Chapter 19: Drummer Boys Meet Their Destiny

Well, it's a chapter we've all been waiting for. There's laughter, there's feels...and then there something unexpected at the end. At least, I think it was unexpected. I've been trying not to give it away...

The song. Apologize. One Republic. Timbaland.

Watch the video and pay attention to the image at 33 seconds. See the drummer holding his sticks still, in the upmost restraint. That's Bodie. Holding the knowledge that he's Darius' father. And also...he'll be holding the revelation he comes by at the end of the chapter. Because Bodie knows...at thirteen, Darius is just not ready for that kind of truth...

Bodie

"You gotta be fucking kidding me," I mumble to Preston. "That's TJ's place?"

TJ used to stay down the street from me. But right now I'm staring at this brand new overgrown spec house that's been erected right beside the little subsidized public housing project house my mom was lucky to get and struggled to keep my whole life.

The place I used to live is in the worst shape I've ever seen it. Peeling paint, rotting porch, overgrown bushes in the yard.

TJ's three story home barely fits the lot. It's planked in wood siding and painted in Wexford Blue, complete with stone accents, newly planted saplings, and a sod yard. The yard is currently yellow in the winter, like many of the lawns I used to mow as a teen in North Atlanta. Bermuda grass. Expensive grass.

I snort. I bet that place has even got a sprinkler system. Seems like a good idea to keep that sod nice, but it's not.

When those sprinklers go off, every kid in this neighborhood is gonna be running around in that scrap of greenspace. That yard is gonna be as muddy as our high school football field at the end of a long rainy season.

But I guess his sod will just get replaced, Just like the house that was torn down to make way for TJ's McMansion.

"Yeah. It's...nice. Real nice. TJ is a good dude. Uhhhhm...you gotta beef with him or something?" Preston says nervously, picking up on my irritated vibe.

Poor kid is suddenly worried he's on the wrong side of a situation, and he's just been seen with me at the trap—Sixmob's latest stash house.

I clap him on the shoulder. "Don't worry, Prez. This ain't no drive-by. TJ's my boy from the way back. We got beat in the same summer. He was one of the few lucky Sixers that didn't go to jail that summer."

"Ohhhhh, you mean the Great Raid," Preston gives me the chin tip. "Yeah Dawg, I know about all that. We had to learn it all for the initiation conference. After half the gang went to jail, TJ kept er'body together during the dark times after. Sixmob wouldn't-a survived if it weren't for him. But then he saw a bigger vision, and he turned Six over to Big Mike, so he forge a better future for us. That's why he went straight, so he could pull us all up. Now, Dae's back and we finally gonna get there. Get...that," he gestures at TJ's new house. "Er'body in Sixmob is gonna be ballin."

"The Great Raid?" I rub a hand over my face. "Wait, never mind about that. What's an initiation conference?"

"You know...where all the OG's call you in and ask you questions about the history of the gang and shit?"

No, I don't know. In my day, a wannabe thug was Daemon's bitch for a year or so, and then they beat the shit out of you and that was it. Oh, except for me, who got the mind games, too.

"You're serious? You have to pass an oral exam now, to get in the gang?"

"Well...I mean...you still gotta get jumped in," he concedes.

I stare at Preston, confused and conflicted as fuck. Ok, yeah, sounds like Daemon is making big changes, but...what the hell is Daemon feeding these kids? It's like he's pushing...a religion, a vision that just ain't gonna happen for all these kids.

A corner dealer? Makes less money than working part time at MacDonald's. Only people ballin in the current scheme, are the OG's.

And if they all go legit? The recruits? They still won't be in the money. They aren't all gonna own three businesses like TJ. They are gonna be working for a legitimate living wage, hopefully, but that don't mean they all get their own McMansion.

Still, I get it. Everybody wants the dream. Shit, I wanted it. So damn bad, I walked away from law school to follow my passion with music and throw in with Soundcrush.

It paid off. I'm living the dream I dreamed.

Now I've risked it all for a fucking stream of poison I pump in my arm multiple times a day.

Staring at TJ's house, I realize that the dream I dreamed...it's never been fully formed. There's a light in those windows, and it looks warm. The kind of light that draws you in.

Then I see him.

A kid with in a sweatshirt and a beanie. His shoulders already broad but his frame all gangly as he flops down on a couch with a bowl of something.

"I gotta go..." I say, unlatching my seat belt, "Uhhhmm...look," I glance at Prez. "You got my number, Dawg."

"Yeah," he says, sounding disappointed. "You can call me if you need...service."

I shake in the negative. "I'll be in detox next week.. I won't need your service. But I always return favors, so if you need anything, you call me. I'll see what I can do. I'll have our publicist send you a shit ton of swag, too. And VIP package this summer to Shaky Knees...we always play the Atlanta festival, when they want us...and they want us this year..."

Preston scrapes through his short bleached blonde hair and grins, but then puts his thug face on. "That's cool, Dawg. Thanks. Good luck with the...detox thing," he sounds skeptical.

Probably because I just bought a bundle of dope from the trap.

"Thanks." We fist bump and I exit. I point a warning finger back through the window. "Do NOT be giving my number out, Dawg. And don't tell fucking anybody you saw me, until you see on my Insta that I'm...back in the country. I'm supposed to be in Thailand."

"Oh, I get it . Thailand is code for rehab." He grins.

"Something like that," I mumble as he drives off in his silent electric car.

Now, I'm alone on the sidewalk between my old house and TJ's new one, watching the kid through gleaming windows.

He takes his cap off—pulling it off from the back first, just like I do. Jesus, the way he reaches back like that, the way his arm moves...it's just like me.

I've seen myself on plenty of video footage, to recognize the gesture.

That freaks me the fuck out. I can see how mannerisms can be learned when a child watches and copies parent, but I've never met the boy.Yet he takes his hat off with the same weird motion as me. Where the fuck does that kind of thing come from? Just some similarity of muscle and bone and brain? Form and natural function bred in the genes?

Suddenly I wonder if his brain and hands work like mine in other ways. If the kid is musically inclined.

Before I even know what's happening, I'm at the door.

They've got one of those Ring doorbells, but I press it and nothing happens. I press it again and nothing.

Shit. It's the kind you have to take inside and charge instead of being hardwired. And it's dead. I rap on the door. The kid doesn't hear me.

I see he's got Airpods in and is multitasking—watching Youtube on his Iphone and a basketball game on the seventy inch TV.

Wow. This kid has some fucking swag to be thirteen. Marley working two jobs to give him all that shit and send him to private school?

Seems just like my mama. Except she worked two jobs to keep a roof over our heads and the only swag I had was one good pair of nice shoes at all times, a few decent name-brand t-shirts and some rented band instruments.

Guilt and anger and shame flood me.

I pound harder on the door.

That gets his attention. The kid turns from the couch and I see his face for the first time.

No, he doesn't look like me. But he looks like me.

He stills, his eyes narrowing in rapid thought as he assesses me.

Suddenly I realize what I must look like...a hooded figure bouncing on his toes in the shadows of his unlit porch.

He might have grown up in a house like this, but he's lived in this hood his whole life. He knows a sketch dude when he sees one.

I pull my hoodie and hat off and move toward the window, tapping lightly, smiling.

I was about to open my mouth and ask for TJ--see if I could make him hear me through the closed window—but the kid is off the couch like a shot, beating it up the stairs in the foyer.

Fuck, really?

Okay, there's probably somebody else home. I knock again, trying to strike a balance between aggressive pounding and too light to be heard by somebody in the back of the house.

After a couple minutes, the kid comes back down the stairs and moves slowly toward the window. I move to meet him there.

Moving face to face with him...our carriage so similar. Even through the glass separating us, I feel it. He's my son, and I don't how the fuck Marley and TJ don't feel it too.

"Hey," I say.

Jesus. That's fucking great. Hey is all I got?

I smile at him. He frowns at me.

"Whatchyou want?" he says in a voice that he's intentionally deepening.

What do I want, kid?

I want to give you a hug.

Whoa there, Bodes. Slow down, dude. You really can't lead with a Leed move, here.

"Uhhh...is your uncle home? TJ? TJ Turner?"

"Yeah," he says with the deep voice. "But he doesn't do business here. You go around the shop tomorrow, if you need to see him."

"Yeah, uhhh, this is not about a car, okay? I know TJ from way back. We grew up together..."

Darius' eyes are still squeezing and his brows look dark and angry. He's got a little fuzz above his scowling lips.

Fucking little punk. I grin, remembering how bad-ass I thought I was working up a goatee like that at his age.

"You don't want TJ, man. He doesn't do the kind of business you are looking for anymore. Get on out of here."

I blink. Shit. The kids knows. That TJ used to be a drug dealer. That surprises me. I guess it shouldn't.

I been thinking of Darius like...well, like my little cousins, who live down in Athens. Or like Adam's nieces and nephews. Kids who've grown up sheltered. In the suburbs. In the country.

Darius is a city kid. And he's mine and Marley's son, so he's probably pretty fucking sharp. He knows the same kind of shit I knew at his age.

He knows about drugs, gang life, guns, sex, probably...

Jesus Christ, I'm not prepared for this. This is a steep fucking learning curve I'm in for as a parent.

"That's not what I'm here for either, kid. I swear. Look, just go get your Uncle, he'll let me in."

"No. Leave. Call him tomorrow, if you know him," he turns, to go back upstairs.

Fuck this, I'm not leaving until TJ comes to the door. Even if he's upstairs, putting his own son to bed or something. I don't even care if I wake the kid up. I pound harder.

Darius comes back to the window, reaching behind him a move that is so familiar to me, I'm putting hands up in view before I even see the gun.

He draws on me, with two hands—not like a thug, not sideways with one hand, but arms extended, sighting down the gun like you see on TV cop shows— and he yells, "I said get the fuck off my porch!"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" I yell, stepping back from the window. "Put the gun down!"

"Get the fuck—" He moves forward aggressively toward the window, and shakes the gun at me with both hands.

The window shatters at the same exact moment the gun fires, hurling a million tiny glass teeth toward me. Instinctively, I throw myself sideways, covering my eyes to shield them from the glass. I feel a tiny sting—like someone pinching my arm hard—as I fall hard on the porch.

Glass covers me as I land.

It's quite except for the crunching of glass as I roll slightly, and the jagged sound of Darius' fear.

I just lay there for a second. I'm okay, except for my heart pounding like I might have a heart attack, and I'm slightly afraid to blink and feel glass grinding into my eyeballs.

"Oh shit. Oh fuck. Oh, Jesus." His voice is almost whisper. He leans out the window. "Hey! Hey! Oh fuck!"

He disappears. I roll over on my back and blink.

Whoo. Thank fuck. No glass in my eyes. I roll up to sitting as he jerks open the door, gun still in hand.

"I shot you," he points at me shakily with the gun.

I look down at my left arm. There's a ragged tear in my light grey hoodie and a small circle of red blood. I bring a hand up to feel.

Just a graze. Not even a bullet hole, just an oozing, shallow scrape down my arm. Another near miss.

"Again! Fuck!"

He jumps at my growl. He's still got the gun. I immediately put my hands ups.

"Look, I'm okay. And I'm not going to hurt you. Just...put the gun down, okay?"

He shakes his head, but he reaches in his back pocket.

"No...but I will call 911..."

Still holding the gun on me, he looks down to dial.

That's when I spring up and swipe the gun out of his loose hold. Then I take his phone.

I'm finally able to breath. "Fuck," I mutter again, leaning against the porch wall as I try to calm my racing heart.

He backs into the house, his own arms up, his shocked expression now widening with real fear, "Please, no. I'm sorry. I swear, I didn't mean to shoot you...I swear."

"I know, kid." I follow him through the door while I'm putting the safety on the gun and shoving it in my pants. "Go get your goddamn Uncle, okay?"

Actually I can't believe the shot didn't bring somebody running.

"He's...he's not here. There's...look...there's no one here. Just...just take what you want and go. I swear...I won't tell the cops nothing about you."

I shake my head in disbelief. "Kid, I'm not a robber, okay? Just...calm down. Any second the neighbors are coming out the houses and you have to be cool, okay?"

"What?"

"Look, we gotta go out on the porch and put on the show. The show like we know each other and this was my gun. If we don't, somebody's grandmama is gonna call the 12, and when they find out you shot the gun, then DFACS is gonna be all up your business, giving your mama a hassle, and I'm not gonna let that happen, okay?"

"The 12? DFACS?" he stammers.

I want to ask him if he's slow, but I bite my tongue. He's obviously not slow, but he's just inexperienced in crime and neglect. That's a good thing.

"The cops. Child services."

"Oh shit."

"Relax, just follow my lead," I tell him and I push him through the door, stopping on the porch, scanning the street quickly, coming with a plan. "Thank god for trash day," I mumble.

I bounce down the step and grab the Turner's trash container on wheels from the sidewalk as I pull the gun and pretend to look around wildly.

Mrs. JJ is hobbling down the steps of her front porch, clutching her housecoat around her. I smile. Mrs. JJ would be the first one brave enough to come out to investigate the gunshot. Everybody else is laying on the floor in their houses, wondering if it's a drive by and if there is going to be retaliation.

This is good, though. Of all the grandmama's to come out and see what's going on, she's the best possible outcome. Mrs JJ loves me. She's like the grandmama I never had. She ain't gonna call the cops on me.

"Mrs. JJ!" I yell, "Get back in the house! There's a rabid possum on the loose!"

"What you say, boy?" She moves slowly out onto the sidewalk, across the street. I step beneath the street light so she can see me.

"A possum. In TJ's trashcan! The dang thing bit me!" I gesture at my arm.

"Bodie Jamison, is that you?"

"Yes ma'am." I say. "I'm visiting TJ, and I'm just helping out, taking the trash out. I opened the trash bin, and a possum jumped out! Can you believe that?"

Hearing the yelling, other neighbors are opening their doors.

"Boy, you crazy. They ain't no possums here no more. I ain't seen no possum in...lord, in forty years."

"I swear, Mrs. JJ. Look," I gesture at my arm so she can see the blood. "I opened the lid a little and the damn thing scurried up my arm and bit me. It scared me so bad I freaked out and tried to shoot it. I missed, I think."

She looks at Darius on the porch, and then the shattered window.

"Bodie Jamison, did you shoot that window out?"

"Oh shit!" I yell. "I guess I did, Mrs JJ!"

She crosses the street at once, all her frailty disappearing in her fury as slaps me on the back of the head. "What the hell is wrong with you? Shooting guns toward the house. You coulda killed that boy in there!"

"I'm okay, Mrs. JJ!" Darius yells. "It just scared me is all. B—bodie's right. That was a dang big possum. I saw it. It ran off between the houses."

Mrs. JJ looks at me, at Darius, at the window, at my arm. And she does it again. She grabs me by the dreads and pulls me down to her height.

She speaks quietly. "You think I'm a fool, Bodie Jamison?"

"No ma'am," I smile at her. "But I think all the rest of these people respect you and believe what you say."

She harrumphs..."That boy is headed for trouble, ever since Daemon got back. He don't know who he is no more..."

"It was an accident. Marley don't need no trouble from this."

"Marley?" she huffs. "Pat don't need no trouble, you mean..."

She lets me go and points to my old house. She raises her hands dramatically and yells, "Oh lord, I see its beady eyes shining underneath that porch!" She swings her gaze up to the young pretty woman on the porch.

"Kee-kee, you better call animal control first thing in the morning. Tell 'em there is a possum living under your house."

"You right, Mrs. JJ, " some male voice calls from across the street. "They'll come out and set traps. They'll get it."

"I sure will," KeeKee nods solemnly. "But I'm not gonna sleep at all tonight." She looks at me with a sly smile and says more softly, "I know you. You wanna come keep me company in case that possum finds a way in my house?"

Damn, KeeKee. Props for boldness, girl. But I'm still dealing with the drama from the last pretty baby-mama I kept company with in that house.

I give her my best smile and put my hands in front of me like a prayer. "I can't. I gotta deal with this...window. Most people around here know me, but I'm on the DL right now. Hiding from my record label. From my...business responsibilities. No tweets about meeting me, please?"

She beams. "No problem."

"Ok, show's over," Mrs. JJ yells. "Y'all hear that? Bodie's back but he's on the down low. Y'all don't be posting on those stupid phones about him! Y'all hear me?" she glares around the street. People wave at her and go back inside their homes.

She pats me on the cheek. "I oughta turn you over my knee, for never coming to visit me. Thank you for the help, though. For paying back taxes on my house."

"It ain't no thang. At all. You need anything, you call me." I hug her and kiss her on the cheek.

"Pat's gonna murder you.,"  she says.

"I'll pay for the window," I sigh.

"That ain't why..." she sing songs, and I wonder what she means as she smiles and shuffles back across the street.

I turn to see Darius still gaping on the porch. He looks shaken, but he's grinning at me.

He's grinning at me...because he just saw me act like a rock star and use my celebrity, charm, and bold-faced ability to lie to get us both out of trouble.

Yeah, that's probably not being a good role model.

Shit. What the hell do I do now?

Part of me wants to take the kid in the house and have a laugh at how we got out of the scrape.

The other part of me is shaking with fear and fury as I tenderly feel the open groove cut that cuts across my biceps. Jesus Christ, if I hadn't thrown myself out of the way, I could be dead right now.

And my son would know the kind of pain I've been going through over Cain Priestly for months. Probably forever.

All the good humor over my little rock star show drains from me as I imagine Darius, kneeling over my dead body, feeling horror, not even knowing the agony hasn't set in yet.

I stalk back up the steps and push him into the house.

He stares at my arm. "Are you sure you are okay?"

"Yeah, I think so." I walk wearily to the kitchen and pull off my hoodie, wetting some paper towels to wipe away the blood. There's a two inch groove on my bicep where the skin is completely gone, but it's not much more than a scrape.

"Holy shit," he puts his hands over his mouth. "I'm so sorry. You are so lucky. I know...I know I messed up. Big time. I'm so sorry. I swear it was an accident. I thought you were a junkie, or a robber or something. I only meant to scare you away. I didn't know a gun fired so easily. You're being so cool about this. But I guess, it makes sense that you would be cool, considering..." He trails off, shoving his hands in his sweatpant pockets, giving me a tempered smile.

"You know who  I am?" I ask him grimly as he stares up at me. I've still got a good six inches on him.

"Yeah. Bodie Jamison. TJ's old friend. You're in Soundcrush," he grins again, "That was amazing, how you played all those neighbors. Thank you. You're like...the man. You saved my ass."

I feel the impact of his words.

Like a sword to the chest.

Darius is not some fanboy.

I do not want to be a shit-cool drummer in a rock band to him. I do not want to be the guy that lies and cheats and charms with his fame. I do not want to be the douche that justifies his outrageous behavior in the name of bad-assery.

The image of the best dude I know flashes in my brain.

Adam.

In this moment, I want to be Preacher. I want to be the man Darius gravitates toward. The man that steers him right when his course is wavering.

I grab his arm. "I did not save your ass. That...performance out there? I did that for your mama. To save her the hassle of having to deal with cops and social services. God knows she's got enough to worry about without that."

He steps back from my grasp. "You know Marley?"

I blink at him. It's weird, how he said that. "Yeah, I know your mama. I'm gonna call her right now, and tell her what happened. And when she gets here to take you home—"

"Home?" he scoffs. "This is my home."

"What you talking 'bout?"

Darius turns his head to the side. Shoves his hands in his pockets. Then he removes them, fists clenched. His gives me what I recognize as a prideful look.

The kind of look I fronted much younger than him. The look of armor I wore when kids on the playground asked me who my daddy was.

"I live here. With my grandmother. And TJ. And Shay and Jory. Marley...she...comes over here. And I spend weekends at her place. Sometimes." He goes to the window. But you're right...my ass is grass if you tell Mama Pat what really happened," he puts his hands on his head and looks at the window. "Do you think...would you...tell her the same story? About the possum? I mean...if you're friends with Marley, I know you probably don't want to lie to her. It's okay, she won't tell," he says quickly. "She'll just...keep it between us. She doesn't get mad at me. Like ever. She gets sad if I mess up, but she'll just talk to me about it. You know, like, try to counsel me? She won't tell Mama Pat. She doesn't like to fight with her about discipline and stuff, cause they see things so differently..."

I know the kid is freaked out and overexcited and rambling, but every word he says is pouring through me like lead, like an anchor weighing me down to the bottom of murky sea.

I feel like I'm drowning in the realization that Marley did give Darius up. She gave him away to the Devil's mother.

I realize why. Because she had to. Because she loved him too much to give him away to strangers, and there was no one else to help her.

Because I helped TJ perpetrate a lie, and then I tried to never think about Jaz and her baby again. I never wrote to her in prison. I never looked for her. I never asked about the baby, about his paternity.

My fault. My fuck up.

An indescribable feeling of...loss... burns through me. How many times, how many ways, can I have failed my son?

My eyes snap to him.

Not anymore.

"Darius..." I say, interrupting the boy's ramble. "Shut-up, okay?"

"What?"

"Just shut-up. I'm pretty upset right now, and I'm not thinking straight. I probably shouldn't have covered up what happened with the neighbors. It's just in my nature to avoid a lot of people knowing my business. But I know one thing. You are thirteen years old and you have no business with a gun."

He stares. "I know. I'm sorry."

I pull the gun from pants and examine it. It's a 9mm semi-automatic pistol, a Glock—an expensive brand--with the serial number filed off.

It's a drug dealer's piece if I ever saw one.

And I've seen lots.

"Is this your...is this Daemon's gun?" I ask.

His brows furrow like he's thinking fast. "You know my dad, too?"

"Yes, Darius, I know Daemon, TJ, Pat...I grew up right next door to the house you are living in now. I knew your father before he went to prison. Is this his gun?"

He pushes out his jaw. "Were you in his gang?"

"Why you answer a question with a question?" I challenge.

"You just did the same thing," he observes with a little smirk.

Oh, you gonna smirk at me?

"Boy, I ain't your mama. This ain't no counseling session or battle of wits. This is a situation where I'm the adult you just shot at with an illegal weapon and you're a kid in big fucking trouble. You answer my damn question, ya feel me?"

More furrowed brows and jaw clenching.

Noise on the porch precedes Pat's furied entrance into the house.

Everything goes a little blurry after that. She takes one look at me with a gun in my hand and starts yelling. Her anger lights my lake of fury, like a spark to gasoline.

I throw down with her, I yell at the boy, and then I'm so jacked up I call Marley. When I realize she's doing exactly what I wanted her to do—getting with Dr. Call Me Kade—I lose my fucking mind and I go off on both of them, too.

At some point, I walk out the back door of the house and confront her again with questions of Darius' paternity. Again she denies it.

Then, all the anger fades when Marley asks me to leave. That's when I realize, I'm making some big assumptions about my place in this situation.

I'm feeling Darius like my son, and Marley is most definitely not. It's not because she doesn't see what I see in Darius. I just don't believe that. I think her fear of Daemon keeps her from feeling what I know.

She has good reason to fear him. Frankly so do I.

He's going to hear about this accidental shooting, and he's going to want to know why I was banging down TJ's door. I can't be going off to rehab and leaving Marley to answer for that.

I have to get ahead of that. I have to find Daemon, before Marley gets home. Somebody at the stashhouse will know where he is.

Yeah, it's like Varrick said. Complications arise. Objectives shift.

I'm not making it to my third move—detox—tomorrow. Daemon is my next move now.

Still, I can't leave like this. I'm debating on what to say to Pat and Darius when I hear a dull thud like a slamming door. I look up automatically toward the sound. I think it came through the cracked window on the second floor. A light comes on, and a minute later, muted sounds of a keyboard flow into the backyard.

It's a song I know—a top 40 song--but I can't quite place it on the keyboard arrangement. The tune is melancholy but swift.

I'm rooted to the spot, at the realization that it has to be Darius, playing. His plays fluidly, with more than notes.

He plays with innate rhythm. With unleashed feeling.

He's a musician.

Christ.

Does he know it yet?

What he is?

Who he is?

"I expected you a decade ago," Pat's calm voice says quietly from the door. "It's too late now, Bodie. To raise the questions you have. Nothing good will come of it. He's Daemon's son."

She walks down the back steps and hands me a piece of paper. I don't look at it, I don't have to. I'm sure it's a copy of the paternity test.

I take the report and I gesture to Darius' window with it. "I don't care about this piece of paper. You hear that?"

"Yes, he can play the piano well. What does that mean? You're a drummer.That's not even the same instrument. Lots of people have musical ability."

"He doesn't just play the piano. He feels that music. I know what that's like, because I don't just play the drums. I learned in juvi—I can play anything. Percussion, piano, guitar, bass...anything. I've excelled at drumming because it's where I belong in my band, where my abilities are best used. But music? All kinds of music? It's in my blood. Like it's in his."

She crosses her arms. "That's wonderful, Bodie. I really mean that. I'm glad you've taken your talent and your energy and succeeded beyond your wildest dreams. But it has nothing to do with my family. Daemon, TJ, Darius, Jory, Shay and even Marley...we are a family. Leave us be, Bodie. Go make your own family."

I unfold the paper in front of me. "Look me in the eye and tell me you believe what this paper says."

She never flinches. "Darius is my grandson."

I look down at the paper in my hand. I think about my long goals. Arguing with Pat is pointless and maybe creates more complications.

This is between and Marley and my son. That's all that really matters.

I nod. "Okay, Pat. This paper says Daemon is his father. Even more important to me, Marley says Daemon is his father. And the biggest thing? Darius believes Daemon is his father, and I'm not trying to rip his foundation out from under him."

She gives me a tucked back smile. "I'm glad you've grown up. Matured. Put your past behind you. You're a good boy, Bodie. I know you will do what's right."

"You mean that?"

"Yes."

I reach out and take her hand. "Then let me go up there. Because he almost killed me with that gun, Pat. He's at the edge—too grown to not know what that means, too young to deal with it."

Pat looks down at the ground. She looks up to Darius' window, listening to the emotion pouring out.

I press her. "He's freaked out. And you and me? Gettin' all hostile with each other? Then me yellin' at him? I only made it worse. But after talking to Marley...after hearing that..." I gesture to the melody wafting from his window... "I see now. How to make it better for him. Without words. Without explanations. Without rocking his beliefs. I can make it better for him...with that." I point to his window. "With music. Let me go to him."

She gives me a hard look. Harder than Marley. Harder than Trace. Harder than Riley. Harder than my own mama, even. Then she blinks. Slowly.

"Okay. Half an hour. But if you cause my grandson...doubt? I will tell my son that you are...a danger, to Darius."

I have no doubt she means what she says. And I have no doubt which one of her sons she means.

I kiss her on the cheek. Not 'cause I love her. Not 'cause I trust her.

'Cause I'm that fucking grateful.

I pause outside the door of Darius' room, collecting myself. I shot up in the bathroom at the stash house, but a lot of adrenaline has spiked since then, washing away my high.

I'm jonesin' well before I should be. I'm no longer suffering only of boredom in a hammock in Thailand. Now I'm suffering for real, and it's burnt clean through me.I'm struggling to be something I haven't been in a while.

A surety. A back beat.

A foundation someone else relies on.

I don't pause when I enter his room. I stroll casually across the room, swooping up several blue mini-basketballs on the way. I throw myself down on his bed, my arm full of balls.

The kid never pauses. Never stops playing.

It's in him.

He knows. He fuckin' knows.

The show must go on.

He plays.

I shoot.

I score.

He plays.

I miss.

I miss again.

I score.

"You said you were sorry. I never said, I forgive you. You...shootin' that gun? It was an accident. I know that. I forgive you. For real."

He flubs a chord.

The discord fades into the silence.

"Thanks for sayin' that."

"You're welcome. Look...I know it doesn't erase anything. I know you still feel shitty."

"How do you know?"

I think about Cain Priestly.

"I just...do."

Darius accepts that. He begins the song again.

I shoot my last ball, make it, and roll off the bed to my feet, all while he's playing with the expertise that rivals a pro.

I stroll over and stand behind him at his student desk. Maybe it should be filled with books but it's not.

It's an amateur music studio.

The space is mostly littered with cables, connecting a computer, two keyboards—one decent, one crap-a mic and filter,the simplest electronic drum pad I've ever touched, and a DAW—a mixing console.

"Nice set-up," I say, and I mean it.

"It was my Christmas present from Marley. Everything except the shitty keyboard that I already had," he says evenly.

I eye the set-up with different glasses.

With a single mom's vision.

What seems basic to someone like me, accustomed to the professional studios, is actually an extravagance, to almost any one on a budget. Especially to a single mom with probably the least well-paid PhD anyone could choose.

"What software you mix with?" I ask mildly.

"Garageband."

"That's a good start." I click through his taskbar on his homescreen.

Damn.

"Ear-training software. You sing, too?"

He keeps playing as he shrugs.

"Can I jump in?" I ask mildly.

His reply is sliding to the right, to make room.

He breaks off, waiting for my cue.

The beat is a four-four, and I count it out for him.

He begins again, without effort.

I let him play the intro. In the actual track, there isn't any percussion until the chorus, so I jump in on his crap keyboard on the first verse, improvising a subtle one fingered accompaniment from what I know of the radio track.

What I'm playing isn't the vocal melody. I don't know if the instrument I'm simulating on the keys was originally a viola or a cello. I can't differentiate their range.

I just know the sound I'm supposed to make.

At the chorus, I multitask. With my right hand, I kick in a beat on the drum pad.

More than I see it, I feel the boy's spine straighten in response.

He rises to my solid underlayment. His playing becomes...more emphatic.

More rhythmic.

More natural.

We improvise a whole verse, chorus, second verse. I don't feel any real effort from either of us.

"From the top," I instruct.

Like a pro, he begins again.

Halfway through the verse pattern, I ask, "You know the words?"

His response?

He belts out the chorus.

It's too late to apologize.

It's too late.

I said it's too late to apologize.

It's too late.

He's not just on cue. He's not just perfect pitch.

So many people can do that.

His voice?

His emotion?

He's chosen a lyric he means. A feeling he can commit to.

His regret.His sorrow. His doubt.

He follows through like I've rarely heard.

Darius is...so much more than I expected.

He's my son.

He's so much more.

At thirteen, he's his own entity.

He's...

He's Leed.

No.

He's more than Leed.

He's a frontman that doesn't need a band to source his energy.

Darius is self-fueling.

A star that could own the stage alone.

I'm fucking overwhelmed by my son.

By the artist that blindsides me.

Well. I don't know about you, but I'm feeling wine-drunk from this chapter. Feels, my lovelies?