Whisper to Me(73)

Chapter Thirty-one


Kai





I fiddled with the amp onstage. I was sitting in on Cameron’s jazz quartet tonight, and the casino was already full with family and friends and regulars. As we each tuned our instruments, I felt my mind wander back to Rachel.

It’s been three weeks since she had been discharged from the hospital, and I’d been terrified I’d lost her that day. When she’d told me about her dream, she might have been recalling her recovery time three years ago. I had whispered lots of things to her back then. We’d been alone quite a bit and my feelings for her had escalated during that time.

I’d wondered just how much she remembered. And I’d almost asked, but things had become awkward enough between us. So I decided that our friendship was more important. In some unspoken agreement we’d been working on it together—hanging out, watching movies, joking, and laughing.

The sexual tension was still a haunting presence, but we’d both done a good job of ignoring it. Besides, I couldn’t help treating her more like a delicate flower since her hospital scare, and she let me know, in her own way, that she didn’t appreciate it.

Her mom’s and dad’s worries were enough, and she didn’t need my reservations on top of that, she’d said. Wanting to take care of her, keep her safe, was becoming more of a struggle than I had ever imagined it would.

She was busy helping her mom with the Pure grand opening and would be leaving for school a couple of weeks after that. I knew she needed to be her own person again. And I was sure to be a complete wreck when she left. It was probably best that she wasn’t in my bed and in my arms any longer. For now, I just wanted to spend as much time with her as she would allow.

Plus, in some undeclared way, she was trying to redeem herself in Dakota’s eyes. I knew my sister had been shocked to hear about Rachel’s transformation at college—mostly hurt that Rachel had tapered contact with her under the pretense of being too busy. But I told her to get the hell over it and offer support to her best friend.

As a result, Dakota had been giving me the silent treatment for days on end, and the absence of her nagging voice had been pure bliss. In fact, it’d given me the time to practice for this event and to set up a strategy to bring good music into the casino. For the first time in a while, I felt as if I had direction in my life.

Tomorrow night, a pan-tribal band would be performing. With Dad’s permission, I booked some different acts this weekend and asked my parents to check out the line-up. They included tambourines and water drums in their set and even sang traditional Peyote songs. I figured Dad would get a kick out of that, as well as the employees and patrons here of Native American descent.

The past couple of weeks, security in the casino had been beefed up due to public drunkenness and an all-out brawl near the craps tables. Of course, that kind of shit came with the territory. This was a place for gambling and drinking, after all.

I wanted to show my father that he could attract different clientele on the weekends. An older or more mature crowd. Maybe couples who wanted a fun, luxurious night out.

The jazz quartet played instrumental numbers, and I’d sat in on a few practice sessions the past month to learn the tunes. We clicked as far as the music was concerned. But musicians could be temperamental no matter what—working in a recording studio had opened my eyes to that.

These guys were different. They weren’t trying to make it huge; they just wanted to tour and play music, and I appreciated that. There hadn’t been any jealousy between them, either. The keyboard player said I was one hell of a bass guitarist. I’d heard that compliment before, and it always made me feel good. But where would that get me, really? No doubt I could play in a few bands like I always had, but that didn’t pay the bills.

“Hey, Kai, before I forget . . .” Cameron came up close behind me as I plugged the power cord into the amp. “We have an appointment at Bixby Studios to record something for an upcoming tour.”

“Yeah?” I said, vaguely familiar with the business over in Carlton County. “That’s cool.”

“I know that mixing is your thing,” he said. My thing? Was anything really my thing? Some little bell went off in my brain. “Would you mind showing up—maybe hang out in the control room and tell us if we’re any good?”

“Dude, they already have their own sound engineers.” I checked the strings on my bass. “What the heck would you need me for?”

“I chewed the fat with Johan recently.” He sat down at his drum set to wait for the sound check signal. “He told me you were really good—a natural.”