Grace in Motion (Occupy Yourself #2)

Chapter One

Vic

Dinner would be late, probably burned, but Vic found he wasn’t so much on the hungry side of things now.

This could be because the volume of the screeching coming from his old man’s room was nearing metal concert decibels.

He slid off his bed and closed the door, hoping that thin as it was, it would at least keep the visual of the breakup at bay.

“You never gave a shit about my art, Rosie,” Cammi screeched, just a bit louder than the last ten times she’d screeched the same thing.

Cammi was his dad’s latest girlfriend, and while she was nice enough when not plastered out of her gourd, right now she was definitely plastered out of her gourd, and her feelings were hurt to boot.

“Nevah,” she shrieked, and Vic slid his headphones back into place, turning up the volume because he was already tired of listening to her.

Tired of listening to the collective of his old man’s women when they realized that the man they’d hooked up with, who was funny as shit, could party like a rock star, and also looked like the rock star he’d always wanted to be, gave all that up as soon as you met him.

Right off the bat, you knew every part of him.

Vic Montrose Sr., known to everyone far and wide as Rosie, held nothing back, which meant there wasn’t anything to discover.

He wasn’t holding a supremely nice guy at bay, wasn’t concealing a guy who gave a shit about anything but the current party, or the current beer.

Or, in this case, the next party along with the next beer—and now, clearly the next woman, seeing as how Vic had already seen Cammi haul her suitcase to the door.

But they hoped and planned, playing up sweet to both of the Montrose men and trying to find the door to that guy who never existed. They’d leave when their hopes were inevitably dashed and their life plans had been derailed, because chasing a ghost was a sure way to break your own heart.

Vic was jolted out of his music when his door slammed open. He looked up to see his dad staring in at him. Making a brusque motion with his hand, he instructed Vic to take off the headphones.

“Cammi’s history,” his dad said as soon as he’d complied.

“Got that,” Vic said and sighed, waiting for whatever would be coming next.

“Nashville called. Gonna go up and do some studio work. Blackbird Studios. Might turn into a regular thing with the band.”

That was good. His old man was far from a slouch on the guitar, and him getting called in on gigs at the Blackbird would pay bills Vic knew were piling up.

The fact that he was already making plans that were full of air and ready to pop wasn’t good.

That delusion meant his dad was away in dreamland, wishing up an unlikely ending.

“Sounds good, Pop,” he said, then waited again.

“Meg said they want you too. Drum track for demos.”

Meg meant Meghan Delorio, talent scout and main force behind a small independent record label.

This was both good and bad, because being a demo meant less money for the studio gig, but good because it showed she dug his drumming and might make good on the promise that he could beat the skins for her sometime.

“I got school and the football game,” he reminded his dad.

Senior year meant there wasn’t much more schooling left for him, since there wouldn’t be any money for college.

“Shift at Maggio’s too.” Maggio’s was the sandwich shop he worked at after school and on weekends, pretty much any time they’d schedule him and he wasn’t working a party.

He did DJ work too. Birthday parties and shit, mostly with little kids where you were guaranteed at least one multicolored spew fest, or older parties where kids whose folks had money celebrated things like their bar mitzvah or making the grades to graduate and get into a good college.

“So call off.” His dad shrugged. “You’re a good worker, never bail on them. They’ll get this is important.”

“School,” he reminded him, already anticipating the next shrug coming.

“Not like you’re going for perfect attendance.”

“Football game?” He could anticipate the dismissive response now, but he wouldn’t budge on this. He was lead on the drum line and proud of what his crew had accomplished already this season. They were the reason the fans were on their feet and cheering half the time.

“We’ll go Saturday morning, then. I’ll clear it with Meg, but she’ll be cool.”

Vic stared at his dad for a long second, then shrugged. “Fine. I’ll go.”

***

Thirty-six hours later, he was in Nashville, warming up behind a beautiful drum kit in a dimly lit tracking room at Blackbird Studios.

The air smelled like warm electronics, and that particular scent that came from creative tension.

Meg had set it up. Rosie had sweet-talked his way into the room, which was cool.

Vic loved the idea of playing with his old man.

Maybe this time the music was truly listening back.

Sitting on his throne for the first session, he couldn’t help but grin.

It was for Malachi “Mace” Buckley, a grizzled country singer in his late forties whose voice sounded like gravel soaked in bourbon.

The scent of coffee seemed to permeate the air around him, a wake-up call Vic had never needed.

He sat waiting, sticks balanced lightly in his hands, heart already racing with that familiar mix of nerves and hunger. He was more than ready to play.

Mace wanted a swing groove, something loose but muscular, the kind of vibe that felt like broken-in work boots stomping across an old wooden porch after a long day in the fields.

Vic listened to the scratch track once, eyes closed, letting the song sink into his bones. On the first take, he gave them exactly what they asked for: a relaxed kick-snare pocket, gentle push on the hats, and just enough forwards motion to keep the train rolling. It was solid.

Didn’t mean it was right. He knew he could do so much more.

For take two, he opened everything up. He loosened the hi-hat until it breathed like a sigh, slipped a soft ghost note onto the “and” of three so the snare had air around it, and added a subtle drag on the kick that made the whole groove lean back like a man settling into his favorite chair. The steel guitar wept in response.

They were three minutes into the song when Mace stopped playing mid-verse, spun around on his stool, and pointed straight at Vic with wide, shining eyes.

“That’s it, kid. That’s the damn thing I’ve been hearing in my head for six weeks and couldn’t explain.”

The control room erupted in whoops. Vic felt a quiet thrill race through his chest. This was the kind of electric moment when the vague idea from someone else became a real and solid thing under his hands. He wasn’t just drumming. He was translating. Turning emotion into motion. It was powerful.

And it was lonely.

No one else in that room would ever fully understand how much of himself he had to reshape, mute, or amplify to become exactly what the song needed.

They heard the perfect pocket. They didn’t see the seventeen-year-old kid who had already spent years learning to disappear inside someone else’s vision so the music could shine.

Still...it felt good. Really good.

And the next day when he showed up, the music was from a completely different universe.

The studio had been transformed into all glass and sharp angles, now populated by a polished pop-rock trio in their early twenties who looked like they’d stepped out of a fashion magazine’s spread.

Their producer, who was a fast-talking guy in designer glasses, kept repeating “tight, tight, tight” like a religious mantra.

Vic dialed everything back. He locked in with the click track like it was his own heartbeat.

His fills became surgical—precise, economical, no wasted motion, with no extra flair.

Every hit was intentional. When the singer nailed a tricky high harmony on the third take, she actually clapped her hands and pointed at him through the glass.

“You made that so much easier,” she told him during the break, handing him a bottle of water. “Most drummers fight the song. You were able to hold it up for us. To steady the contrasts in the melody so I could fly. Thank you.”

Vic smiled, accepting the compliment, but inside he felt the familiar double edge sharpen.

He could be whatever they needed. He was a chameleon, a shape-shifter, the ultimate support player.

It made him valuable and useful. Producers loved him because he kept studio time down by playing exactly how and when the singer wanted.

According to Meg, artists had begun to request him by name now.

But sometimes, in these quiet moments between takes, he wondered what would happen if he ever played exactly like himself for an entire session. Would anyone even want that raw, unfiltered version? Or was his greatest strength also the thing that kept him invisible?

The final session on the third day felt like coming home to something ancient.

They were in the smallest studio, where it was darker, and when he walked in, he caught the hint of whiskey, cigarette smoke, and years of sweat-soaked stages.

The three old-school blues guys who’d been playing juke joints since before Vic was born wanted the drums to feel like Saturday night in a sweaty club—no click, no rules, just pure feel.

His heart leaped at the idea, and during the first attempt, Vic let go completely.

He dug into the pocket with a dirty, swinging abandon, laying back on the two, pushing the one just a hair, throwing in press rolls and ghost notes that made the upright bass player grin like a kid stealing his grandma’s best cookies.

During the third song, which was a slow, aching blues in E, he dropped the volume almost to nothing, letting the silence breathe, then brought the whole kit crashing back in with a thunderous fill that felt like a freight train coming through the walls.

When the final note faded, the room fell into reverent silence for a long beat.

The leader, a grizzled guitarist everyone called Big Ray, looked at Vic with something close to awe. “Boy...you got old souls living in those hands. You ever think about doing this for real instead of just picking up session checks?”

Vic laughed, wiping sweat from his face, but the question lodged somewhere deep. “This pays the bills.”

“Someday you’re gonna want more, and I hope I’m around to see it,” Big Ray told him as he bent to unplug his guitar, ready to pack up. “I sure hope I’m around.”

Vic rode that high all the way home in Rosie’s beat-up Chevy, windows down, radio blasting whatever came on.

It was the kind of bone-deep satisfaction he’d never felt playing covers in smoky dive bars for tips.

For three straight days, he had been exactly what each song needed.

He had bent, adapted, muted parts of himself and amplified others—and had still come out feeling more like himself than ever.

He was still smiling when they pulled into the driveway at two in the morning, the satisfaction humming in his veins like the perfect afterglow of a great set.

The smile died the second they stepped inside.

The house was stripped.

Not messy. Not trashed. Emptied.

Cammi had taken everything she could carry.

The couch where Vic used to fall asleep watching late-night TV.

The TV itself. Rosie’s favorite guitar that had hung on the living room wall for years.

The kitchen table where they ate when they bothered to eat together.

Even the damn coffee maker—the one Vic had bought with his own deli money last Christmas—was gone.

And the most vicious cut of all was that Vic’s drum kit, his pride and joy, the one he’d saved for over two years working every shift Maggio’s would give him, was also gone. The corner where it usually lived was just bare carpet and faint rectangular ghosts in the dust.

The only things left were a few cardboard boxes in the corner, some clothes scattered on the floor that she apparently hadn’t wanted, and dust outlines where furniture used to be.

Rosie stood in the middle of the living room, hands on his hips, staring at the empty space like it might magically refill itself if he looked long enough.

“Well...shit,” he muttered, the words hollow.

Vic felt the rage boiling up hot and fast in his chest. His hands curled into fists at his sides so tight his knuckles cracked.

He wanted to yell. Wanted to grab his dad by the shirt and demand to know how he could keep doing this.

Keep bringing women like Cammi into their lives, letting her strip the house bare while he chased another “big break” that never came.

How he could be so fucking careless with the few things they actually owned.

But he looked at his dad, standing there with slumped shoulders and tired eyes, the rock-star charm suddenly looking worn thin and pathetic in the bare room—and the words died in his throat.

Yelling wouldn’t bring the kit back. It wouldn’t fill the fridge or replace the couch or fix the fact that they’d have to start over from scratch. Again. It never did.

Vic exhaled slowly through his nose, forcing the anger down into something quieter. Something manageable.

“I’m gonna call Maggio’s in the morning,” he said, voice low and steady. “See if they need extra shifts this week.”

Rosie looked over at him, guilt flickering across his face. “Vic...”

“It’s fine, Pop.” Vic forced a tight smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “We’ve done this before. We’ll figure it out.”

***

At sunrise, he stepped out onto the porch, the early-morning air cool against his skin, and dialed the deli. While the phone rang, he stared at the empty driveway where his dad’s latest “big break” had once again turned to dust.

The high from the studio sessions still hummed faintly in his veins—that intoxicating feeling of being able to become whatever the music needed.

He clung to the memories.

Because if he could make music feel that good, even for three short days, then maybe the rest of this shit didn’t have to define him.

Maybe one day he’d find a place where he could play exactly like himself...and still be enough.

“Maggio’s, this is Tony.”

“Hey, Tony, it’s Vic. Any chance you need extra coverage this week?”