We walked down a long hall with offices strung along the left side of the building. The right side of the hallway obviously housed the studios because all the walls were covered in expensive-looking acoustic foam. The studio was pretty dark aside from the lights on random equipment. Atticus flipped on a light in an office. I couldn’t help the gasp that came from my mouth. There were framed pictures of my first building art piece hung on his walls.
“I’ve had these for over a year,” he confessed.
“That’s crazy, Atticus.”
He looked at me. “Is it, though?”
I bit my bottom lip and stared at the photos.
“Here,” he said, yanking a blanket off an old Chesterfield. “I just came in here to get you this.”
He flipped the lights off and led me into a recording studio farthest from the front door. He pointed to a large, plush, leather sofa setting against the farthest wall from the mixing console. I fell into the cushions there and spread the blanket over my legs. Atticus opened up a MacBook and pressed the power button.
His phone chimed, indicating a text, and he checked his last message. “Jamie, Cillian’s girlfriend, says you should be eating little things constantly to keep the nausea down in the beginning like this.”
“Okay,” I said, sitting up, grateful for any advice.
“No sugar, she says.”
“All right.”
He snapped his fingers. “I’ve got some almonds in my desk. Do you like almonds?” he asked.
“Yeah, those would be fine.”
He sprinted off and returned with a container of almonds and handed them to me. I popped the lid open and ate a few. Atticus went to answer the door when he heard the bell.
“Must be the band. Be right back.”
I heard him punch in the security code again and let them in. A jumbled mess of men’s voices came trailing down the hall back to the studio and they all piled in one by one. I stood as they entered.
“Guys, this is Hazel,” Atticus told them, introducing me.
“Damn, I didn’t know Atticus had that much game,” one whispered to another.
“Hazel,” he continued, “this is the band Thirteen Linen.”
“Nice to meet you,” I said, waving.
They all smiled or waved and started shrugging off their jackets, setting them on hooks along the wall perpendicular to the one I sat against. Without skipping a beat, they all nestled in, most of the boys on this side of the booth window, one going through to the mic. I sat back down, brought my feet up on the couch crisscross style, and wrapped the blanket around my legs.
Atticus sat at the sounding board, a keyboard to his right and a laptop at his left. He pressed a button on the mixing console. “Ableton crashed for some reason. It’s sorting out now. Won’t be a minute.”
The guy in the booth gave the thumbs up. “Jonathan,” Atticus said, turning to his left. “The kick stem is missing something. We’re changing it.”
“Damn it, Atticus, you always do this.”
“I don’t give a shit. We’re changing it.”
He glanced at his computer and messed with a computer program I would bet my life I couldn’t navigate through if you paid me a million dollars. He turned to the guy in the booth and gave him two thumbs up. “All right, Alex,” Atticus said when he pressed the button that allowed him to talk into the guy in the booth’s headphones. “Let’s take it from the chorus. Ready whenever you are.”
The guy, Alex, started to sing and he was way off pitch, even I could hear it.
“Freaking A, Alex,” the guy who Atticus had called Jonathan said. “Can you fix that?” he asked Atticus.
“I can do some pitch blending, yeah, but he needs to get it closer. Alex,” he spoke through the mixing console, “one more time.”
Alex recorded the same chorus at least twenty times more before Atticus told him to come out of the booth.
“Let me just arrange it,” Atticus told them. His fingers glided over his computer as he built layers of something on his screen. He pressed a few buttons on something I would later learn is called a launch pad. As if it was second nature to him, he finessed and arranged their song then turned toward Jonathan.
“This is with the new kick stem,” he said, hitting play.
A heavy bass laid out through the overhead speakers, followed by a sick kick drum intro. Even Alex’s voice sounded amazing. As the song played, I couldn’t believe Atticus had produced it. It had commercial appeal, for sure, but it also had its own flavor, something different, something bigger than I had heard in a very long time, and it gave me butterflies to know he had that kind of talent. It was insane. The song was insane. All of us started swaying in our seats as if we couldn’t help ourselves.
Atticus cut it short, disappointing me, and looked at Jonathan. “So?”
“It’s the shit,” he conceded, making Atticus smile. “You were right.”
“You’re up,” Atticus said, pointing to Jonathan. He went into the booth and sat behind a set of drums then put his headphones on. Atticus leaned over the mixing console. “Warm up with a 6/8 for a minute.” Jonathan started playing his drums. “Keep it going,” Atticus said, while he put on a pair of headphones himself and started messing around with his laptop.
I started feeling sick again and stood up as quietly as I could, trying to find a bathroom.
Atticus’s head whipped my direction and he stood up, his headphones left behind. “You okay?” he asked.
Afraid I might spew all over his carpet if I spoke, I just nodded, gave him a small smile, and made my way out the door into the hall toward the front where I saw a bathroom. Once inside, I closed the door and immediately vomited into the toilet. When I was down to dry-heaving, I took deep breaths to calm my stomach.
I rinsed my mouth out in the sink and wiped my face. Etta, being a nursing student, had the foresight at the store when she got my test to purchase those on-the-go toothbrushes with toothpaste already on them so I could protect my teeth if I was out and got sick. I pulled out the one I’d stuck in my back pocket earlier and with shaking fingers, unwrapped the plastic and brushed my teeth. When I was done, I straightened myself out and emerged, shocked still by Atticus leaning against the wall outside.
“Are you okay?” he asked, concern in his eyes.
“Were you standing there that whole time?” He bit his bottom lip. “Well, that’s humiliating.”
“No, it’s not,” he promised, but I didn’t believe him. “Do you want to go home?”
“No, it’s okay. It’s gone now,” I told him. Until the next time, at least.
Back inside the studio, my face flamed and I almost laughed when I saw all the worried faces of the boys from Thirteen Linen. I sat down and started to stuff almonds down my throat like the world was ending. The idea of vomiting again was enough for me not to care that I looked like an idiot practically drinking from the canister. Things settled down and they got back to work.
Before I knew it, I’d passed out from exhaustion.
“Haze,” I heard above me. It was Atticus. He was stroking my hair.
“Hmm?” I asked, turning over. I looked around the studio. It was empty. “Where did everyone go?”
“They left hours ago.”
“Hours ago? Why didn’t you wake me?”
“Well, you looked comfortable there and I still had some work to do, so I let you sleep.” I sat up and stretched. “How are you feeling?”
I still felt full from the almonds. “Good, actually.”
He looked relieved. “Are you tired?”
I laughed a little. “Not now.”
“Okay,” he said, standing up and holding out his hands for me. I took them and he lifted me up.
We stood there, next to each other, breathing in the cool shared air around us. They kept studios almost freezing because the running equipment could get overheated, I guessed. He studied my face. “Does this all feel a little weird?”
“Yes,” I told him
. “I’m still a little bit in denial.”
He bobbed his head up and down but didn’t say anything. He peered around the room. I felt like he was unsure of what to say.
“Atticus.”
He looked at me, a little bit of a crooked smile on his devastating face. “Hazel.”
“Play your drums for me.”
His cheeks turned a little pink. He stuck his hands in his pocket and shuffled back and forth like a little boy. My stomach flipped over itself.
“Y-you want to hear me play?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He took my hand and butterflies filled my stomach. “Sit right here,” he said, setting me in the chair he’d used throughout the night. He tucked my hair behind my ears and set a pair of headphones on my head then touched a button on his mixing console. He leaned over me, his cologne assailing my senses, and messed with his laptop.
He pointed to a button on his screen. “Hit this button when I say so,” he said before escaping through the booth door and shutting it behind him.
He sat down at the drums, put on a pair of headphones, and leaned into the microphone. “Give me a thumbs up if you can hear me,” his clean, clear voice rang out through my own headphones.
I gave him two thumbs up then began to turn them over to tease him. He gave me a mock sad face, which made me giggle. I flipped them all the way up again and he smiled.
“Okay, Haze,” he said, “this shouldn’t be too loud, but you should get a good sense of sound. If not, wave at me.”
I gave him another thumbs up and waited.
“Now,” he said, and I pressed the button he’d told me to.
A song flowed through my headphones. Something that sounded like a plucked string instrument with an echoed accent started it off and it built in layers of accompanying synth, more strings, and a heavy bass beat.
Then all at once, Atticus twirled a stick in his hand, held it briefly in the air, then slammed them down on beat, laying down riffs accompanying the song that sent chills up and down my skin. His hair swung with every down beat. It looked as if he used his entire body while playing, his shoulders gathering and bunching, the muscles in his forearms taut and pulled. His hands. Atticus’s hands. Those incredible hands. Memories of the night we had together flooded my memory and I felt hot. The song was beginning to imprint on me, already an automatic association, and I felt inexplicably sad I couldn’t live with it on repeat.
It flowed through my veins, and my heart beat pumped heavily every time his drumsticks tapped against the skins of his drums. My hands gripped the edge of the mixing console and, unable to help myself, I stood, leaning closer to the window to watch him more closely, memorize every movement, to learn the way he breathed, the crease in his brow, the set line of his jaw while he played, to know him better.
Atticus was done playing a full two measures before the song breathed its last incredible breath and during those two measures, his chest heaved, his shoulders lifting up and down with each breath. Drumsticks in hands resting on his thighs, his eyes found mine and he stared at my mouth. The fingers of my right hand found my lips, as if I could feel his own on mine again.
Atticus set his headphones on the mic stand near his drums and stood from his stool. He stalked through the room, peering at me from the corner of his eye as he followed me from behind the glass partition. He opened the door and walked back into the room, closing the booth door behind him. His hands found his pockets again and his head bent, cocked to one side.
“Did—” he began then swallowed. “Did you like it?”
I shoved the headphones off my ears and let the headband rest against my neck, my hair caught beneath. “Atticus, that was probably one of the best performances, one of the best songs, I’ve ever heard.”
He toed the ground a little and fought a smile. “So you liked it then?” he fished.
“I didn’t just like it, Atticus. I loved it. Did you write that?”
His eyes finally met mine. “Yeah, I wrote that. I have lyrics but I’m still looking for the right person to sing.”
“It’s so good, Atticus,” I told him. “So good.”
“Thank you,” he quietly replied.
“You don’t sing?” I asked him, breaking up the silent room.
“Not even under penalty of death,” he teased.
“Good,” I told him.
“Good?” he asked, sounding confused.
“Yeah, it’s proof you’re human after all.”
“I’m very human, Hazel,” he promised.
“There was a moment, in there,” I said, pointing toward his drums, “I wasn’t so convinced.”
He took his hands out of his pockets and walked forward to stand in front of me. “Well, I am. For instance, I’m having a very human reaction to your mouth right now.”
Butterflies raced just as the nausea renewed, and the moment was doused cold as I doubled over, reached for a small trash bin under the mixing console, and vomited. When I stood, humiliated but feeling relieved, I saw Atticus’s face looked sad, like he pitied me.
Without saying anything, I removed the trash liner, cinched it up, and made my way toward the door. Atticus silently followed me, afraid to talk, I thought. I gestured toward the door to have him unlock it for me. I tossed the bag into the dumpster at the side of the building, went back inside, and brushed my teeth yet again.
When I came out of the bathroom, I noticed he’d shut down the studio.
“I guess we need to talk,” he said.
“I believe we do,” I answered.
“We can go to my place, but my brother will be there with his daughter.”
“We need some privacy, I think,” I told him.
“Probably.”
“Let’s go to my apartment.”
“Sure. Let me grab a set of clothes at my place, though?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“Let’s go,” he said.
Hesitating a little, he held his hand out for me.
“Atticus?” I asked, his hand hung between us.
“Yes, Hazel?”
“Are you offering that hand because you feel an obligation?”
His eyes softened. “I just want to hold your hand, Hazel.”
I slid my hand into his palm and we threaded our fingers together, making my stomach flip over and over, but in a very good way.
He locked the doors, set the alarm, and led me back out to his car, opening my door for me. We drove uptown to his brother’s apartment and parked in the connecting garage. Once inside the posh building, we entered an elevator and I watched his incredible fingers press the button for the twenty-seventh floor. I envied that button.
“So, your brother is banking, huh?”
Atticus laughed. “Have you seen the crowds at Normandy’s?”
“Yes,” I answered.
It was close to two in the morning when Atticus opened the door. He held a finger over his lips and we tiptoed over smooth concrete floors peppered with random rugs through a quiet house to a bedroom down a long corridor off the open living room and kitchen. When his bedroom door closed, he flipped on the light. The room was organized chaos. Instruments were strewn everywhere, even hung on the walls; random pieces of recording equipment lay along side them. Atticus’s bed was big and looked comfortable with its bright white sheets and down comforter. He walked to his closet in the corner, yanked a canvas bag hanging on a hook off the wall, and tossed a few things from his closet inside. He had a connecting bathroom and went to that, grabbing a few essentials along with his toothbrush. He smiled at me as he left the bathroom and held his hand out for me again, so I took it. He flipped off the light and we scaled the hallway once more toward the living room and kitchen.
He stopped short when we saw his brother Aidan in the kitchen wearing a pair of Adidas track pants, shirtless, and hair messy from sleep. I nearly ran into him as we stopped.
“Hello, lovebirds,” he greeted us. Aidan turned toward me. “I heard your eggo i
s preggo.”
“Good news travels fast,” I whispered.
Atticus looked around. “Where’s Molly?”
“In bed, of course,” his brother answered.
“Yes,” Atticus said, confirming his earlier question.
Aidan looked me over. “Nice to see you again.” I smiled at him then he looked over at Atticus. “Never thought this would happen to you.”
“Well, it did, Aidan. What of it?”
“I don’t know, Atticus. I feel partly responsible for all of you making these kinds of mistakes. I paved the way, so to speak. Maybe you wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t taught you all how to do it.”
He shrugged. “We’re a product of our environment, Aidan.”
“That’s horseshit. The rest of us may be a product of our environment, but you most certainly are not.”
“Well, I think we’ll be okay, Aidan. I’m a little bit older than the rest of you when the same thing happened.”
“It doesn’t matter, though, not really. You’re still not in a place to be raising kids.”
Atticus tugged on my hand a little and we started walking toward the door until Aidan spoke again.
“You could have had it better than the rest of us, Atticus. You could have made something of yourself.”
The wounding declaration saddened and angered me. Angered me because I felt certain Atticus had the potential to make something extraordinary of himself. His talent, his intelligence, was undeniable. Saddened because any chance Atticus had of doing so might have gone right out the door the minute I walked in.
My heart started to beat into my throat when I felt Atticus’s hand tighten in mine.
“You’re an asshole, Aidan,” he gritted.
“You know, for someone so smart, you sure are a fool.”
“Keep running your mouth, Aidan, and this won’t end well.”
“Don’t threaten me, Atticus.”
“I’m not threatening you, Aidan, but if you’re trying to wake up Molly, pissing me off is a good way to do it.”
“Fine, we’ll talk later.”
We made our way to the front door when Aidan threw out, “By the way, Mom and Dad know.”