9. Recognition #2
“I think your guitar might be broken,” he told her seriously. “Unless... wait a minute.”
He turned the guitar around the right way and played a simple, pretty melody. “There we go. I think the problem was user error.”
“You were holding it wrong on purpose,” Sofia said, grinning now.
“Maybe. But the point is, everybody starts somewhere. And everybody sounds terrible at first. Even me.” He handed the guitar back to her. “Want to try holding it the right way and see what happens?”
Sofia nodded, positioning the guitar the way she'd watched the other kids do it. Elias showed her where to put her fingers for a simple chord, then sat back while she tried it.
The sound was rough, her fingers not quite in the right position, but she'd made music. Her face lit up like she'd just discovered fire.
“That was perfect,” Elias said. “Want to try it again?”
For the next twenty minutes, I watched him work with each kid individually while somehow keeping the whole group engaged.
He was patient in a way that seemed effortless, encouraging without being condescending, and genuinely excited about every small breakthrough.
When Emma finally managed to switch between two chords without stopping, he high-fived her like she'd just won a Grammy.
When Mark played through an entire progression without a mistake, Elias whooped loud enough to make the other kids applaud.
And when Sofia, the quiet girl who'd been afraid to try, managed to strum along with the group for a simple song, the smile on Elias's face was so pure and proud that it hit me like a physical force.
This was who he was when he wasn't being careful around me. When he wasn't measuring every word and worrying about overstepping boundaries or saying the wrong thing. This was Elias in his element, doing what he loved, being exactly the person my mother had fallen in love with.
And fuck me, but I was starting to understand why.
The realization hit me like a punch to the gut.
This wasn't just about recognizing that he was a good guy, or appreciating that he'd made my mother happy.
This was attraction. Real, honest, physical attraction to a man who was kind and talented and patient and who smelled like coffee and something that was uniquely him.
A man who had been married to my mother.
My stomach lurched, but not entirely from guilt. There was want there too, sitting heavy and warm in my chest, and that was almost worse than the guilt.
“Alright, everyone,” Elias said, glancing at the clock on the wall. “We've got about ten more minutes. Anyone want to play the dinosaur song?”
The kids cheered, and Elias launched into a simple, silly song about a T-Rex who couldn't play guitar because his arms were too short. The kids joined in on the chorus, their voices high and enthusiastic, not caring that they weren't all in the same key.
I should leave. I should go back to the gym, finish my workout, and get out of here before he noticed me lurking in the hallway like some kind of stalker.
But then Emma, the little girl he'd been helping with her chord changes, raised her hand.
“Mr. Grant? Are you going to play at the talent show?”
“I wasn't planning on it,” Elias said. “The talent show is for you guys to show off what you've learned.”
“But you're really good,” another kid chimed in. “You should play a real song.”
“Yeah!” Sofia added, her voice stronger now than it had been all afternoon. “Play one of your songs!”
“I don't really write songs anymore,” Elias said, but there was something wistful in his voice.
“Why not?” Mark asked.
Elias was quiet for a moment, his fingers absently picking out a melody on his guitar. “I guess I just... haven't had anything to write about lately.”
The kids accepted this with the easy understanding that only children possessed, moving on to suggestions for what he should play instead. But I caught the sadness that had flickered across his face when he said he didn't write songs anymore.
My mother had mentioned his music in some of her letters. How he'd play for her sometimes in the evenings, how he'd written a song for their wedding that had made her cry. She'd been proud of his talent, frustrated that he didn't share it more widely.
Now I understood why he'd stopped.
The class was winding down, kids packing up their guitars and chattering about practicing for next week. Elias moved around the room, helping with cases and offering individual encouragement. I knew I should leave before he finished and caught me standing here like an idiot.
Instead, I knocked on the doorframe.
He looked up, and the expression that crossed his face was... complicated. Surprise, definitely. Maybe a little wariness. But there was also warmth there, the same genuine pleasure he'd shown with the kids.
“Rowan,” he said. “I didn't know you were here.”
“I was using the gym,” I said, gesturing vaguely down the hallway. “Heard the music.”
The kids had noticed me now, eight pairs of curious eyes studying the stranger in the doorway. I felt suddenly self-conscious, aware that I was sweaty and probably looked like I'd been wrestling with demons. Which, to be fair, I had been.
“This is Mr. Hale,” Elias told them. “He's a musician too.”
“Really?” Emma asked, bouncing slightly in her chair. “What do you play?”
“Guitar, mostly. Some piano.” I looked at their eager faces and felt my usual walls starting to crumble. “I write songs too.”
“Cool! Will you play us one?”
“Oh, I don't have a guitar with me,” I said quickly. “And you guys are probably ready to go home.”
“You can use mine,” Sofia offered, holding out her guitar.
I glanced at Elias, who was watching this interaction with an expression I couldn't quite read. He gave me a small nod, like he was saying it was okay if I wanted to.
I stepped into the room and accepted Sofia's guitar, checking the tuning quickly. It was a decent instrument, better than I'd expected for a community center program.
“What kind of song do you want to hear?” I asked.
“A dinosaur song!” Emma called out immediately.
“I don't know any dinosaur songs,” I admitted. “How about... how about a song about coming home?”
The kids nodded enthusiastically. I looked at Elias again, and this time I saw understanding in his eyes. He knew this wasn't just about entertaining children.
I started fingerpicking a simple melody, letting the muscle memory take over while I tried to find words that felt true. The song that came out wasn't polished or complicated, just honest.
“Sometimes you leave and think you're gone for good,” I sang, my voice rougher than it should have been for a kids' audience.
“Sometimes you run because it's all you know how to do.
But sometimes you find yourself walking down a road that leads you back to where you started, and maybe that's where you were supposed to be all along.”
The kids listened with the kind of attention adults rarely gave music, completely absorbed in the story. When I finished, they applauded with genuine enthusiasm.
“That was beautiful,” Sofia said quietly.
“Will you teach us that one?” Mark asked.
“Maybe someday,” I said, handing the guitar back to Sofia. “Keep practicing those chords first.”
The kids were gathering their things now, parents arriving to pick them up. Elias moved around the room saying goodbye to each of them, reminding them to practice, promising to see them next week. I stayed by the doorway, suddenly feeling like an intruder in this warm, easy world he'd created.
When the last kid was gone, we were alone in the multipurpose room. The silence felt loaded, expectant in a way that made my skin feel too tight.
“That was beautiful,” he said, looking at me with that same gentle expression he'd given the kids. “The song.”
And there it was again—that patient kindness that I didn't know how to handle. It made me want to say something cutting, to restore the safe distance between us.
“It wasn't much of a song. Just noise, really.”
“I don't think that's true. ”
“Yeah, well, you don't know me well enough to judge.” The words came out sharper than I'd intended, but I didn't take them back.
He absorbed the hit without flinching, just nodded and started packing up his guitar. Those careful, gentle movements that I was starting to recognize as his way of giving space when I got defensive.
Which only made me more defensive.
“I should get back to my workout,” I said, backing toward the door. “Thanks for... letting me watch.”
“Rowan—“
“See you around.”
I was out the door before he could finish whatever he'd been about to say, walking fast down the hallway like I was being chased. Which maybe I was, just not by him.
Back in the gym, I threw myself into my routine with desperate focus.
Chest press, shoulder flies, deadlifts that made my back scream.
Physical pain I could understand, could work through.
It was the other kind—the weird flutter in my chest when Elias had smiled at me, the way my pulse had jumped when he'd said my name—that I didn't know what to do with.
Because watching him with those kids had done something to me. Cracked open something I'd been trying to keep locked down since I'd walked into his living room and seen my mother's ghost in every careful gesture he made.
He wasn't just the man who'd married her. He was kind and patient and genuinely gifted, and he'd looked at me like I mattered. Not because of whose son I was, but because of the music I'd made in that moment.
And that scared the hell out of me.
I finished my sets and headed home, sweat cooling on my skin as I walked through Harbor's End's quiet streets.
But I couldn't shake the image of Elias crouched next to that little girl, adjusting her fingers on the fretboard with infinite patience.
Or the way he'd looked when I'd played that fragment of a song—like he'd heard something worth listening to.
I was in trouble. The kind that had nothing to do with grief or guilt or any of the things I'd come here to figure out.
I was starting to want something I had no business wanting. And I didn't have the first clue what to do about that.