Page 59 of Second Song

Liam watches me in a shared bathroom mirror, no avoiding the flash of steel as our eyes meet. I want to look away, which is stupid when he only repeats what I’ve already told him. “You didn’t fit in at your school, did you? You didn’t ever belong there. No wonder you wanted out. Pretty cruel ever making you stay there.”

“My stepdad?—”

“Had to work. I get it. Plenty of forces families use boarding schools for the same reason. Can’t have been easy after your mum…”

“No, but he?—”

“Didn’t notice how shit it was for you?” His jaw tics, and he grabs a towel, only he doesn’t dry himself. He drapes it across my shoulders as if I need warming, and here’s why. “You get goose bumps, Row. Every single time it comes up. You know exactly how that kid feels. He’s all on his own, you softhearted muppet.” The mirror reflects someone equally softhearted, who maybe growls to counteract that. “Get dressed. Go do your Pied Piper act with your magic whistle. Lead him straight to the hot dogs, while I?—”

He stops then, and it’s my turn to drape a towel and do some straight talking. “While you eat with us? Luke said everyone was welcome. The whole team will be there.”

I leave that open-ended.

It’s Liam’s choice if he wants to join them, and it seems he does. All too soon, we’re outside the stables, clean and almost presentable.

Here’s another growl that doesn’t scare me, not when he straightens my shirt first followed by my collar, but I’m focussed on another sound—drumming that doesn’t convey anger. Not tonight. If anything, Teo’s playing stops and starts and falters.

“He is lonely.”

That’s what we both see and hear at the practice room doorway a few minutes later. At least, I can see it after sharing this space so often with a musician who could pass for an adult but who can have fun like a kid when he lets his guard down. Teo isn’t having much fun right now. His guard also shoots back up as soon as he sees us in the doorway.

No.

His expression only hardens when he sees I’m not alone, and I guess why as soon as I look over my shoulder.

Liam’s wince is visible. It won’t be in reaction to Teo’s playing, but that’s who clutches his sticks and gets defensive. “No one’s forcing you to listen.”

“Wish I had an option to switch it off.” Liam taps his ear. “Tinnitus, I mean. Not to stop listening to your playing. You’re good. I’m the one who’s messed up.”

That’s what they discuss on the way to the playground where the padre mans a grill and the scent of grilled meat greets us along with the other students. They try to lure Teo away, which is good to see, but not before he wrenches off his other prized possession.

He shoves his headphones at Liam. “Try the noise cancelling settings on these.”

Liam holds his hands out but not to take them. “No point,” he says bluntly. “Already tried headphones. Have to wear defenders plenty when I’m working. Thanks, but all they do is lock me into my own personal washing machine revving up for a spin cycle. Don’t mind the sound of it filling so much. That swooshing isn’t awful.” We join the line for hot dogs while they talk. “It’s why I work best on my own.” He says that as if men from Dom’s team haven’t waved hello, or as if he hasn’t waved back while we wait for our food. “Too much of a risk that I’ll miss something important. Makes me a liability.”

That’s what he’s called me a few times while joking. Aimed at himself, it comes out flatly, like he believes it, and I can see how that might have been the case in his old life-or-death occupation.

With a renovation crew, though?

I don’t ask him, not while he and Teo are mid-discussion in a conversation that Liam doesn’t have any trouble keeping up with.

He doesn’t with me either, not when we face each other.

“Tinnitus doesn’t reduce hearing, not according to the medics. Just interferes with it,” Liam tells him. “I hear extra sounds along with everything else, and it’s…”

Teo’s got him matched for gruffness. “A lot?”

“Yeah.” That comes out tiredly, like he’s resigned to what I might have struggled to see as a negative before I knew him. When it comes to sound, more has always been better. But I get to choose my music, don’t I? Liam doesn’t.

Over on the school field, several of the younger students play five-a-side. Their referee blows shrill blasts from a whistle, and Liam tenses. I see it right away, and also get to see it ease the moment I tell him, “That was real. Look?”

He does, gaze following the football, while I can’t drag my eyes from his clenched jaw in profile, from a return of that bathroom tic, or from him telling Teo what he’s mentioned to me already. “It’s the unpredictability of tinnitus that’s the real—” He doesn’t need to say fucker for me to hear it, and Teo nods like he gets it. “That’s why I park my van by the sea whenever I can. And why I surf each morning and evening. If I’m going to hear roaring nonstop, it might as well be the real deal, right?”

Teo nods again. He also frowns, but that’s his thinking face, not anger. I’ve seen both, especially when he’s messed up a loop for an audition file he still isn’t pleased with. He’s lashed out on the drums, but he’s also thought of ways around his lack of skill and this school’s lack of technical resources. He’s thinking hard again as Liam keeps talking.

“Plus there’s something about constant sounds like waves that are easier to live with. So much better than not knowing if it’ll stop or start with no warning. Got my hopes up for a while about a white noise machine having the same effect. Thought it might help me sleep through all the other fu—” He stops himself again. “Nonsense. That’s what I live with.” He shrugs. “There are worse things.”

“Did it work?”

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