“I might know a way. Come on.”
I half-expect him to take my hand, as he leads me down my own stairs and across my own gravel and up the few steps to my garage door. I have no idea what could be lurking in his bedroom cavern, but I become aware of Trace's jittering arms. How they're swinging and hopping with anticipation, like they'd done earlier today on the porch, before he started playing with those sticks.
He turns to me right before he turns the knob.
“Wait, I have an idea. Close your eyes.”
“What? Are you serious?”
“Yes. I want it to be a surprise. Surprises are good for getting rid of the Reds, too.”
Biting my tongue, I comply. My heart is beating fast now. It makes me giddy, just having a pleasant conversation with my foster brother. What is it he could be keeping out here? A sex swing? Wait, shit, gak, why was that the first thing I thought of...
The door ekes open, and Trace guides me up and over the slight incline; I do as he says and press my eyes closed. We walk a few feet into the garage, and I become aware of the close, heady smell of what can only be Teenage Boy: corn chips, the mystery cologne, salt, sweat, and something else I don't even want to investigate...
I hear the lights flip on. They fill the room with a gentle fluorescent hum.
“Okay. Open...now.”
As my eyes adjust to the light, Trace takes a step away from me—then gestures weakly towards a big, glimmering drum kit. It's only a few necessary pieces, but it shines like new. Watching me carefully, Trace makes for the little raised stool behind his instrument. He removes two worn sticks from his pocket and counts out a beat, over his head.
“Trace! Where did you get this?”
He shrugs. Smiles.
“I mean—where did you get the money?”
He shrugs. Raises one roguish eyebrow.
“How come I've never heard you practice?”
“I'm quiet. I play when everyone's out.” He's still counting. “But also –” With one stick, he points back towards the way he came. I see that the same hands that crafted a makeshift basketball hoop in our driveway, have been busy here in the garage. A bizarre assemblage of duct tape, pillows, and stripped foam frames the doorway, and other big hunks of homemade soundproofing pop out of strategic parts of the wall.
“Stop laughing! This is serious. Now see here, Miss Thing. You want to take your feelings out on some poor defenseless woodwind, when there's nothing better for pain than a big, loud bucket.” Trace hits the hi-hat on his kit, so now his counting sticks, and the clanging cymbals form their own pitter patter. He winks at me, and I raise my eyebrows. It's clear there's a gauntlet being thrown: Well?
He accepts the unspoken challenge, and now it really is my turn to be surprised. I should have figured from his skill with the sticks earlier today—or even the graceful, rhythmic way he has of moving around the basketball court—but for some reason, nothing has quite prepared me for the sounds Trace makes as he tears into a drum solo. Muscles jump and flex across his naked forearms. He hunches back and forth on the stool, like a starving man eating.
The pattern starts simple. Some basic jazz riff. But he expands on the sounds to make a sequence, and in my head I can fill in the bass, guitar, wind and vocals to create a full song. In moments, his sticks are flying, volleying between the blinding surface of the cymbal and the tight fullness of the snare drum. He's like an octopus—every drum is another extension of his own self, another capable limb. It becomes hard to breathe. It's like the breath has been sucked out of me.
Just as I wasn't aware of time passing while I tore into my violin, when Trace stops playing (after an epic, thrilling finale that surely tests the outer limits of any homemade soundproofing), I can't say for sure how long the solo goes. But as soon as he's finished playing, he slumps forward, panting, utterly spent, utterly relaxed. His dark curls, now damp, fall over his eyes. Not unlike the way I always imagined sex, really, I think with a little thrill. As an act so dire and so sapping that it leaves you at the end with only bones.
When he raises his shaggy, dark head, we just look at one another for a long, odd beat. I know he's shared something personal with me. This passes as a secret between us.
“So. You feel better?” I say. Finally.
“Always do.”
“That looked like it felt good.”
He twinkles at me, in lieu of speaking.
“Alright, Princess. Now it's your turn.”
“What?”
“You heard me. Bring that fine ass over here.”
“I don't play percussion!” But I'm already moving towards him, buoyed by his words. Fine ass, huh?
“Nobody plays percussion. You take it serious.”
“Oh, give me a break.” But he's already up and out of the hot seat, tugging on my wrists. With very minimal kicking and screaming, I find myself at the drum kit. Trace hands me the sticks, which are slippery and hot with his sweat. I glance down: the seat looks damp, too.
“Just try it.”
“Try what?” But easing down slowly, I give the cymbal an experimental tap. I'm surprised, immediately, at how much noise even the small application of pressure can produce. I'm aware, immediately, of how powerful it feels to be loud.
Trace comes to a crouch behind me. I imagine steam coming out of his hot crevices, smoke rising from the gaps below those strong arms. He lightly takes my wrists in his, and positions my gnarled violinist fingers the right way around the sticks.
“Hold them like this,” he says. “And I don't have much more advice. Here's the kick-drum pedal, and the hi-hat. Take whatever it is out on the kit, okay? I won't judge you.” He relinquishes my hands, and rests back on his haunches.
I survey the big monstrous instrument again. Could it be so different from a violin? Drummers play to a melody, just like I do. There are beats and tones and time signatures. I take another experimental shot, thwacking a stick against a snare. It's loud and crisp. I begin to keep time.
“Good! Now kick the drum, Jo! Kick it like it's the problem!” Trace stands and backs away, his hands up. “I'm sorry. I'll butt out. You do your thing.”
I close my eyes. The drum is Eric, I think. The drum is Dartmouth. The drum is Mom and Dad's expectations, and Claudia, and college in general, and everything outside of this room. I'm kicking hard, now. I don't know quite when it began. But the music I make is off-rhythmic, unpretty, and totally amazing-feeling.
I let my hands tear across the surface of mounted toms, cymbals, crashing and burning into everything I can touch. My eyes flutter open, and I see Trace—but he's rocking back and forth to my inscrutable beat, his own eyes closed with concentration. I pitch forward, as I watched the demon do, and shout above the fray. No words. Just syllables.
When I come to the end of my own rampage, I'm sweaty, too. And Trace doesn't say anything. He just nods, smiles faintly. He lopes back towards me like a big cat, swinging his arms, all swagger.
“Not bad, huh?” I attempt to twirl a stick between my fingers, but it falls, soundless, to the carpet.
“Well—pretty bad. But you feel better, right?” We laugh. I laugh as I haven't in weeks, actually. Trace comes closer. He bends down again, towards the fallen stick—so we're eye to eye.
Then my foster brother grabs one of my wrists, his eyes narrowed with a new concern. His grip is firm and strong, but there's something about him that I trust implicitly. I find myself relaxing into his touch.
He brings my fingers forward and into the light, and now his dark curls swing over the ruptured blisters. My index finger is pouring blood, which is of course the sexiest thing that can happen to a girl in the presence of an attractive man. I bite my lip.
“Damn,” Trace just says. His breath falls on my fingertips like some kind of salve. “He must have hurt you bad.”
Then he looks up into my eyes, the bastard. His gaze is plaintive and perfect and so, so green.
I think for a moment that Trace will move his fin
gers up my wrist. I think he will hold my elbow, maybe—pull me gently up to standing. I don't know what we'll do when we're eye-to-eye in this quiet room, our bodies humming with electricity. But I finally admit what I want.
It's then that I hear the kitchen door eke open, and the shrill bray of my mother's voice as it launches across the driveway. “KIDS! DINNER!”
Trace pulls his fingers away. We go inside.
* * *
My parents' mouths are moving—they chew, they speak—but I can't follow anything being said. At one point, Dad actually has to wave his hand in front of my face to get me to pass the carob flakes.
“Somebody's working too hard,” he tuts. “Earth to daughter-of-mine?”
“Sweetheart, do you feel alright?”
Janice and Earl tilt their heads, like concerned birds. Okay, okay, it's actually kind of sweet. The thing is, as much as I bitch, I really do care about my parents. They might be joyless foodie dweebs, but they love me. I'm in a better mood, anyways. The drumming has released something, that's for sure.
Across the table, I can sense Trace before I look up at him again—he's pushing his carrots around the plate, for once not gobbling his food down like a mad-man. It's this—I see it now, finally—it's this that Melanie was referring to, when she told us to make room for him in our family. I take him in fully now, my foster brother: his dark, heavy lashes, intent on the table. He's never had people around him who love him like this before. Love him enough to pick up on the tiniest mood swings, to register when he's happy or sad. I feel a pang in my heart. I blush.
“Sweetheart! Your fingers!” My mom lurches across the table, trailing some of her scarf's fringe through the odd gray pudding I've so far left untouched in its little ceramic dish. She grabs onto my wrists, tilting my fingers so the shiny sores on my hand catch lamplight. What isn't already bleeding is bright red.
My mother turns my hands over and over in her own for a beat. She's quiet. Trace sets his fork down and leans back in the chair, stretches his arms wide above his head so his wife shows off the muscles in his chest. I can feel his eyes boring into me, but I don't look up this time.
“Is this from the violin, Jo?” Dad asks, uncharacteristically slow on the uptake.
“Jo, Honey, I don't think you should be playing so hard. This doesn't look right.”
Trace sets his fork down with a clatter.
“It does happen sometimes. If a musician plays really hard. Jimi Hendrix, he used to bleed all over his ax.” My parents look at their foster son like he's an impressive dinner guest. I feel my lips twist into a smile.
He and I have a secret. I have a delicious, thrilling secret with Trace Harter.
Me and Trace.
“I don't want her to focus on being Jimi Hendrix, though,” my mother says. Her voice is hardening as she speaks, just like that fucked-up pudding on the table. “Look at me, Jo. We can tell when you're not focusing. But this is the most important year of your life so far, do you understand me? You shouldn't be taking hours out of your day to bleed all over your violin like Jimi Hendrix.”
“Jimi Hendrix died, you know. He was very young.” Dad says, before picking something out of his beard.
Okay, enough is enough.
“Mom, would you give it a rest? I practiced a little long today. It's so not a big deal.”
“But it is a big deal, Jo! You need to be practicing English and Philosophy and Calc. You need to be practicing being a college student, not a rock star.”
“Now, Janice –”
Finally, my mother releases my wrist. She looks shaken for a moment, like she hasn't realized her talons have been digging into my flesh throughout her little speech. And just like that, my little burst of affection for the rents shrivels up like a raisin. How can they be so single-minded? Here I am, feeling the best I've felt in weeks, and they've already begun dismantling my buzz. Because I am still high, from the studio. Even if the fury in my throat—those Mean Reds— are bubbling up again.
“Can I be excused?”
“If it's to work on homework, absolutely.” Mom smiles at me again, back to her role as the friendly matron. She turns to Trace, clearly bent about mentioning the word 'college' in his presence. So far, we've all managed to skirt the issue of our separate, distinct futures.
“Trace, honey. What about you? How's basketball going?”
“I'm sorry, Janice. Can I be excused, too?” I hear him say. I've already begun to make for the stairwell, but his voice makes me slow up immediately. The demon stands.
Nobody questions it when Trace starts up behind me on the staircase, instead of leaving through the kitchen door, back toward his own bedroom. Because I'm nervous, I walk slow. My hand is sweaty on the bannister. My throat is in my chest, and I can feel those big green eyes boring into my ass.
At the top of the stairs, once we're just of out of eye-shot from the kitchen table, I pause. He pauses behind me. While I remain stock still, merely breathing for a few heartbeats, I feel—but don't hear—Trace closing the gap between our bodies on the carpet. His smell surrounds me. He lifts his arms, and lightly, so lightly, his arms rise and enfold me. His fingers find my ribcage, the firm bones just below my breasts, and his fingers begin to pulse out the smallest rhythm on my body. I can feel his breath on the back of my neck as he plays me.
His hips press gently into the backs of my jeans. I'm waiting for him to whisper something. Fuck it, I'm waiting for me to whisper something, when I hear a ruckus on the street outside. A blaring car horn. Familiar voices. Ever so slightly, Trace pulls away from me. I can sense him straining to hear the sounds.
“Trace! It's your friends from basketball!” my Dad cries, his voice a gross intrusion into our little shared space in the hall. I don't even want to look at the demon. I definitely don't want him to pull away from me, though he does. But first, he taps me three times lightly, playfully, around the middle.
His face is half-tilted away from mine already, before I reach for his cheek, gazing full into his acid-green eyes, I do something bold, for once. I tilt my head, and lurch forward and kiss him, hard, on the mouth. His pillowy lips register surprise, but it only takes a beat for him to reciprocate, his arms enfold me. For a desperate second, he's clutching at my ass and I'm drawing him further into my mouth, dancing my fingers over the smooth contours of his face.
The car horn honks again, and my Dad makes a sound like he's moving for the stairs. With no little effort, Trace breaks away from me, his eyes are wild when they find mine. I want to laugh, but the demon just puts three strong fingers in the center of my chest, and taps me there twice, on my heart.
As he scampers back down the steps, I decide to interpret his little Morse code as: “we'll finish this later.”
Chapter Seven
The next morning, after a deeply restless night—I'm still electric. Skipping down the stairs, for once, early to breakfast, I practically sing good morning to my Dad. Like I'm Snow frigging White, or something. We kissed. We kissed. I kissed Trace, and he kissed me...
“Hello, most wonderful Papa of mine. Where's my foster brother?”
“I believe Mr. Harter stayed out late with some of his basketball friends. I think he's hitching a ride to school with one of the boys—that Hank fellow.”
My heart sinks a little, but whatever. This is the great thing about small town life, and being enamored of one's de facto roommate: I'll just see him at school. Standing at the hallway mirror, I primp a little more than usual. Though it's getting cold out, I've decided to brave the weather in a snug long-sleeved V-neck and skinny jeans that hug my “fine ass.” A tiny concession to fashion for most girls, maybe, but kind of an epic win for someone who still owns, and sometimes wears a Disney princess sweatshirt. When no one is looking, I run gloss across my lips and toss my hair. “Who's Jasmine, now, bitch?” I murmur to the glass.
When Dad puts on jazz in the car, I wiggle in my seat to the rhythm section. It's kind of amazing how I never thought about percus
sion before—how structurally important a drummer is to a band. Now I'm recalling Trace, and the way he pounded his shiny new kit. His damp musk. His fingers on my wrist, on my hips...
“God, Dad! Aren't we there yet?”
“Alright, eager beaver!” Dad pulls us into the carpool lane. I open the passenger door even before we've fully stopped. “Have fun!” he yells to my back.
School is, unfortunately, working against me: the hallways seem unusually crowded today. I don't see a lanky, dark, green-eyed ball-player anywhere. I do see Claudia, in all her trying-hard finest, she beats my outfit in any contest. My BFF has blow-dried her hair, and put on a skintight leopard print mini-skirt, and a blouse that could be made from medical tape it's so thin. A few guys walk by her and make a point of crowing “Damn!” in her direction, but she pays them no mind.
“Where's your foster brother?” Claudia says, instead of 'hello.' For a second, I worry. Claudia is super beautiful, kind, funny, and almost any guy in the school would likely do terrible things to get into her pants. Could Trace be swayed by this Cleopatra? But then I shut my eyes again, and all is remembered. He'd been so tender with me and the drum kit. He'd held me so sweetly, in the hall. His mouth had been so warm and open to mine. I couldn't be imagining things.
“I don’t know lady, hey listen, don’t you think you’re working a little too hard for this one?”
My best friend's carefully tweezed eyebrows zoom skyward.
“Wait, no, that's totally not what I meant. It's just that—you're too good for the demon, you know what I mean? What's so fascinating about the guy?” I am such a troll, but Claudia, because she's a better person than I am, appears to settle.
A Family Affair: My Bad Boy Foster Brother Page 7