CHAPTER 2 WAITING NATE
WAITING
NATE
Julian calls just before nine in the morning, when the light inside the studio is at its most honest.
Sun pours through the high windows, warming old timber beams until the whole place smells faintly sweet—like something that's been lived in long enough to soften. Dust floats lazily in the air, catching in the light like it has nowhere better to be.
This is the hour I like most. Before the world wakes fully. Before noise and expectations start pressing in.
There's something truthful about the quiet. Something that doesn't ask anything of you.
That's how I know something's wrong before I even answer.
"He's gone again," Julian says, skipping any greeting.
I don't respond straight away. Instead, I lean back against the console and let the words land in my chest without reacting to them.
Years ago, they would've hit like a blow—sharp, immediate, demanding action. My mind would've sprinted ahead to consequences, to damage control, to the familiar knot of fear that comes from caring about people who don't always know how to care about themselves.
Now, I give the silence room to breathe.
"Tommy?" I ask eventually, already knowing the answer.
"Yeah." Julian's voice is tight. "He didn't come home last night. Didn't say anything this time. He's not answering his phone either. Could you try?"
I see Tommy without effort—the way his shoulders tense when he feels cornered, the way his jaw sets like he's bracing for impact even when nothing is coming.
Tommy moves through the world like he's always waiting for the next hit, whether it's real or imagined.
He carries his restlessness in his body.
You can see it in the way he never quite settles, never quite arrives.
"Yeah," I say. "I'll give him a call."
Julian exhales slowly.
"It's been building, Nate. For weeks. He's goes M.I.A more often than not. Snaps at everyone. Pushes back on everything. Is late every session."
I stay quiet and let him talk.
"He keeps saying we're getting too polished. And playing it too safe. Like chaos is the only way to make anything real."
Tommy has always confused friction with meaning. Mistaken noise for depth. It's easier to feel alive when everything is burning.
"And it's starting to mess with the band," Julian continues.
"Sessions stall. Rehearsals get tense. Nobody wants to be the one who calls him out because we're all scared if we do, he won't come back at all.
But this is our chance, man. We've been working towards this for years.
And I don't know how much longer he can keep spiraling without dragging us down with him. "
There it is—the fear underneath the frustration. The part Julian hasn't said out loud yet.
"You're worried about him," I say gently.
"I am," he admits. "But I'm worried about all of us too."
Leadership sneaks up on you like that. One day you're just making music with your friends. The next, you're holding the weight of their futures in your hands, trying not to drop it.
"Has he been using again?" I ask carefully.
Julian hesitates, just long enough to tell me what he isn't ready to say.
"I don't think so. But I don't know."
I rub my thumb along the edge of the console, feeling the smooth wood beneath my skin.
"Let's not fill in the blanks with worst-case scenarios yet," I say.
He lets out a humorless laugh. "You always sound so calm."
"That took practice," I reply. "A lot of it."
Silence stretches between us—not uncomfortable, just thoughtful.
"He listens to you," Julian says eventually. "More than anyone."
"I'll talk to him," I add. "Just not today."
"Why not?"
"Because when people are running," I say, "they're not really listening. They're just trying to stay ahead of whatever's chasing them."
Another pause.
“Yeah, I guess,” Julian says quietly. “Thanks for not giving up on him."
"I think you should know by now, I don't give up on people.”
"I know," he says. "I'll come by later, if that's alright. Want to run through some tracks."
"Door's always open."
When the call ends, the studio settles back into its low, patient hum. The quiet feels earned, like it belongs here.
I wipe down the console slowly, deliberately. Every movement measured. There's comfort in structure—in knowing where things belong. Order is a kind of care.
I learned that when my life was nothing but noise, impulse, and damage control. Back when everything felt like it was either falling apart or on the verge of it.
That's why I struggle with people who live in the chaos.
Not because I don't understand it—but because I understand it too well.
Mom lets herself in while I'm reviewing yesterday's session logs.
She never knocks. Just nudges the door open with her hip, a white bakery box balanced carefully in her hands. Her cardigan is dusted with flour like she forgot to brush it off, and she smells like vanilla and sugar and something steadier underneath—earned calm.
"Vanilla slice," she says. "For you and the boys."
"Thanks, Mom," I say, taking the box. "You didn't have to."
"I wanted to."
She looks around the studio the way she always does—slowly, appreciatively, like she still can't quite believe this place exists. That this life exists.
"Busy day?" she asks.
"Was meant to be," I say. "Might not be now."
She raises a brow. "The boys giving you hell are they?”
"One of them."
She nods, reading between the lines without pushing. Mom's gotten good at that.
"You know," she says gently, "people don't always need fixing when they're falling apart. Sometimes they just need someone to stick around and guide them.”
I glance at her. “I’m trying.”
She smiles. "I know you are, honey.”
Mom used to move through the world like she was bracing for impact, apologizing for the space she took up. For existing too loudly in a life that taught her to be quiet.
That version of her faded slowly, replaced by someone confident—someone who knows her footing now after Scott died.
Scott used to fill rooms with money. Noise. Power. Proof of worth.
What people didn't see was the rot underneath—shell companies, stolen land, fentanyl seeping into Eden like a slow poison. Families pushed out. Futures gutted.
Jake tried to stop it.
The files he left behind were meticulous. Names. Dates. Transactions. A lifetime of quiet watching turned into evidence no one could ignore. He built a case with the kind of precision that felt like devotion—like he knew it might cost him everything.
And it did.
I didn't uncover the truth. I just made sure it landed where it couldn't be buried.
The cost was my brother.
Scott went to prison for a lot of things.
Money laundering. Racketeering. Aiding and abetting homicide—the warehouse fire that Monty set on Scott's orders.
The same one that killed Jake and almost killed me too.
But the thing I'll never forgive is the choice he made when he hired Monty in the first place.
When he decided protecting himself mattered more than his own son.
Monty is serving life.
Scott never did.
Brain cancer found him in prison. Slow and brutal. He spent his last months in the infirmary—machines marking the hours, his mother at his side.
Mom didn't go. She didn't owe him that.
The money he left behind—$187 million—came to us through his estate. Mom refused her portion without hesitation. Signed it away the day the lawyers showed up.
I did too.
The money instead went towards rebuilding South Eden. Rehabilitation and community centres were built. Community programs created. Along with food banks, after-school care. Addiction recovery support. Even low-interest loans for the families Scott had pushed out.
Mom built her catering business with her own hands. Her own money. Her own sweat. Now she feeds half of South Eden through what she earns, not what she was given. And she does it without asking for applause.
I help where she lets me. Quietly. Logistically. The kind of support that doesn't take anything away from the person doing the real work.
"Not that I'm trying to push you out," I say eventually, "but I've got to be somewhere in twenty minutes."
Her eyes soften. "Alfie?"
"Yeah."
She steps closer, rests her hand on my arm. Not to anchor me. Just to acknowledge something unspoken.
"Tell him I said hello."
"I will."
She kisses my cheek and heads back out into the day, carrying her life with her instead of dragging it.
We've come a long way.
Thursday mornings belong to Alfie.
They have ever since I got back from rehab. It started as something casual—me needing somewhere to go, him needing company after his health started to deteriorate. Then it became routine and an absolute necessity for us both.
Two years ago, when Alfie moved into the retirement home, the tradition came with him.
The retirement home is quiet in a way that feels intentional. Sunlit hallways. Soft floors. The kind of calm you only get when people are no longer rushing anywhere.
Alfie's room looks more like a study than a hospital—shelves lined with books, framed photos of Gracie on every surface, a leather armchair in the corner that Nick helped bring from the bookstore because Alfie's back couldn't handle the standard-issue furniture.
"Ah," Alfie says with his signature smile when he sees me. “There he is.”
“Sorry I’m late Alf.”
“No need to be sorry. It’s not like I have anywhere to be.” He gestures around with a grin.
His hands tremble when he reaches for mine, but the grip is sure.
"Tell me something, Nathaniel.”
He’s the only person I know that refuses to call me Nate. But I don’t mind it.
I tell him about the studio. About all the amazing opportunities and things that are in the pipeline. Then we talk about how Eden is slowly learning how to take care of itself again.
"You've built something good, son," Alfie says.
"I didn't do it alone."
"We never do," he says. "The ones who pretend otherwise are usually the loneliest."
We sit in comfortable silence. I'm halfway through East of Eden when Alfie speaks again.
"You know what I've realized?"
"What's that?"
"Dying isn't the hard part." He pauses, letting that settle. "Living is. That's what takes courage."
I look up from the book.
"Most people think it's the other way around," I say.
"Most people are wrong." His eyes are distant but clear. "The ones who wait their whole lives? Who keep putting off what matters? They're the ones who die faster. Not from illness or age, but from never really living at all."
"What do you mean?"
“We spend so much time being afraid—afraid to love, afraid to lose, afraid to say what we feel—that we forget we're already losing time just by waiting." He squeezes my hand. "The people who wait to tell someone they love them? They're dying a little every day they don't say it."
The words land heavy.
"Is that why you're not afraid?" I ask. "Of dying?"
"I'm not afraid," he says, "because I never waited. I loved Gracie loudly, completely, without holding back. And when she died, I didn't stop loving her—I just kept going, knowing she'd be waiting on the other side."
"That's a pretty good reason."
"It is." His grip tightens slightly. "Love doesn't end, Nate. It just waits. And she's been waiting a hell of a long time for me."
His voice sounds different this time.
Like he's not talking about someday anymore.
Like he's talking about soon.
"Don't wait," he says, and his eyes find mine with unexpected intensity. "Whatever you're holding back, whoever you're afraid to tell—don't wait. Because the hardest thing in life isn't dying. It's realizing you ran out of time to say what mattered most."
I sit beside Alfie, listening to the steady rhythm of his breathing. Silence used to feel like a threat—like something ugly was waiting for me in it. Now it just sits with me. And sometimes, in that stillness, I can hear the echoes of the people I've loved most.
Not as ghosts, but as reminders.
Alfie shifts slightly in his chair, his grip on my hand tightening for a moment before relaxing again.
His skin feels thinner than it used to, more fragile, but the warmth is still there.
And I hold on just a little longer than necessary, because my body knows something my mind isn't ready to accept yet.
I don't say goodbye.
Instead, I tell him I'll be back next Thursday, even though we both understand the quiet uncertainty wrapped inside that promise.
Some truths don't need to be spoken to be understood.