Page 13 of Rhythm and Rapture (Behind the Lens #5)

Chapter Nine

Sleep is an elusive little cunt.

Three hours. Three fucking hours of staring at the ceiling, counting the cracks in the plaster, reorganizing my mental catalog of every drum pattern I've ever played, and still my brain won't shut the fuck up.

On a normal day, my thoughts are like a pinball machine—bouncing from idea to idea, never quite landing anywhere long enough to stick.

The ADHD means my brain runs at a constant sprint, making connections that shouldn't exist, finding patterns in chaos, turning everyday sounds into complex rhythms that only I can hear.

But tonight? Tonight it's like someone cranked the machine to hyper-speed and broke off the volume knob.

Sabina.

Her name ricochets through my skull like a snare hit.

Sa-bi-na. Three syllables that feel like a rhythm all their own.

For months she's been The Hidden Chemist—a mystery, a fantasy, a concept more than a person.

But now she has a name. S. Jaspe. Sabina.

Real enough to sign documents, real enough to trust us with everything.

I flip my pillow for the eighth time, but it's no use. Every time I close my eyes, I see her handwriting. Neat, careful letters that somehow manage to convey vulnerability despite their precision. The chemistry I felt in our messages was real.

Chemistry.

Another word that won't leave me alone. She teaches it, lives it, breathes it. We create it—in our music, between us as a band, and now, apparently, with her.

Fuck it.

I grab my sticks from the nightstand and pad downstairs to the studio. Maybe if I can get some of this energy out through my hands, my brain will finally agree to a ceasefire.

The studio is dark except for the single overhead light above my kit. I don't bother with the full lighting—the shadows feel appropriate for 2 AM introspection. I settle behind the drums, twirling my sticks in the familiar pattern that usually helps center me.

Right stick: flip-catch-flip-catch Left stick: spin-toss-spin-toss

The repetitive motion usually calms the chaos, but tonight it just reminds me of her fingers moving across lab equipment with the same practiced precision.

No click track. No plan. Just me and whatever needs to come out.

The first hits are tentative, exploring. High hat and kick, simple four-four time that my hands could maintain while my brain runs marathons. But then her words echo: "expanding my definition of acceptable variables."

My left hand rebels against the simplicity, finding a syncopated pattern on the snare that shouldn't work with the steady kick.

But it does. It's off-kilter, unexpected—like a chemistry professor who moonlights in adult entertainment.

Like three musicians agreeing to fly across the country for something that might change everything.

I can see the notes floating above my kit—not literally, but in that way my brain sometimes translates sound into visuals.

Gold spirals rising from the ride cymbal, sharp silver bursts from the snare, deep purple waves from the kick drum.

They swirl together in the air, forming patterns that exist only in the space between sound and silence.

The door opens, and I know it's Felix without looking. Roman would have announced himself, probably with some complaint about the noise. But Felix just appears, bass in hand, like a ghost who happens to carry a four-string.

He doesn't ask permission. Doesn't say anything at all.

Just plugs into his amp with movements so economical they're almost zen.

Probably couldn't sleep either—Felix processes stress by getting quieter, more internal.

While I explode outward, he implodes inward until the only way to reach him is through the music.

His fingers find the strings, and immediately he's in the pocket of what I'm laying down. The bass line asks questions my scattered rhythm seems to answer, or maybe it's the other way around. This is how we've always worked best—no words, just understanding.

I watch him from the corner of my eye, marveling as always at his technique.

Felix doesn't just play bass—he converses with it.

His left hand slides up and down the neck with surgical precision while his right hand alternates between fingerstyle and slap with the kind of control I've seen in maybe five other bassists, ever.

Each note is deliberate, placed exactly where it needs to be, not a single wasted movement.

The sound he pulls from that instrument shouldn't be possible.

Deep, resonant tones that I can feel in my chest, punctuated by bright pops that cut through my chaotic drumming like a hot knife through butter.

He's playing in E minor now, but he's adding these jazz-influenced runs that would sound pretentious from anyone else but from Felix just sound. .. inevitable.

The rhythm shifts, becomes something more complex.

I'm thinking about heartbeats now—not the steady lub-dub of a resting pulse, but the erratic flutter of anticipation.

My left hand finds a pattern on the toms that accelerates and decelerates like someone trying to catch their breath, while the right keeps time on the ride cymbal.

The notes floating above us change color. Felix's bass lines are deep indigo with threads of silver, weaving through my scattered gold and copper. They braid together in the air, forming something that looks almost like molecular structures—appropriate, given what's on my mind.

"It's not really about the sex," I say eventually, still playing. The words come out between beats, incorporated into the rhythm rather than interrupting it.

"No," Felix agrees, his fingers never stopping. He's moved to a walking bass line that gives my chaos something to orbit around. "It's about trust."

"She could have anyone." I accent the statement with a fill that travels around the entire kit—tom to tom to floor tom to kick. "Literally thousands of people watch her streams. She could pick anyone."

"But she picked us." Felix modulates to a minor key, adding weight to the words. His thumb hits a note so low I feel it in my spine.

"Because of the music." I switch to brushes, needing something softer to match the revelation. The wire brushes whisper across the snare, creating a texture like silk. "She heard something in our songs that made her feel safe."

"Seen," Felix corrects. His correction comes with a harmonic that rings out in the space between us. "Not just safe. Seen."

We play in silence for a while, finding new patterns, new conversations. This is what Roman doesn't always understand—sometimes the music says what words can't. My ADHD brain, which struggles to maintain linear conversation, finds perfect clarity in the language of rhythm and response.

I watch the notes shift and dance above us. They're forming patterns now that look almost like her handwriting, cursive letters that spell out words I can't quite read but somehow understand. T-R-U-S-T. F-E-A-R. C-H-E-M-I-S-T-R-Y.

"You scared?" Felix asks eventually. He's using his fretless now, and the slides between notes sound like question marks.

"Terrified." I laugh, but keep the rhythm steady—a small miracle given how my hands usually reflect my emotional state. "Not of the cameras or the sex or any of that. Scared of disappointing her."

"How insane is that?" I continue, shaking my head at my own admission.

"We haven't even met her. Not really. We still don't even know what she looks like underneath the mask.

The video messages she sent were cleverly angled, and some searching online came up blank. She's a ghost outside of her streams."

Felix plays a run that sounds like understanding. "But we know her mind. Her humor. The way she gets excited about molecular structures. The way she laughs when she's genuinely surprised."

"The way she quotes our lyrics like they're poetry," I add, finding a fill that expresses what words can't. "That's more intimate than seeing her face."

"Still," I tap out a complicated pattern on the snare, "being scared of disappointing someone whose face you've never fully seen? That's a special kind of crazy."

"Or a special kind of connection," Felix counters. His bass line drops to those subsonic levels that suggest he's thinking deeply. "Maybe not knowing what she looks like makes it more real. We fell for her mind first."

"Her first time." I shake my head, still hardly believing it. The brushes create a sound like disbelief. "How does someone that brilliant, that confident, get to twenty-two without..."

"By being too busy surviving," Felix says quietly.

His fingers find the lowest registers of his bass, pulling out frequencies so deep the windows rattle in their frames, and I feel it in my ribcage—that frequency that makes your bones hum and your breathing labored, where music stops being something you hear and becomes something that inhabits you, breathes for you.

"You heard the exhaustion in her streams sometimes. She's carrying something heavy."

I think about that, about the way she sometimes pauses mid-explanation like she's remembered something painful. My sticks find a pattern that sounds like weight—heavy on the downbeat, struggling to lift on the up. We all have our demons, but hers seem particularly substantial.

The visual notes above us have turned darker now—deep purples and blacks with occasional flashes of red. They move slower, weighted down by the gravity of what we're discussing.

"We have to do right by her," I say. The certainty in my voice surprises me—usually, I'm the one deflecting with humor when things get too real.

"We will." Felix's certainty resonates through his instrument, each note a promise. "We know how to be careful with precious things."

"Like Roman's ego?" I grin, trying to lighten the moment. My hands automatically shift to a rim shot for the punchline.

"Exactly like that." He smiles back—I can hear it in the way his playing loosens slightly. "If we can handle his artistic temperament, we can handle being someone's first."

"Firsts," I correct, moving back to sticks for emphasis. "Plural. First partners, first time on camera with others, first time trusting anyone with this part of herself."

"No pressure though." His sarcasm comes through in a walking bass line that sounds almost comical.

We both laugh, but it's edged with the very real weight of what we've signed up for.

I transition to a swing pattern, something lighter but still complex.

My brain needs the complexity—too simple and my thoughts scatter again.

But this rhythm, with its syncopation and subtle variations, gives my ADHD something to focus on while still leaving room for conversation.

"You know what I keep thinking about?" I say, watching golden notes spiral upward from my ride cymbal. "That vulnerability in her voice when she quoted our lyrics. Like she was confessing something she'd never said out loud."

"'Too afraid to start, scared to fall apart,'" Felix quotes. He plays the melody line from our song as he speaks, and I swear I can see the lyrics floating between the notes. "She understood it better than most music critics."

"Because she's living it." I accent the realization with a rim shot that cracks like lightning in the small space. "All that knowledge, all that theory, but she's been too afraid to experience it herself."

"Until now."

"Until us."

The weight of that responsibility settles over the room like fog. My hands keep moving—they always do, even when my brain freezes—but the pattern shifts to something more reverent. Brushes on the snare, soft kicks, ride cymbal singing like a prayer bell.

Felix responds with a bass line that sounds like a vow. We're not just playing anymore; we're making promises with every note. Promises to be worthy of her trust, to be careful with her vulnerability, to show her that the chemistry she felt in our messages was just the beginning.

The visual notes above us have transformed into something beautiful—gold and silver and deep blue, braiding together in patterns that look like DNA strands. Like chemistry made visible. Like connection given form.

We play until our hands hurt, until we've said everything the music can carry. My usual frenetic energy has finally found its outlet, channeled into rhythms that tell the story of three men who've been given an incredible gift and are determined not to waste it.

By the time we head back upstairs, something has shifted. The chaos in my head has quieted to a manageable roar, organized into patterns I can work with. We're not just three guys who got an unexpected opportunity. We're three men who've been trusted with something precious.

And we're going to be worthy of that trust.

Sabina.

Her name beats in rhythm with my footsteps on the stairs. No longer just a mystery to solve or a fantasy to chase. A real person who writes careful letters and takes enormous risks and trusts three musicians she's never met to be part of her story.

Tomorrow we get tested. Tomorrow we book flights. Tomorrow we take the first real steps toward California and whatever waits for us there.

But tonight, I finally understand what we're really signing up for. Not just a collaboration. Not just an experience.

A responsibility. A privilege. A chance to be part of someone's transformation.

And maybe, just maybe, our own.