gently told him that someday he’d meet another girl he didn’t mind it from, and then he’d know she was the one.
“The Edge, right? The Stratocaster?”
“Right in one,” she said, her smile becoming a grin.
“You oughta put you in there.”
Her smile became a grin at the words he said at least two or three days a week when he came in after school. “Nah. I’m not in their league.”
“But that riff you did on Crash, that was killer.”
“I borrowed it from Knopfler.”
“But yours sounded completely different.”
“That was the Gibson, not me,” she said, as if they hadn’t had this conversation before. “What did you do, run all the way?”
The boy walked from the middle school that was about a mile away. Then, when he was done, he walked back to school, usually in haste, before his father got there to pick him up. She thought it odd, since she was closer to where the boy lived than the school was, but Jordy said his father insisted because he didn’t trust him.
“Should he?” she’d asked.
“Sure,” Jordy had answered, his expression grim. “Where am I gonna go in this town?”
There had been a wealth of disdain in his voice, but Kai had let it pass.
“Nah, it’s just hot out today,” he said now.
“Enjoy it. Fall’s hovering.” The boy made a face. “Maybe we’ll get snow this winter.”
His expression changed slightly, looking the tiniest bit intrigued, as she’d guessed a kid who’d grown up in Southern California might at the idea.
“That would be cool,” he said, then smiled at his own unintentional pun.
“So how’s life today?”
“Sucks,” Jordy said, his smile fading.
“Still not getting along with your dad, huh?”
“He’s an as—” Jordy broke off what had obviously been going to be a crude bodily assessment.
“Good save,” Kai said, acknowledging the effort. “Your mom probably didn’t like you swearing.”
“Only reason I stopped,” Jordy muttered, looking away. Kai guessed he was tearing up and didn’t want her to see.
“If we can’t cry for the ones we’ve loved and lost, then what good are we?” she asked softly.
He looked up at her then, and she indeed saw the gleam of moisture in his eyes. Those green eyes, she thought, were going to knock that girl he’d meet someday right on her backside.
“You understand, because you lost someone, too.”
The boy not only had a good ear, he was perceptive.
“Yes.”
“Kit.”
She didn’t talk about him, ever. But this was a kid in pain, worse today than she’d ever seen it, and she sensed he needed to know he wasn’t alone. And she suspected he already knew how Christopher Hudson had died; the info was out there, on the Net, and easy enough to find.
“Yes. And I loved him very much,” she finally said. “But it wasn’t like your mother, who didn’t want to leave you. He did it to himself.”
Jordy’s eyes widened. “He killed himself?”
No outside source would have said that, she knew. They all said it was accidental. She didn’t look at it that way. But then, she’d been in the middle of it.
“Slowly. Years of drugs.”
“Oh.” Jordy was silent for a moment before he said, in a small voice, “How long ago?”
She hesitated again. Was he wondering how long it took to feel life was worth living again?
“A long time ago.” Six years ago was almost half his lifetime, so she figured that was accurate. “And,” she added quietly, “yesterday.”
She saw his brows furrow, then clear as he nodded slowly in understanding.
“So you haven’t … forgotten?”
Panic edged his voice. Ah, she thought. So that was it. “No. And I never will. And you won’t either, Jordy. I promise you.”
“But … sometimes I can’t remember what she sounded like.”
Interesting, she thought, that it was sound and not image that he was worried about.
“But do you remember how you felt when she talked to you, told you how much she loved you?”
The boy colored slightly, but nodded again.
“Then you remember the important part. And you always will.”
It was a few minutes before the boy got around to asking if he could have the sound room and the slightly battered but well-loved Strat she often let people use. Jordan was just starting out, and it was a bit too much for his hands. She had a small acoustic in back she thought he’d do better with, but he thought acoustics were boring and wasn’t interested. Yet.
Now there was something to add to the door rotation, she thought. Some of her personal favorite acoustic bits, six- and twelve-string, Steve Davison and Jaquie Gipson first on the list, Kaki too, and John Butler and his custom eleven strings. Nobody could listen to them and still think acoustics were boring.
But in the meantime, the boy wanted the solace that laboriously plinking out chords until his fingers were sore brought him.
“No,” she said to his request, startling him; she’d never declined him before. But at her gesture he followed her into the former storage room she’d had converted into a soundproof room with a small recording system set up. Nothing fancy, but enough for accurate and fairly full playback. The conversion had cost her, but it had paid for itself by the third year; not many aspiring players could resist the temptation of purchasing the instrument they liked best once they’d heard the sound played back for them. There was something about the process that was an incredible selling tool.
Jordy followed her into the room, knowing to dodge the corner of the keyboard in the slightly cramped space before she even flipped the lights on. She walked across to the rack where she’d put the Gibson SG when she’d finished last night; the mood had been upon her and she’d indulged in a rare these days midnight jam, playing riff after riff until her own out-of-practice fingers were sore.
She picked up the gleaming blue guitar and held it out to the boy.
“Try this one.”
The boy’s eyes widened and she heard him smother a gulping breath. “BeeGee?”
She
