Page 34 of My Song for You
“Oh, look at that, Logan,” I said, doing everything in my power not to strangle our drummer. “Uncle Mason owes you two bucks. By the time practice is over, you could be a millionaire.”
The guys and Hailey laughed. All the guys but Mason, that is. He reached into his back jeans pocket and pulled out his wallet, then handed Logan the money. Logan’s face lit up.
“Do you wanna feel some music now?” I asked him.
“Don’t you mean f—uh, hear music?” Mason said, frowning. I had no idea if that was because not being allowed to swear would kill him or because my question confused him.
“Logan’s deaf.”
“If he’s deaf, why’s he wearing a hearing aid?”
“It’s not a hearing aid. It’s a cochlear implant, but he doesn’t like how music sounds with it. So I thought that maybe instead he could feel the vibrations through the floor while we play.” At the volume we practiced at, he was bound to feel something.
“Wanna feel music,” Logan said, pointing to the drum set.
I crouched down to his level. “I want to feel the music,” I corrected. Christ, I was beginning to sound like his parent. “Can you say that for me?”
“I want to feel music,” he enunciated slowly. Close enough.
“I’m going to remove the processor now. All right?”
Logan nodded, and I repeated the steps Callie had showed me this morning so that the sound waves wouldn’t be transmitted to his brain, to be converted into sound.
“He can’t hear now?” Mason asked.
“Nope. Now he’s completely deaf.”
“Fuck. Fuck. Fuckity fuck. Sorry. Just needed to get those out.”
Kirk slapped Mason on the back. “That’s four bucks.”
“How the fuck do you figure that? The kid can’t fucking hear me.”
“Yes, but maybe he can lip-read,” Kirk said. “Besides, we didn’t say Logan had to hear you in order for you to owe him. Read the fine print.”
“Promise me, puck boy, that you’ll never have kids.” Mason removed ten bucks from his wallet and handed it to Logan. “There you go, kid. Now I’ve got a four-cuss credit.”
Logan looked at me and grinned, having no idea why he had just earned the money. The bigger question was how I was going to explain his sudden windfall to his mother. Either way, she would be less than thrilled at how much Logan’s vocabulary had grown in one afternoon.
I indicated for Logan to follow me to my guitar. I lifted the strap over my head and turned the guitar on, then indicated for Logan to sit near me on the hardwood floor. Watching his expression, I strummed a few random chords. His eyes widened and he placed his hands on the floor. I played some more, and his face lit up brighter than before.
“I wanna try something,” I said to the guys. “Each of you play a couple of bars from ‘Take Me Tonight,’ but one at a time. I want him to feel the vibrations from the different instruments.” The lyrics weren’t exactly kid-friendly, but Logan couldn’t hear them, so it didn’t matter.
I indicated for Mason to go first. Logan bopped his head in time to the drum beat. This was followed with Kirk on the bass, Aaron on the keyboards, and finally me on the guitar again. The drums and bass got the biggest reaction from him.
“Told you drums are the best,” Mason said. “You know, if it weren’t for the part where he obviously likes drums better than the guitar, I’d swear he was your son.”
“Idiot. I’ve already told you he isn’t my son.”
“I heard what you said, but are you sure you’ve never banged his mother?”
What the fuck? “Of course I haven’t.”
“Maybe you’ve just forgotten it. You were drunk or something.”
“I’m positive I’ve never f—uh, slept with her.”
“Then how come he looks a lot like you?”
