Chapter 6
Side A
Remi
The house is too quiet. Painfully, unnervingly, hauntingly quiet.
I sit on the edge of the bed in my room, staring at the neatly folded comforter, hands still from where they’ve been fidgeting with the hem of my shirt for the last ten minutes.
Growing up in a house with five brothers, I didn’t know quiet. Quiet didn’t exist. Our floorboards creaked with chaos. Someone was always yelling over the sound of a video game or arguing about snacks. Laughter, music, fights about who got the last Pop-Tart. That was home.
This? This feels like the house is holding its breath.
And maybe I am, too.
They didn’t talk to me today. Not really. A few looks. Some side glances. A cookie-fueled truce that felt temporary at best. The silence at dinner wasn’t meant to exclude me—I stayed in my room on purpose—but the longer it stretched, the more it settled into my skin like I didn’t belong.
I reach for my phone.
Me:
You up?
Matthew’s typing bubble appears for half a second before it disappears. Then reappears. Then disappears again.
Classic Matthew.
Then my phone rings. I answer before the second buzz.
“Hey,” I say.
“You okay?” he asks without sayin hi. “It’s weirdly quiet on your end and that freaks me out.”
I smile despite myself. “You’re not wrong. This house is dead silent. Like, ‘you might be haunted’ silent.”
He chuckles. “Coleman doesn’t strike me as a ghost guy. Brooding billionaire, maybe. But not dead.”
“I didn’t say he was dead,” I say, flopping onto the bed. “I said his house is.”
“Same difference.”
I stare at the ceiling. “It’s just so… still. I don’t know how to be in it. I keep second-guessing everything I do. I didn’t even go to dinner.”
“Why not?”
“I thought they needed space.” I pause. “But maybe I was just scared.”
Silence.
“Rem,” Matthew says gently, “you don’t need to change who you are to fit into someone else’s rules.”
“I’m not trying to change,” I whisper. “But I don’t know if someone like me works in a place like this. I’m loud. I talk with my hands. I laugh too hard. I fill up space. This house already feels full—with grief and tension and walls so thick I can barely breathe.”
“They need someone to crack it open,” he says. “And that’s literally your specialty. You don’t even need tools—just cookies and chaos and that look you give people when they try to act like they’re not hurting.”
“Coleman has rules.”
“And you have a heart,” he counters. “A loud, beautiful, glitter-splattered heart. That’s what those girls need. Not another rule book.”
I close my eyes. Let the silence stretch.
“Thanks, Matty.”
“Always.”
I hang up, tuck my phone under my pillow, and try to ignore the ache crawling up my chest.
But it’s not guilt. It’s wanting. To help. To belong. To be a piece that fits in a puzzle that’s long been broken.
I get up quietly and pad barefoot to the door. I’m just going to grab a glass of water. Maybe sit on the stairs for a minute and breathe through the ache.
But when I open the door, I stop short.
Paige is standing in the hallway.
Oversized t-shirt, blanket trailing behind her, eyes wide as a deer caught in headlights.
“Hey,” I say softly. “Can’t sleep?”
She clutches her blanket tighter but doesn’t run.
I take that as a good sign.
“Heading to Payton’s?” I ask gently.
She gives the tiniest nod.
I smile. “Need an escort?”
She hesitates. Then shakes her head and tiptoes past me.
I don’t follow. I just stand in the doorway and whisper, “Goodnight, Paige.”
And for the first time all day— She whispers it back.
I wake up before my alarm, heart pounding like it knows something good is coming.
Today’s the day. I don’t know how I know that—but I feel it in my bones.
Today, I make a dent. A crack. A wedge in the guarded silence Payton and Paige wear like armor.
I pad barefoot into the kitchen, hair twisted on top of my head, hoodie half-zipped and playlist already queued up. The first notes of Fleetwood Mac hum from my phone, low and steady like the start of a storm I plan to bring with full sunshine.
Breakfast is my weapon of choice. Pancakes—fluffy, buttery, golden perfection.
Scrambled eggs—soft, not rubbery. Bacon—extra crispy because obviously.
Fresh fruit arranged like it belongs in a Pinterest post. Orange juice.
Real, not from concentrate. Chocolate chip muffins in the oven for backup in case I bomb.
By the time the scent fills the house, I can hear the creak of floorboards upstairs. Footsteps. A door opening.
Payton first—predictable. Then Paige, lighter on her feet. Then Coleman.
I keep my back to the door as I flip a pancake, letting the scene build behind me like a reveal in a cheesy cooking show. I can feel him enter the kitchen. Feel the judgment. Feel the sigh building in his chest.
“Remi.”
“Morning, sunshine,” I chirp without turning around.
“Didn’t we already talk about this?”
Now I turn. Hair messy. Spatula in hand. Brow lifted.
“Yeah, and I decided that rule is stupid. It’s no longer valid.”
His mouth parts like he’s about to argue. I raise one hand like a stop sign.
“Nope. I’m sorry, Coleman, but breakfast is sacred. I don’t care how many broody dad rules you have—this one’s mine now. Non-negotiable.”
He blinks. I spin back around and flip the last pancake with a flourish.
Behind him, the girls enter the kitchen, pausing in the doorway like they’re not sure if they’ve wandered into the right house. Their noses twitch at the smell. Their eyes bounce from the food to each other, then finally, cautiously, to me.
“Good morning, ladies,” I say, cheerful but soft. “I made a feast.”
Paige sits first. Payton takes a little longer, eyeing the stack of pancakes like they might explode. But she eventually sits beside her sister, elbow resting close.
Coleman lingers in the doorway, watching it all unfold like he doesn’t know what to do with it.
“Do I need to pull out a chair for you?” I ask, smiling over my shoulder.
He slowly crosses the room, pulls one out, and sits. Progress. We eat.
There’s laughter—small and surprising. Conversation that stretches longer than one-word answers.
Paige hums while eating. Payton tries to hide her smile when I tell them about the time my brother Tyler accidentally put salt instead of sugar in the cookie dough and fed them to his prom date.
By the time breakfast ends, they’re not just full. They’re lighter. So am I.
After breakfast, I pack up my courage and throw out the suggestion like it’s no big deal.
“I think we need a day out.” Both girls look up, eyes wide.
Coleman arches a brow. “A what now?”
“A field trip. A sanity adventure. A let’s-get-out-of-this-suffocating-house-and-breathe-somewhere-else day.”
He stares at me like I’ve grown a second head.
“We’ll start slow,” I say. “Rollerskating.”
Paige perks up. “I have skates.”
“Perfect. You’re already halfway there.”
“And then what?” Payton asks, suspicious.
“Then…” I grin, “we’re going record shopping.”
They both blink. “Like… vinyl?” Payton asks.
“Yes. Music. In physical form. Wild, I know.”
“But we have Spotify,” Paige says with a frown.
I gasp, dramatically placing a hand over my heart. “Blasphemy. Coleman, please tell me you’ve taught your girls about the glory of analog sound.”
Coleman sips his coffee slowly, deliberately. “I think I’ve been busy trying to keep them alive.”
“Excuses,” I say, grabbing my keys. “You owe them better.”
“I owe them?”
“You owe them vinyl clarity, Coleman,” I call over my shoulder. “Crisp highs. Rich lows. Album covers you can actually hold!”
He mumbles something under his breath, but I catch the corners of his mouth fighting a smile.
An hour later, we’re in the car.
By the time the wheels hit the pavement, Paige is singing along to the radio, and Payton is asking if she can wear her “edgy black hoodie” into the record store so she looks cool.
And me? I glance in the rearview mirror. They’re smiling.
Smiling.
And I feel it. That crack in the wall. Finally, finally beginning to open.
There’s something sacred about flipping a record over. It’s the pause between songs. The breath before the next verse. You don’t get that on a playlist. No time to wonder what’s next—no quiet anticipation. Just track after track, an endless blur.
But vinyl? Vinyl makes you wait. Makes you listen.
I tell the girls that as we pull into the parking lot of the record store. The building looks like it belongs in another decade—cracked brick, faded paint, and a handwritten sign in the window that says Support Your Local Sound.
Payton gives me a look like I’m trying too hard to be cool. Paige, on the other hand, looks like she might actually combust from excitement.
“You like old music?” Paige asks as she hops out of the car.
“Like Fleetwood Mac?” I smile. “They’re the reason I even started playing guitar. Stevie Nicks was a witchy, glittery goddess, and I’ve been chasing that energy ever since.”
Paige nods, taking that in like it’s a life lesson.
Inside, the store smells like aged wood and nostalgia. Dust motes dance in the light from the front windows, and the turntable in the corner plays something soft and folky—Joni Mitchell, I think.
We start to flip through the bins. I give the girls space, letting them explore while I pretend not to watch.
Paige is drawn to the colorful covers—anything with sparkles, pink, or wild typography. She ends up cradling Taylor Swift’s “1989 (Taylor’s Version)” like it’s a piece of treasure. When I ask why that one, she shrugs and says, “Because it sounds like glitter and heartbreak.”
Payton moves slower, more deliberate. She spends forever reading the backs of album sleeves, like the lyrics are clues to something only she can solve. Eventually, she chooses Billie Eilish’s “Happier Than Ever.”
“This one’s dark,” she says.
“Too dark?” I ask.
She looks at me, a little smirk playing on her lips. “No. Just dark enough.”
Coleman would hate this.
Which makes me love it a little more.
We linger by the listening station in the corner. I show them how to drop the needle, how to watch it spin, how to close their eyes and feel it.
For a few minutes… they do. And they don’t act like they’re waiting for the next person to leave. They just exist. With me.
I sneak a picture when they’re not looking—Paige smiling at nothing, Payton mouthing lyrics under her breath.
I text it to Coleman before I can second guess myself.
Me:
Your girls have excellent taste in music. Thought you’d like to see them being human today.
A few minutes later, he replies.
Coleman:
Thank you. I mean it.
Me:
They’re good kids. You’re a good dad.
It takes longer for the next text. But it comes.
Coleman:
They haven’t smiled like this in a long time.
I don’t reply. I just stare at the message, thumb hovering over the screen, and let it settle into the part of my chest I’ve been keeping guarded since I walked into his house.
I grab Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours” and Hozier’s “Wasteland, Baby!” for myself. Not because I need more vinyl—but because the moment feels like something I want to keep.
We leave the store with brown paper bags tucked under our arms and hearts a little lighter than they were when we walked in.
The day keeps moving—like we’re skipping stones across a lake we’re not ready to stop looking at.
We grab ice cream next. Paige insists on bubblegum with sprinkles.
Payton gets mint chocolate chip. I get vanilla, because it feels like the only way to earn their trust is to not have too much chaos in my cone.
In the car, Paige asks, “Do you think your guitar would sound good with Taylor?”
I glance at her in the mirror. “I think we should find out.”
Payton doesn’t say much, but I catch her watching me like she’s trying to decide something.
Like maybe… just maybe… she’s starting to think I won’t leave. Not yet, anyway. And if today was Side A—
Then maybe tomorrow…We flip the record.