Chase was quiet for a while, fingers still moving over the fretboard.Then he nodded, almost to himself.
“Thanks,” he said, voice rough.“Most people just tell me to suck it up.Or that I’m lucky to have the name I do.”
Vic gave a small, tired smile.“Lucky’s overrated.I’d rather be good.”
They played another hour after that—looser this time, more trusting.Chase started taking bigger risks, stretching out solos, even throwing in a few vocal ideas on a new riff they were messing with.When he finally packed up, there was a lightness in his step that hadn’t been there when he walked in.
“Thanks for letting me sit in,” Chase said at the door.“Means a lot.”
“Anytime,” Vic replied.“Door’s always open.”
***
The garage was quietexcept for the low hum of the fridge and the occasional tick of cooling engines outside.Once again, Vic and Chase had been jamming for hours but had drifted into talking.They sat on the old couch, instruments set aside, two bottles of water on the floor between them.
Chase bent over and grabbed a water, then began picking at the label on his bottle.“You ever think about family shit when you’re playing?”
Vic let out a short laugh.“All the time.Music’s the only place that ever made sense when nothing else did.”
Chase was quiet for a moment, then said softly, “I was twelve before I found out Mason was my dad.”
Vic turned his head, surprised.“Seriously?”
“Yeah.My mom—Carrie Sosa—kept it from both of us.Told me my dad was some guy who wasn’t around.So I met him when I was twelve, and he showed me from the first that I mattered.It rocked on like that for a while, seeing Mason a few days a month, but he’d disappear into a black hole between visits.Then one day when I was fifteen, she just...dumped me on his doorstep.Suitcase in my hand, told me, ‘Bye, baby,’ and drove off.I was a Sosa until that day.”
“Jesus, Chase.”
Chase shrugged, but his shoulders stayed tight.“Mason took me in.Never hesitated.But it messed me up for a long time.”
Vic stared at the concrete floor, the old ache rising.“My mom left when I was six.One morning she was there making pancakes, and the next morning she was just gone.No note.No nothing.A neighbor called my Grams, and she sent Rosie to pick me up.I didn’t know him at all; my guess was he and my mom had a fun weekend.But he was an easy target for hero worship for a little kid.I think I was glad to have a dad, a brother.Moving evidence of his unfaithfulness likely contributed to my stepmom and brother leaving a few years later.No goodbye.Rosie said they got tired of the life, tired of him, tired of me.I spent years thinking if I was just better—quieter, tougher, better at drums—maybe someone would’ve stayed.”
He swallowed hard.
“Rosie...he tried, in his own fucked-up way.But he was always chasing the next high, the next gig.When he died, it was because of some bar fight in Murfreesboro.Grams called me from the hospital.I wasn’t ready.Still not sure I am.”
The garage fell silent.The weight of both their histories pressed down on them.
After a long stretch of quiet, Chase spoke again, voice rough.
“My mom was murdered last year.”
Vic’s head snapped up.“What?”
“Yeah.A blood relative killed her.Cut her hand off after she was dead.”Chase’s jaw flexed.“I was glad it wasn’t an overdose.Sounds fucked-up, but...I was relieved.At least it wasn’t her choosing to leave me again.”
Vic stared at him, the words hitting like a punch to the gut.
“Holy fuck, Chase.”
The shock was raw in his voice for a second.Then he caught himself, shifting on the couch so he was facing the kid more directly.
“I can’t even imagine having that kind of finality about my mom,” he said quietly.“At least with mine, there’s still this tiny part of me that wonders if she’s out there somewhere.There’s still this...possibility, even if it’s stupid.You don’t even get that.”
Vic closed his eyes for a moment, the low hum of the garage fading as an old memory surfaced without warning.
He was four, maybe five.The kitchen smelled like cinnamon and coffee.His mother stood at the stove in one of Rosie’s old band T-shirts that hung down to her knees, humming along to the radio while she flipped pancakes.Her dark hair was messy from sleep, and when she glanced over her shoulder and caught him watching from the doorway, her whole face lit up with a smile so bright it felt like the sun coming out.
“There’s my favorite boy,” she said, voice warm and sleepy.She opened her arms and he ran to her, pressing his face into her stomach as she hugged him tight.She smelled like vanilla and laundry soap.“You want chocolate chips in yours?”
