The Drummer - Chapter 3 (Patreon)

Chapter 3

By Wednesday the junk room had stopped looking like a storage unit and started looking like a place someone might sleep without apologizing for it and trip over boxes.

TJ had moved the broken lamp into the hall closet. The boxes of my old college stuff were stacked neat against the far wall, labels facing out. He’d found a second sheet somewhere and the mattress no longer looked abandoned. The walls were half-painted — one coat of the warm gray Nick had left in the closet, roller marks still visible where he’d gotten tired. The guitar case was open on the floor now instead of shut in the corner. He’d been playing pieces of things at night, quieter than the first night, stopping when he missed a change instead of pushing through it.

I knocked at ten with coffee. He opened the door in the gray sweatpants and the cap, paint already on his wrist and chest.

“You’re up early.”

“Couldn’t sleep.” He took the mug. “You don’t have to keep doing this.”

“I know. I do it because I want it.”

He looked past me at the hall like he was checking whether Nick had somehow come back early. Then he stepped aside. “You can come in. It’s less embarrassing now.”

I did. The room smelled like paint and the body spray that still hadn’t fully died. He’d pushed the mattress to a corner to give himself space to work. A drop cloth covered most of the floor. The roller was in the tray. He nodded at it.

“You don’t have to help.”

“I know that too.”

I picked up the second roller anyway. We worked for almost two hours. He didn’t talk much. When he did it was small things — the roller leaving streaks, the way the gray looked different once it dried, a story about a load-in in some bar in Echo Park where the drum riser had collapsed and he’d finished the set on the floor. I listened. Our arms brushed more than once. He smelled like paint and sweat and the faint leftover of whatever he’d put on that morning. At some point he stopped, looked at the wall, and then looked at me with the brush still in his hand.

“Oops.”

I stared at him. He was trying not to smile. The cap was backwards. Paint on his own forearm. I dipped my roller and got him across the chest, a wide stripe.

“Oops.”

He looked down at it. Then at me. The half-smile turned into something else. He set the roller down carefully, like he was deciding, and then he wasn’t deciding anymore. Paint on my neck. I got his arm. He got my jaw. We were both laughing by the time I slipped on the drop cloth and he caught me, one arm around my waist, and then he just picked me up.

It was stupid how easy it was for him. One arm under my knees, the other across my back. I made a sound that wasn’t a word. He turned and dropped me onto the mattress like I weighed nothing. The frame complained. I bounced once. Paint on the sheet now. He stood over me, breathing harder than the painting required, cap crooked, gray streaked across his ripped chest and his neck.

“Shit. Did I—”

“I’m fine.”

He didn’t look convinced. I sat up. My hand found his chest without me telling it to. Warm through the paint. The hair there was coarser than I expected. I left my hand where it was. He went still.

“Dylan.”

“You’re not going to break me.”

He looked at my hand. Then at my face. The paint on my cheek was already drying. Something in his expression shifted, the almost-smile gone.

“Everybody leaves,” he said. Quiet. Not dramatic. Just stating it. “She did. The band did. Nick’s in another country. You’ll get tired of feeding me and listening to me miss notes and then you’ll want the room back. It’s fine. I’m used to it. I just—” He stopped. Swallowed. “I don’t want to make it weird while I’m still here.”

I stood up. He was taller. I had to reach. I put my arms around his neck anyway and pulled him down into it. He didn’t hug back at first. Then his hands settled on my back, careful, like he was still worried about the paint and the drop.

“Shut up,” I said against his shoulder. “It’s Saturday. You’re not staying in this room all day feeling sorry for yourself. You’re not a victim. We’re going out.”

“I…I.” He stuttered.

“I don’t care. Get changed. We’re getting sushi.”

He huffed against my hair. Didn’t let go right away. When he did, his hands lingered a second longer than they needed to.

The place was small and traditional and required a reservation I didn’t have. I got us a private room anyway because the host recognized me from a brand dinner months ago and decided to be kind. We knelt on cushions at a low table. TJ looked at the floor like it had personally offended him and then folded himself down, too big for the space, knees wide. The server slid the door shut. It was quiet in a way the apartment never was.

He stared at the first plate.

“I don’t eat raw fish.”

“You do tonight.”

“Dylan.”

“Open your mouth.”

He looked at me. The cap was off for once, hair messy from the paint and the walk. He opened his mouth. I fed him a piece of salmon with my fingers. He chewed like he was waiting for it to be bad. It wasn’t. He swallowed. Looked at the plate again.

“Another.”

I laughed. “Nick didn’t leave me a drummer. He left me a very large child.”

“Shut up and give me the tuna.”

I did. He let me. By the third piece he was feeding himself but still making me try things first. Our knees touched under the table and stayed there. Neither of us moved them. Outside the paper screen the restaurant moved around us. Inside it was just the low table and the sound of him chewing and the fact that he kept looking at my mouth when he thought I wasn’t paying attention.

After, we walked. The park was mostly empty. The lake was black and still. He had his hands in his pockets. I had paint still under my nails. We didn’t talk for a while. At the edge of the water he stopped.

“Come here.”

“I’m here.”

He picked me up again. Easier this time. One arm under my thighs, the other around my back. I was level with his face. The lake behind him. The city lights far off.

“Who’s the child now?” he asked.

I laughed. It came out thinner than I meant. A tear slipped before I could stop it. He saw it. His expression changed immediately.

“Hey. What—”

“I’m scared,” I said. My voice was smaller than I wanted. “Of this. Of you being here. Of Nick coming back and everything going back to normal and me having to pretend I didn’t—” I stopped. Swallowed. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

He didn’t put me down. His arms tightened a little. He was quiet for a second, looking at the water like it might have an answer.

“There’s this old song,” he said finally. “Springsteen. Or maybe it was someone else. Doesn’t matter. The guy’s singing about how everything good scares the shit out of you because you already know how it ends. And he still gets in the car anyway.” He looked back at me. “I’m scared too. Doesn’t mean I’m not here.”

He leaned in and kissed my cheek. His warm mouth, brief, careful. His coarse beard brushing my hairless cheek. Then he set me down like I was something he didn’t want to drop.

“Come on,” he said. “Your turn to pick the movie. I’m not sleeping in that room yet. Not after you cried on me.”

“I didn’t cry on you.”

“You did a little… child.” I punched him on his big bicep.

We walked back. His shoulder bumped mine once. He didn’t apologize. I didn’t move away. The city was loud again by the time we reached the building. In the elevator he looked at me in the mirrored wall and didn’t look away until the doors opened. Inside the apartment the paint smell was still there. The junk room door was open. He didn’t go in.

“You pick,” he said. “I’ll sit wherever you sit.”

I put Obsession because I was really into that movie lately. We ended up on the couch the same way we had for Whiplash, except this time his arm was around me from the start and my head was on his chest and neither of us pretended it was an accident. His heart was steady under my ear. His hand moved once in my hair, slow. Outside the glass the lights kept doing what they always did. Inside, for a little while, neither of us was leaving. For now…

Author’s note: All my characters are consenting adults (18+). All sexual acts depicted are consensual between the adult characters.