Page 2 of Knot His Beast
And I was angry.
Until I wasn’t.
Which is exactly when I finally understood what she meant when she called me an old soul.
Gran didn’t leave me, she went back to where she came from, back to where she could rest and find peace. She went home, and she went ahead to get things ready for me.
Pushing through the gates, I blink away the tears as I step onto the sidewalk then quickly pick up the pace as I walk toward town.
My first lesson is in twenty minutes and if I’m not careful, I’ll be late.
Those lessons, the little bit of money I earn from them, it’s even more important now. I can’t screw up the only good thing I have going for me, not now. Not when it’s the only thing I have left.
Seventeen minutes later, I’m pushing through the doors ofJerome’s Instruments and More, giving myself about a minute and a half to scrub the heck out of my hands before barely making it to the piano room on time.
“Close one today,” Jerome says as I toss my backpack onto the chair in the corner and drop onto the bench. “Lucky for you, your student is late.” He laughs when I grunt my frustration but says nothing as he hands me the music books for today’s lessons.
“Thanks.” I look through them briefly, noting the extra one at the bottom of the stack. “Someone new?”
Jerome shakes his head. “Figured you could use something different to play in between.”
Before I can say anything at all, he walks out of the room, turning his big body to fit through the door before it softly clicks shut.
88 Keys to Success: How to Master Your Musical Journey
A master? Me?
Pfft.
I’m barely surviving, let alone mastering anything.
“It’s after eight, Octavian. I’ve got to lock up for the night.”
I look up from the magazine in my hands and nod with a sigh. “Sorry, Jerome.”
He shakes his head and gives me a crooked smile. “You know I don’t mind.”
I do, I know he doesn’t mind that I stay until after he closes the store. He never does. Sometimes I think Jerome would let me sleep here if I asked him.
And if it wasn’t super weird, and possibly illegal, for him to keep an eleven year old locked in his music store all night.
Sliding off the stool, I put the magazine back on the rack and slowly get to my feet, already dreading the next half hour and everything that follows.
“Here.”
I frown as Jerome holds out a plastic grocery bag, the handles tied and loops open for me.
“Chrissy wanted to make sure you had dinner.” He smiles as I take what he offers. “And Marco wanted it to be good.”
Jerome’s mates; his pack.
It’s not the first time they’ve cooked for me, I know it won’t be the last, and while I’m grateful to eat something balanced and not from a can, it takes everything in me to stay calm.
He’s a good guy with good people in his pack. They mean well and try to help me whenever they can, but it’s stuff like this that reminds me how bad things are for me outside this store.
“Thanks, Jerome. See you tomorrow.”
The fact that they feel this bad for me is a reminder that I actually have it worse than they know.
