Chapter 7 #3
I showed him a syncopated pattern that required him to play against the natural beat, creating tension and release.
Tricky even for experienced drummers. We worked through it piece by piece, me playing the base rhythm while he added the offbeats.
It took a few tries, but once he found the pocket his whole face transformed.
He was feeling the music now, not just playing it mechanically, and that was the difference between someone who could hit drums and someone who actually played them.
“That's it! That's exactly it. You've got it.”
Jamie beamed and kept playing, adding his own flourishes to the pattern like he'd been doing this for years. I let him go for a while, just watching the way his face scrunched up in concentration and then relaxed when he hit the groove.
From the couch, Finn had completely abandoned any pretense of watching the game. He was just sitting there with an expression that was half pride and half something else I couldn't quite name. When he caught me looking he mouthed, “Thank you.”
I nodded and turned back to Jamie.
“Alright. Last thing for today. I want you to create your own pattern. Whatever feels right to you. There's no wrong answer.”
Jamie looked at me skeptically. “Really? Anything?”
“Anything. Music is about expressing what's inside you. So show me what that sounds like.”
He thought about it for a second, and then he started playing. It wasn't any pattern I'd taught him — it was chaotic and weird and somehow perfect. He was combining elements from everything we'd covered, mixing in his own timing, creating something that was entirely his.
Messy. Unpolished. Brilliant.
When he finished he looked up at me with nervous excitement. “Was that okay?”
“That was better than okay. That was yours. And that's the most important thing.”
Jamie grinned so wide I thought his face might split in half, and then he launched himself off the couch and hugged me without warning. I froze for a second, caught off guard, and then hugged him back because what else was I supposed to do.
When he pulled away he signed, “You're my favorite teacher ever.”
“I've only been your teacher for an hour,” I pointed out.
“Still my favorite,” he insisted.
From the couch, Finn was watching us with that same soft expression, and when our eyes met he gave me a small nod that felt like more than politeness. Like he could tell I actually gave a damn about his brother and wasn't just here for the paycheck.
The thing was, he was right. I'd come because I needed the money, but somewhere in the past hour I'd stopped thinking about rent and started thinking about how incredible it was to watch a kid discover he was genuinely good at something.
Jamie was smart and funny and talented, and he deserved someone who saw that instead of just seeing a disability.
Music didn't require hearing. It required feeling. And anyone could feel if you gave them the right tools and the right encouragement.
By the time we finished, Finn’s grandfather had appeared from the hallway and thanked me profusely, promising to book another session soon.
“Tea?” he asked, already pulling mugs down from the cupboard. “Or are you one of those coffee-only people?”
“Tea's fine.” I sat down at the kitchen island and watched him move around the space with easy familiarity. “Jamie's great, by the way. He picked things up faster than most kids I've worked with.”
Finn's whole face softened when I mentioned Jamie. “Yeah, he's pretty amazing. Smart as hell, way funnier than he should be at his age, and stubborn enough to drive everyone insane.”
“Sounds like you're fond of him.”
“Understatement.” Finn set a mug of tea in front of me and leaned against the counter with his own. “He's basically the best thing in my life. Our parents don't really get it, but Gramps does, so Jamie spends most of his time here.”
There was an edge to his voice when he mentioned his parents. Not my business to ask about, but I filed it away anyway.
I took a sip of the tea and immediately regretted it. “What is this?”
Finn looked at his own mug and grimaced. “I think it's called 'Lavender Dreams' or some shit. Gramps buys the fancy stuff from that boutique place downtown. He thinks it's sophisticated.”
“It tastes like I'm drinking a candle.”
“Right?” Finn laughed and set his mug down like he was giving up on it entirely. “I keep telling him to just buy normal tea, but he's convinced that expensive equals better. Meanwhile we're over here choking down liquid potpourri.”
“Does he have any regular tea hidden somewhere, or are we committed to this floral disaster?”
Finn opened a cupboard and rummaged around, pulling out a box of plain black tea with a triumphant expression. “Found it. The good stuff. Hidden behind all the fancy garbage.”
“You're a hero.” I watched him dump out the lavender nightmare and start fresh. “I was genuinely concerned I was going to have to pretend to like that for the next twenty minutes.”
“Oh, I never pretend.” Finn handed me a new mug once the tea was ready, and this time it tasted like tea instead of a spa experience gone wrong. “Life's too short to drink terrible tea and lie about it.”
“Words to live by.”
We fell into easy conversation after that, trading stories about the weirdest events we’ve ever done — and in my case, played at. I told him about the time Luca had accidentally set his guitar strap on fire with a stage light and kept playing anyway because he thought it looked cool.
“That's insane,” Finn said, grinning. “Did it actually look cool?”
“For about five seconds, and then it just looked like he was an idiot who was about to burn down the venue.”
Finn snorted into his tea. “I feel like every band has that one guy who's a walking disaster but somehow makes it work.”
“Luca in a nutshell. The man's a mess, but he's our mess.” I took another sip and realized I was actually relaxing, which was weird considering I'd walked into this house fully prepared to spiral about the Finn-Rook connection. “You play anything, or are you strictly a hockey guy?”
“Strictly hockey. I tried guitar once when I was like fourteen and gave up after a week because my fingers hurt.” He held up his hands like they were evidence. “Turns out I'm better at hitting people with my body than I am at creating art.”
“That's one way to describe hockey.”
“It's an accurate way.” Finn grinned. “What about you? You always do the drumming thing, or did you have some other tragic career path before this?”
I hesitated, because talking about hockey felt like walking into dangerous territory when I was sitting across from one of Rook's teammates. But Finn seemed genuinely curious, and it wasn't like the information was classified.
“I played hockey in high school,” I said carefully. “Was pretty serious about it, actually. But life got complicated and I ended up going the music route instead.”
“Huh. Small world.” Finn didn't push for details, which I appreciated. “You any good?”
“I was decent. Not NHL-level or anything, but good enough that people thought I had a shot at playing in college.”
“What position?”
“Right wing.”
“Nice. I'm a center, but I basically just cause chaos and hope for the best.” He said it like it was a point of pride. “Coach says I play like a gremlin who discovered caffeine.”
I couldn't help laughing at that. “That's probably the best description of a playing style I've ever heard.”
“I contain multitudes.” Finn took another drink of his tea and then looked at me with this expression that was half curious, half something else. “Can I ask you a weird question?”
“Sure.”
“Why'd you seem so freaked out when you first got here? Like, before you started working with Jamie. You looked like you were about to bolt.”
“Just wasn't expecting the house to be this nice,” I said, which wasn't technically a lie. “Sometimes the fancy gigs make me nervous.”
“Fair enough. Gramps goes a little overboard with the whole 'wealthy grandfather' aesthetic.” Finn gestured around the kitchen like he was including the marble countertops in the conversation.
“But he's good people. And he loves Jamie more than anything, so I can forgive the excessive tea collection.”
We sat there for a minute in comfortable silence, both of us drinking our significantly improved tea, and I realized with some surprise that I actually liked Finn.
He was easy to talk to in that way people who used humor as a defense mechanism usually were — we recognized the same tricks in each other and let them slide without comment.
“I feel like I should mention,” Finn said suddenly, “that I've been talking about my life and my feelings to a guy I literally met an hour ago. This is not normal behavior for me.”
“Really? Because you seem like the type who makes friends with random strangers all the time.”
“I make friends, sure. But I don't usually get into the deep stuff this fast.” He looked genuinely baffled by his own behavior. “You're just really good at getting people to open up, or I'm having some kind of emotional crisis I wasn't aware of.”
“Could be both.”
“Deeply unsettling possibility.” Finn shook his head but he was grinning. “Anyway, before I start telling you about my childhood traumas and my complicated relationship with my parents, I should probably stop myself.”
“Too late. You already mentioned the parents thing. I'm officially curious now.”
“Shit, you're right.” Finn leaned back against the counter and sighed.
“Okay, cliff notes version: my parents are kind of assholes who don't understand why Jamie being deaf isn't a tragedy that needs to be fixed.
They keep pushing for surgeries and interventions he doesn't want, and they make him feel like he's broken.
So he lives with Gramps most of the time, and I visit whenever I'm not traveling for hockey.”
“That's rough,” I said quietly. “But it sounds like he's lucky to have you and your grandfather looking out for him.”
“Yeah, well. He's the best kid I know, so it's not exactly a hardship.” Finn's expression softened again the way it always did when he talked about Jamie. “I just wish our parents would pull their heads out of their asses long enough to see how amazing he is exactly the way he is.”
“Some people can't see past their own shit to recognize what actually matters.”
“Speaking from experience?”
I probably should have deflected, should have steered the conversation back to safer territory. But Finn's honesty made me want to return it, at least a little bit.
“Yeah,” I admitted. “My parents were a fucking disaster. Still are, actually. But my siblings and I figured it out without them.”
“How many siblings?”
“Three. I'm the oldest.”
Finn's eyes widened slightly. “You raised three kids? Fucking hell, man. How old were you when you took over?”
“Eighteen.” I said it like it was no big deal, even though we both knew it absolutely was.
“That's insane. I can barely take care of myself at twenty-three, and you were out here parenting multiple humans as a teenager.” He shook his head, looking at me with something that might have been respect. “That's seriously impressive.”
“It's just what needed to happen.” I shrugged, uncomfortable with the praise. “Someone had to do it.”
“Yeah, but most people wouldn't have.” Finn was quiet for a second, and then he said, “You ever have one of those moments where you realize you've been putting off doing the thing you know you need to do, and the longer you wait the worse it gets?”
I looked up from my tea, suddenly very aware of where this might be going. “Yeah. Why?”
“I don't know.” He shrugged, staring down into his mug like the answer was floating in there somewhere.
“I've just been thinking a lot lately about regret.
About the things I didn't say or do because I was scared or stupid or convinced there'd be more time later.
And then later comes and it's too late, and you're stuck with the weight of it.”
“You think it's ever too late?” I asked quietly.
Finn looked up at me, and his expression was surprisingly serious. “I don't know. Maybe? But I think not trying is worse than trying and failing. At least then you know.”
We sat there in silence for a minute, both of us holding our tea and carrying our own versions of things we hadn't said yet. Then Finn's phone buzzed and he checked it, his face shifting back into something lighter.
“I've got to head out for practice soon,” he said, standing up and rinsing his mug in the sink. “But thanks for working with Jamie. Seriously.”
“Anytime.” I stood up too, grabbing my bag and following him toward the front door. “And thanks for the tea. And the unsolicited life advice.”
Finn grinned. “I'm full of wisdom. It's a gift.”
I drove home with his words rattling around in my head.
I'd spent years surviving by handling what was in front of me and putting off the harder conversations until later. But Rowan had always belonged to the category of things I kept pushing aside, convincing myself there'd be time to deal with it eventually.
Maybe later had finally run out.
I pulled into the parking lot of my apartment building and sat there with the engine off, staring at my phone. I could call him. Right now. Could stop putting this off and deal with the mess I'd made.
My hand was shaking slightly when I pulled out my wallet and unfolded the napkin. The number stared back at me in Rook's clean, precise handwriting, and I felt my chest tighten with a feeling that might have been fear or hope or just exhaustion from carrying this weight for so damn long.
I needed to call Rook.
Not tomorrow. Not next week. Not when I'd figured out the perfect thing to say or convinced myself I was ready.
Now.
I just had to find the guts to do it.