Page 53 of All the Discord
“Great, come in.”
There was only a small amount of hesitation as he came in. He whipped his head around as he took in the foyer. It continued like that as he followed me up the stairs, past the second floor, and up to the third floor. When they initially came to visit, I kept them away from the third floor. It felt too personal to share at the time.
“Don’t mind the mess too much,” I said. “I’m still unpacking. I promised myself to unpack at least a box a day.”
“Wow,” he mouthed. I did chuckle out loud that time. He looked at me and blushed. “This place is amazing.”
“Thank you.”
“What’s this?” He went over to what looked like Styrofoam triangles with jagged edges on one side.
“Bass traps,” I said. “I haven’t had a chance to set them up yet, but these go into the corners.” I grabbed one and held it against the wall in a corner to show him.
“Oh, and they help absorb sound,” Calvin said.
I raised an eyebrow. “That’s right.”
“Toby has something like that in his bedroom. But they aren’t triangles like these.”
“He probably has the panels. They do the same, except they go on the flat walls instead of in corners.” I dug through a box and pulled one out to show him.
“Yeah, these.”
“Once I figure out how I want to set up, I’ll be able to place them.”
“Can I help?” Calvin asked, looking excited.
Unable to stop myself, I smiled, enjoying his energy. “Of course. I’ll let Paxon know so he can bring you over.”
Calvin practically beamed at my response. If he had a true interest in music, I wasn’t going to stop him from learning more. I never thought about teaching others before. Frankly, I thought I’d make a terrible teacher. I didn’t have that kind of patience.
“Do you have your MP3 player?” I asked.
Calvin dug through his pocket and pulled it out. I hooked it to my laptop and began downloading more songs for him, including the ones I played at the charity event. “I’m giving you the past songs I did for them too.”
Calvin tried to follow along with what I was doing. “Thank you, Cadence.”
I patted his head. “You’re welcome.”
As I finished up, I noticed his eyes kept going back to the guitars I had, lining the wall on their stands.
“Do you play the guitar?” I asked.
He blinked, focused on me for a moment, before finally shaking his head no.
“Toby is really good, but he also treats his guitar like it’s his baby. I’m not allowed to touch it.”
Chuckling, I tugged him over and sat him down on an ottoman. I pulled over another one, along with an extra guitar. I had five of them total and wasn’t attached to them as Toby seemed to be. My attachment was to my piano. The extra guitars had been my father’s and I kept them, taking care of them in hope of him coming back one day to claim them. At first, I had told myself that if he didn’t want to come back to claim me, he’d at least come back to claim his guitars.
Foolish thoughts of a foolish girl.
I gave Calvin the guitar I had grabbed. “This one is special. It was my first guitar and knows to be gentle with beginners. I think it’ll be perfect for you.” I went over to one of the closets and dug through it for a moment until I found the right case. It was worn out, but sturdy. I couldn’t remember how many times my little hands dropped the thing. “This is the case for it.”
His face scrunched in confusion.
I laughed. “How can you practice at home without a guitar? I’ll let you borrow this until you can get your own, but you need to promise me that you’ll take good care of it.”
Calvin blinked furiously as he pulled the case against his small body, wrapping his arms around it tightly. I smiled. He wouldn’t like being treated like a charity case, and Calvin was far from that for me. There was no way he’d like me handing over a guitar like it meant nothing to me.