Page 24 of Rhythm and Rapture

Felix plays a run that sounds like understanding. "But we know her mind. Her humor. The way she gets excited about molecular structures. The way she laughs when she's genuinely surprised."

"The way she quotes our lyrics like they're poetry," I add, finding a fill that expresses what words can't. "That's more intimate than seeing her face."

"Still," I tap out a complicated pattern on the snare, "being scared of disappointing someone whose face you've never fully seen? That's a special kind of crazy."

"Or a special kind of connection," Felix counters. His bass line drops to those subsonic levels that suggest he's thinking deeply. "Maybe not knowing what she looks like makes it more real. We fell for her mind first."

"Her first time." I shake my head, still hardly believing it. The brushes create a sound like disbelief. "How does someone that brilliant, that confident, get to twenty-two without..."

"By being too busy surviving," Felix says quietly. His fingers find the lowest registers of his bass, pulling out frequencies so deep the windows rattle in their frames, and I feel it in my ribcage—that frequency that makes your bones hum and your breathing labored, where music stops being something you hear and becomes something that inhabits you, breathes for you.

"You heard the exhaustion in her streams sometimes. She's carrying something heavy."

I think about that, about the way she sometimes pauses mid-explanation like she's remembered something painful. My sticks find a pattern that sounds like weight—heavy on the downbeat, struggling to lift on the up. We all have our demons, but hers seem particularly substantial.

The visual notes above us have turned darker now—deep purples and blacks with occasional flashes of red. They move slower, weighted down by the gravity of what we're discussing.

"We have to do right by her," I say. The certainty in my voice surprises me—usually, I'm the one deflecting with humor when things get too real.

"We will." Felix's certainty resonates through his instrument, each note a promise. "We know how to be careful with precious things."

"Like Roman's ego?" I grin, trying to lighten the moment. My hands automatically shift to a rim shot for the punchline.

"Exactly like that." He smiles back—I can hear it in the way his playing loosens slightly. "If we can handle his artistic temperament, we can handle being someone's first."

"Firsts," I correct, moving back to sticks for emphasis. "Plural. First partners, first time on camera with others, first time trusting anyone with this part of herself."

"No pressure though." His sarcasm comes through in a walking bass line that sounds almost comical.

We both laugh, but it's edged with the very real weight of what we've signed up for. I transition to a swing pattern, something lighter but still complex. My brain needs the complexity—too simple and my thoughts scatter again. But this rhythm, with its syncopation and subtle variations, gives my ADHD something to focus on while still leaving room for conversation.

"You know what I keep thinking about?" I say, watching golden notes spiral upward from my ride cymbal. "That vulnerability in her voice when she quoted our lyrics. Like she was confessing something she'd never said out loud."

"'Too afraid to start, scared to fall apart,'" Felix quotes. He plays the melody line from our song as he speaks, and I swear I can see the lyrics floating between the notes. "She understood it better than most music critics."

"Because she's living it." I accent the realization with a rim shot that cracks like lightning in the small space. "All that knowledge, all that theory, but she's been too afraid to experience it herself."

"Until now."

"Until us."

The weight of that responsibility settles over the room like fog. My hands keep moving—they always do, even when my brain freezes—but the pattern shifts to something more reverent. Brushes on the snare, soft kicks, ride cymbal singing like a prayer bell.

Felix responds with a bass line that sounds like a vow. We're not just playing anymore; we're making promises with every note. Promises to be worthy of her trust, to be careful with her vulnerability, to show her that the chemistry she felt in our messages was just the beginning.

The visual notes above us have transformed into something beautiful—gold and silver and deep blue, braiding together in patterns that look like DNA strands. Like chemistry made visible. Like connection given form.

We play until our hands hurt, until we've said everything the music can carry. My usual frenetic energy has finally found its outlet, channeled into rhythms that tell the story of three men who've been given an incredible gift and are determined not to waste it.

By the time we head back upstairs, something has shifted. The chaos in my head has quieted to a manageable roar, organized into patterns I can work with. We're not just three guys who got an unexpected opportunity. We're three men who've been trusted with something precious.

And we're going to be worthy of that trust.

Sabina.

Her name beats in rhythm with my footsteps on the stairs. No longer just a mystery to solve or a fantasy to chase. A real person who writes careful letters and takes enormous risks and trusts three musicians she's never met to be part of her story.

Tomorrow we get tested. Tomorrow we book flights. Tomorrow we take the first real steps toward California and whatever waits for us there.

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