Page 19 of Losing the Rhythm

“Cadie!”

I stood up just in time to give him a hug as he came over.

Calvin looked like an adorable mini-version of Paxon. His gray eyes were rounder, and a little sadder. His dirty blond hair was slightly longer than how his brother kept it. Other than that, it was like I was seeing what Paxon looked like when he was seven. It ached too because oftentimes, I couldn’t help but think about the fact that I could have had a sibling around his age too at this point. That I’d have a bond with someone like I saw between the two brothers.

I pushed those thoughts away and forced myself back to the present, just like Toby wanted. “How’s it going, little man?” I asked.

“Good. I’ve been practicing that song.”

I grinned as I noticed Paxon hovering by the door watching us with his own smile.

“All right, Calv, how about you show me how much you’ve improved.”

Our lessons were sporadic, but Calv seemed more than happy as he whipped out his guitar, settled onto his ottoman, and began playing for me.

At the end, I clapped. “Not bad at all. You’re picking this up pretty well.”

His cute cheeks turned an adorable shade of pink as he looked away from me.

“Are you ready for the next song?”

“Yes!”

“I don’t know,” I dragged out. “This one is going to be a toughy. The notes aren’t exactly next to each other on the fretboard.”

“I can do it.” Calvin puffed out his chest, pulling on all the confidence he had in that small body of his. “Dad says I have his hands and he has big hands.” He even held out his hands to show me. They looked small and cute.

I smiled big at him, trying to hold back my laughter.

“Okay. Okay.” I held my hands up in surrender. “Let me find the sheet music.”

I already had it ready, but I pretended to dig around for a moment. “Aha. Here it is.”

I came over and replaced his current song with the new one on the stand. We went over the notes and his hand position to help him better reach them. Then I backed off and watched the magic at work as he tried to figure it out on his own.

Paxon was over by the large TV, using the coffee table to work on his homework.

“Let me know if you have any questions,” I said when I thought Cal had it on his own.

He nodded, his tongue sticking out slightly as he worked over the strings to slowly play through the notes.

“And remember, nice and slow until you’re comfortable with notes and hand movements, then you can start adding speed.”

“Okay,” he said as he strung another note.

“What’cha working on?” I asked, sitting next to Paxon on the floor.

He straightened from the worksheets he had in front of him, blinking at me as his thoughts broke away from his homework. Something I realized about Paxon was that when he did his homework, he got pretty immersed in it.

“Chemistry homework.”

I raised my hands up. “I’m out then.”

He chuckled. “Yeah, it’s hard.”

I looked down at his sheet, and for a moment, swore I was looking at a different language. And I thought calculus was hard.

“You’re giving me that look,” he said, finally putting his pencil down and meeting my gaze.

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