“Please,Ms. Clarke; call me Roman.” His voice was velvet and every word was gilded in gold.
“Okay,Roman,” I replied, pulling my hand from his. “And you may call me Tabitha.”
“Allright then,” he smiled, gesturing toward my chair. “Tabitha.”
NotTabby.
18
sebastian
“Okay, so this is my kit,” I said, stretchingmy arms out toward the seven-piece DW Collector’s Series kit with a tobaccostain burst finish and the Devin O’Leary logo emblazoned on the bass drum. “Andthis, is yours.”
Ididn’t think it was possible to get any big emotion from Greyson, but his eyesdamn near popped out of his head as he lunged into the room and bolted straightfor my kit.
“Holyshit,” he gushed, running around and gingerly sitting down on the stool. “Theseare yourrealdrums?”
“Well,I didn’t pull them out of my ass,” I laughed.
“Holyshit,” he repeated, running his hand over the glossy wooden shell of a tombefore reluctantly standing. He slowly edged toward the seven-piece PearlExport set. “This ismine?”
“Imean, if you want it, sure,” I said nonchalantly.
“Youalready set it up for a lefty,” he mentioned breathlessly, sitting down on theleather stool.
Inodded. “Yeah, I noticed you’re left-handed. I can play both, so that’s nobiggie if you need to mirror me.”
Theragged breath Greyson drew in worried me. Was the kid going to cry? I hardly knewwhat to do with a kid at all, let alone one that was crying. Was he pissed atmy attempt to impress him in the only way I truly knew how?
“You,uh … you really want to play with me?” he asked, looking up at me with anexpression I couldn’t begin to read.
Witha shrug, I ran my finger over the edge of a cymbal. “I mean, you’re fuckinggood, man; I’d love to jam with you. And I thought I’d offer to teach you somestuff, if you were interested.”
Greysonexhaled and his lips twitched before he shrugged. “My, uh … my teacher saidthere’s something new to learn from everybody.”
Inodded. “Your teacher’s a smart guy. I actually learned this new stick trickfrom my tech a few weeks ago. I’ve been traveling with the guy for threefreakin’ years and I only just picked this thing up.” I grabbed a pair ofsticks resting on the rim of one of my drums and held them up. “Wanna see?”
Greyson’seyes lifted to mine and he shrugged. “Yeah, sure. I mean … whatever.”
***
Inever thought I’d have a kid of my own, let alone one I could share my passionwith. I’m not sure there’s anything in this entire universe that could make mefeel more alive than that.
Iwished he was smiling as much as me. I wished he laughed more when I cracked ajoke, or snapped a drumstick in half after hitting the snare’s rim too hard.But it was okay, because he was there and he was enjoying himself more than hewould’ve a few days ago when we first met.
“Okay,”I said breathlessly, sweat dripping from my forehead, “I need to fuckingrehydrate. Let’s take a break.”
“Howmuch do you practice?” he asked, swiping his arm across his brow.
“Oh,fuck, kid. Uh …” I squinted up into the light, trying to pull the numbers. “Idon’t really time myself or anything, but it’s usually a few hours a day whenI’m not in the studio or on the road.”
Greysonnodded intently, taking in the tiny sliver of information. “I can’t practicetoo much.”
“Whynot?” I asked, laying my sticks down and getting up to walk to the door. “Youshould be practicing as often as you can.”
“Yeah,but Aunt Tabs doesn’t let me unless I’ve done my homework, and, you know …” Heshrugged, as though that were a good enough finish to his sentence.
“Well,”I said, sighing and opening the door, “you do need to practice and hone yourskills. But you should also be doing your schoolwork too. Education isimportant.”
