my direction or a roll of her eyes, the things I had come to expect in the short time I’d known her. The stuff that might’ve happened before she upset the balance and kissed me, before I then egged her on and kissed her. But they didn’t come.

Tabby’s eyes left mine, settling on my mom’s as she took the older woman’s arm and led her into the living room. She beckoned Greyson to follow, before bombarding Mom with questions about my sisters and our upbringing. All with a startling amount of genuine interest. I’m not sure she realized what she was doing by asking questions, and then asking some more between nods of her head and sweet smiles. But I knew exactly what was happening, as I watched the clock and timed the lasagna and garlic bread.

I’m in so much fucking trouble.