Page 17 of My Orc Package Deal

“Ready.”

I let my fingers find the strings, picking out a simple, bluesy shuffle.

I watched Milo’s small shoulders tense, then drop as he found the count in his head. A moment later, the thump of the bass pedal joined me for a few steady beats. When I nodded in encouragement—glad he’d found it so quickly—that was followed by the hesitant crack of the snare. It was clumsy, the timing a hair off, but the heart of it was there.

“Good,” I murmured, keeping the chords flowing. “You’re listening. That’s everything. Now try adding the sprinkler.” I made the steady tss-tss-tss sound of a hi-hat with my mouth. “Just keep the time. Constant. Let the other stuff dance around it.”

I saw the effort flash in his eyes—coordinating three limbs was a mental marathon for a kid with arms as skinny as his.

He tried, I’ll give him that…but within a few bars, it all fell apart into a clatter of missed hits.

Wincing, Milo hiked his shoulders up to his ears in a gesture I’d come to recognize instantly. The frustration was a live wire in him, and he was learning, painstakingly, how not to get shocked by it.

“Hey,” I said gently, my fingers never leaving the melody. “Noise is still practice. Reset. Just the question and the answer.”

Milo took a deep, shuddering breath, his eyes closing. When they opened, the frustration was banked, smothered under that eerie, powerful focus. He started again. Kick. Snare. Solid. Steady.

Gods below, this kid.

I’d braced myself for storms. Kesha had been brutally, beautifully honest about Milo’s diagnosis, about the meltdowns that could shake her world, the rigidity that could lock him in place, the anxiety that could turn a simple grocery trip into an ordeal. I’d read what I could, and for patience, for routine, for being a calm, immovable object in his emotional hurricane.

But the hurricane hadn’t come.

Yet?

So far, in the months of our marriage, Milo had been… perfect. Cheerful, adaptable, polite. He followed rules, ate his vegetables, and merged with Jay’s life as if he’d been carved from the same wood.

It was everything Kesha must have been praying for when she’d agreed to my suggestion to give Milo more security.

But it worried me. Because I saw the flickers. The way his gaze would sometimes go distant and glassy, fixed on some inner horizon before he’d blink back to us. The overly-formal “pleases” and “thank yous,” rehearsed to perfection. The way he’d apologize for spilling a single drop of water as if he’d set the house on fire.

Kesha told me she was amazed by how well he was settling in, but I didn’t see her son that way. Milo still thought of himself as a guest. The world’s most conscientious, well-behaved guest, terrified of overstaying his welcome.

I knew that fear. I just didn’t know how to tell him the welcome mat was buried under six inches of permanent foundation.

“Okay,” Milo announced, pulling me from my thoughts. His voice was clear, decisive. “I’m gonna try the sprinkler now.”

“Go for it, little dude.”

The tss-tss-tss joined the mix, shaky but relentless. The kick and snare wavered, stumbled, then locked back in. It was rough. It had holes. But by the gods, it was a beat. A real, playable, living beat.

A grin broke across his face, so bright and unguarded it felt like a punch to my sternum.

“That’s it!” I couldn’t stop my own smile. I leaned into the guitar, weaving a little melodic riff around his sturdy rhythm. “You’re doing it. Don’t think, just live in the beat.”

We played like that for a few minutes, the music a tangible thing growing between us in the sun-warmed room.

It wasn’t anything you’d record. But it was ours. The sound of a Saturday morning, of full bellies and a safe harbor, of a bond being built not from blood but from choice, note by precious note.

As the last chord faded, Milo placed his sticks on the snare drum with a reverence that made my throat tight.

“That was cool,” he declared, a little puff of pride in his chest. “The space in between part. It’s like… the quiet isn’t empty. It’s holding the next note.”

I stared at him, utterly disarmed. “Yeah,” I managed, my voice gone gravelly. “Exactly like that.”

He swiveled on the stool, his legs kicking. “Jay says I’m getting good. For a beginner.”

“You’re getting good, period. You listen, and that’s most of the battle.” I set my guitar on its stand and stretched, the joints in my shoulders popping. “Jay never had the patience for this. He likes the idea of music, he likes to listen to it. But the practice…” I shook my head, smiling. “His patience is for hockey strategies and video games, but you’re better at this than your brother.”