6. Tennant #2
It had once been Dad’s den. His man cave had somehow ended up in the basement and Mom’s music room had taken over.
One whole wall was nothing but glass sliding doors that looked out on our back porch.
Each Rowe boy had spent thirty minutes every night getting instruction in our chosen instrument.
Guitar for Brady, sax for Jamie, and piano for me.
My brothers say I chose piano because I’m a suck-up, since Mom’s first love was piano.
Sometimes she joked that Dad was second fiddle to her piano.
“I’m so excited.” She sat down and got her phone situated on the music rack of her beloved Steinway. “Are you thinking of picking up your voice lessons again?”
“Mom, when would I have time for vocal lessons? I probably won’t have time to play this old girl much.” I ran my fingers over the gouged wood.
“You have a voice, Tennant, a damn good one. You should train for the day when hockey won’t support you anymore.”
“Mom, I’m twenty-two. I think I have a few good years left in me. You want to play a song together, or you want to harp about singing lessons?”
She made a sour face. “Fine, we’ll play, but I want you to keep vocal lessons in mind.”
“Yes, Mother. Pick your tune.” I wiggled around on the bench, rolled my head, and stared at my mother getting herself settled. She pulled the pink sweater around her shoulders off. Oh man. Shit was getting serious now. She’d taken off her sweater.
“Do you remember any of the classics?” she asked as she lifted the fall board on her Steinway.
“Concertos and stuff?”
“And stuff? Honestly, Tennant. How about “Für Elise”? You always enjoyed that one.” She sat up straight and proper, waiting for me. “Or we could warm up with “Turkish March” if you’re feeling cheeky.”
“Nah, I’m good with Beethoven. Then I get to pick one.”
“Remember your finger techniques.”
“Mom, can we just play?”
She gave me a wink and nodded at me to begin.
The first few notes were a little rocky.
Mom chirped at me to keep my fingers up.
I eased into the piece, and then we rolled into that damn march of Mozart’s.
Well, Mom blew it to bits. I kind of played backup.
We’d glance up from the keys from time to time, see each other jamming, and smile at each other.
The footwork came easily, but my left hand fumbled along, as it always did on this song.
“Mom. You are wicked skilled,” I told her after we had to end the song due to my major botch-job. She waved off the praise. “Okay, why don’t we do this one?”
I hit the opening chords to “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”, and Mom bounced like she was at an Elton John concert.
She’d been to twenty. No kidding. Twenty concerts.
She adored Sir Elton. The man was her keyboard god.
Dad teased her about being a Piano Man groupie.
All of us knew that if Sir Elton ever knocked on our door, Mom would run off with him, the fact that he was gay of no concern to her at all.
“Sing for me, Tennant.”
Like I could not? I sang for her because she’d asked and because I missed her.
I so wanted to talk with her about Mads and the feelings that were growing inside me for him.
But I couldn’t, and it hurt. Mom and I had always talked about everything.
Everything but my being gay, that was… I stumbled over the lyrics, winced a little, and got back to focusing on the song.
My voice wasn’t anything great, despite what she said, but I sure did like playing and singing.
When I glanced up, Mom was rocking back and forth on her bench, pretending she was holding a lighter over her head.
That broke me up. My fingers slid from the keys as I laughed out loud.
It was during the lull in the concert that I heard the knocking on my door.
“Crap, someone’s at the door. Be right back.”
I jumped up and left Mom at the piano. Smiling at our silliness, I tugged the door open. There stood Mads, looking at me with humor in his incredible blue eyes.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey.” His smile made all my language skills evaporate. My eyes skated up and down his body. Jeans, hoodie, smile. Sin on legs.
“Nice hoodie.” Oh. Wow. That was stellar, Tennant, since, you know, he’s wearing a Railers hoodie just like the one you have. You are a moronic dick-slipper. “They look good on anyone.” Did that compliment sound bad?
“You should have said that with a strong Rodney Dangerfield inflection.”
I snorted stupidly and nodded.
“You have no clue who Rodney Dangerfield is, do you?”
“No, I really don’t.”
“He’s a comedian.” Mads had that same weary look my parents got when they talked about dial-up internet, eight tracks, and Sassoon jeans.
“I listen to a lot of Bo Burnham.” And now it was time for Mads to look blankly at me. “He’s a comedian.”
“Christ, I’m old.” He chuckled lamely at his own not-really-a-joke. “I dropped by to see if you were okay. After that fight and our talk? You seemed disconnected and distant from the team during the game, and—”
“Can we hold onto this discussion for a few minutes? My mom is on the phone and I don’t want her to hear us talking about this.” I jerked my head in the direction of the piano.
“Oh, sure, it can wait.”
He started throwing off a vibe like he was going to leave. I really wanted him to stay and smile at me a little longer.
“No, it can’t. I want to talk about it.”
That was a lie. I didn’t want to talk about the fight or the slur or how it sucked having to worry about people finding out I liked to sleep with men. I opened my door wider.
“Just later, okay? Like, after I hang up,” I added softly.
“Sure, that’s fine.”
Mads stepped into my place. I hurried to close the door so he couldn’t bolt like a stray cat. I plastered on a smile and jogged back to the piano. There on the phone sat Mom, sipping something hot from a mug that had white flowers on the sides.
“You remember this guy, right?” I asked, all casual Friday as I sat back down on the bench.
Mads sat down beside me. My mother’s face lit up when she saw him at my side. His arm resting snugly against mine made me sunny too. The bench was really too small for two hockey players, but who needs to have both ass cheeks on their seat?
“Jared, how are you? Brady said you were coaching defense on Tennant’s team.” Mom lifted her phone, as if bringing it closer to her nose would make Mads bigger. Parents. Sheesh. “You look good.”
“It’s nice to see you again as well, Mrs. Rowe.” Wow, Mads was all proper parental-unit manners. “I feel good, thanks for noticing. You haven’t aged a bit.”
Mom giggled. “Oh, stop. You always did have a silver tongue. I’m going to go make myself a fresh cup of tea and get back to my Jimmy Garner movie so you two can talk hockey.
Jared, it’s been too long. Please stop by sometime.
Tennant, make sure you practice your scales and arpeggios daily now that you have a piano. ”
“Music teachers,” I murmured to Mads after we’d said our goodbyes. “You want a beer or something?”
“Water would be better for both of us,” he said, then pulled his hoodie up over his head.
I sat beside him, hands on my thighs, and gawked as his T-shirt came up with the hoodie.
Thank you, static electricity. I got a great peek at his chest as he struggled to tug off the hoodie but not the T-shirt.
The man was seriously cut. Hard, firm pecs covered with fine golden hair.
Tight abs that needed to be touched. By me. With my tongue.
“Right, water.” I shot up and hustled into the kitchen.
When I returned with two tall glasses of ice water, Mads had gotten his clothing back in place and was flipping through one of the sheet music books that had come with my new used piano.
The cubes in the glass clinked against the sides.
He glanced up at me standing there staring at him.
I held out a glass of ice water. He put the book in front of the other one resting on the music rack.
“I didn’t have any lemon or flavoring, so it’s just plain Harrisburg city water.”
“Yum,” Mads joked as he took the glass.
I sat back down on his left and sipped at my chemical-rich water. Mads took a sip, made a face, then gently placed the glass on the floor by his feet.
“When I was a kid, we used to go to this lodge up in Chicopee to ski,” he said.
“Along one of the slopes, someone—years ago—had run a pipe back into the mountain, and fresh spring water ran from that pipe all year round. I’d always stop and drink from it.
It was so cold it would make your head hurt like ice cream. ”
I nodded.
“That was the best water I’ve ever tasted.”
“Maybe when you retire for good you should move back to Chicopee and have that water every day,” I offered, because he was sounding kind of wistful.
“Maybe I will. So, how are you feeling about things?”
Shit. He’d spun that back around to me fast. I glanced at the sheet music book.
It was a Disney one. A few quiet seconds turned into several awkwardly quiet moments.
Mads shifted around on the bench. The time had come for me to reply, but I didn’t know what to say.
Lying seemed shitty. Telling more lies, that is.
But admitting to him that my feelings were all over the place when he was near didn’t seem like the way to go.
“Ten, if you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine.”
“It is?” I stared at the cubes in my water. They had tiny little air bubbles frozen in them. That was sort of how I felt. Like I had things trapped inside.
“It’s completely fine. Why don’t you play me a song?”
His request brought my head up and my eyes from my cubes. He was smiling again. Why did he do that? Didn’t he know he was deadly lethal to any man when he smiled?
“You do play,” he said. “I heard you rocking out in here. I’d forgotten that you did, to be honest. Brady plays guitar, right?”