“Anytime.” He was watching me with an expression I couldn't quite read, and I wondered if he'd noticed.
We stood there in the quiet for a while longer, and I let myself just exist in the space with him without needing it to be more than it was. Eventually, the bar started shutting down for the night, and I helped him pack up the last of his gear.
CHAPTER TEN
the day the ducks chose violence
SOREN
Jamie's hands were on the bass drum, palms pressed flat against the skin, and I watched his face light up when I hit the pedal and sent the vibration through his fingers. His eyes went wide with that specific kind of wonder kids got when the world clicked into place in a new way, and I had to bite back a grin because this was exactly why I loved teaching him.
“Feel that?”I signed, keeping my hands where he could see them clearly. He nodded, grinning so hard his whole face scrunched up.“That's the heartbeat of the whole kit. Everything else builds off this.”
He moved his hands to different parts of the drum, testing the vibration in new spots, and I let him explore for a minutebefore guiding him back to the center. Teaching a deaf kid to play drums sounded impossible on paper, but Jamie had rhythm in his bones and a feel for music that most hearing kids would kill for. He just needed someone willing to meet him where he was instead of where they thought he should be.
I hit the bass drum again, slower this time, and watched him count the beats through the vibrations. His face was pure concentration, tongue poking out between his teeth the way it always did when he was working through a problem. Then he looked up at me and signed,“Can I try?”
“Hell yeah you can try,”I signed back, and his grin got impossibly bigger.
I moved his foot to the pedal and showed him the motion, keeping my hands on his ankle so he could feel the angle and pressure. He tried it once, tentative, and the sound came out weak and uncertain. But the second attempt was stronger, and by the third he was starting to get the rhythm down in a way that made my chest feel too full for my ribs.
“Perfect,”I signed.“You're a natural at this, kid.”
He beamed at me, and I had to look away for a second because the trust in his eyes always hit me harder than I expected. This was why I kept teaching him even when money was tight and my schedule was a fucking disaster. This right here. The way he looked at me like I'd handed him the keys to a kingdom he didn't know existed.
Through the window, I could see Finn and his grandpa in the garden, both of them crouched over a flowerbed and arguing about whether the soil needed more compost. Finn was gesturing wildly with a trowel, his grandpa was laughing, and the whole scene had this warm, chaotic family energy that made the house feel alive in ways mine never had growing up.
Jamie tapped my shoulder to get my attention, and I refocused on him as he signed,“What's next?”
“Next is the snare,”I signed back.“But first, show me that bass drum pattern one more time. I want to make sure you've got it locked in.”
He nodded seriously, like I'd just given him a mission, and went back to work on the pedal. I counted him through it with hand signals, keeping the rhythm steady, and he followed along with the kind of focus that would've made any teacher proud. By the fourth repetition, he had it down clean enough that I could start layering in the next piece.
I was just reaching for his hand to guide him to the snare when I heard the front door open and close, followed by Finn's voice calling out a greeting to someone I couldn't see from where I was sitting. Jamie looked up at me with a question on his face, but I just shrugged because I had no idea who'd shown up.
Then Rook walked into view.
My brain short-circuited for a solid three seconds, and I fumbled the drumstick I'd been holding.
He looked just as surprised to see me, stopping in the doorway with his eyebrows raised and his mouth slightly open like he hadn't expected me to be here either.
Finn appeared behind him, looking between us with an expression that was rapidly shifting from confused to deeply suspicious. “Wait. You two know each other?”
“Yeah,” Rook said slowly, still staring at me like he was trying to piece together how this particular situation had come about. “We went to high school together.”
“High school,” Finn repeated, and I could practically see the gears turning in his head. “You went to high school with Soren. The Soren who's been teaching Jamie drums. That Soren.”
“Apparently.” Rook's attention shifted to Jamie, and his entire face softened in a way that did absolutely devastating things to my ability to think clearly.“Hey, bud. How's the lesson going?”
Jamie launched himself off the drum stool and straight into Rook's arms with the kind of full-body enthusiasm that only kids could pull off. Rook caught him easily, lifting him up like he weighed nothing, and the smile on his face was so genuine and unguarded that I felt it like a punch directly to my chest.
Oh no. Oh fuck. I was in so much trouble.
Because Rook being competent and focused and devastating on the ice was one thing. Rook being sweet with kids was an entirely different level of unfair that I had absolutely zero defense against.
Jamie was signing at him rapidly, too fast for me to catch all of it from across the room, but Rook seemed to understand enough to nod and sign back,“I'm proud of you. Soren says you're really good at this.”
I needed to get my shit together. I could not afford to fall apart over a man who was absolutely, definitely, one hundred percent straight.
