Nicholas Hart was late for band practice. Again.

Cypress and Orion waited for him in the extra upstairs room at Cypress's home that they used for jamming in. Orion had wanted to start without Nick but Cypress was firm that they would start when his tardy cousin finally showed his face. He wondered what excuse Nick would use this time.

“You know,” Orion said thoughtfully and leaned in a little closer than Cypress was accustomed to, breaking his thoughts, “You play the drums really good, man. Better than me even.”

Cypress and Orion looked at the drum set in front of them and Cypress gave a small, doubtful, laugh and wiped away some the jet black hair that always obscured his face, “Nah man, you’re the best musician in the whole region.” Orion had been the one to teach Cypress in the first place after noticing how much natural rhythm Cypress had, tapping his feet, tapping pencils, fingers, anything really.


“Here, try playing this set I wrote, it has a killer drum solo,” Orion slid to the floor and ruffled through his sheet music, handing Cypress a page to look at. Knowing Orion, he'd probably stayed up all night coming up with another new song. He was a bit anxious about playing, and wanted the perfect song.

After a moment of reviewing the paper, Cypress nodded and took a seat at his drums, picked up the drumsticks and seemed to start playing from memory even though the view he had of Orion’s composition was so brief.

He slammed the bass drum steadily with his foot on the pedal, crashed the cymbals and then went into a back and forth, doing a quick succession on the snare and toms. Orion’s smile was widening not only because Cypress was doing the solo the way he had imagined but because he also had tricked them into practicing before Nick got there.

Speaking of Nick, they heard someone's quick steps trampling up the stairs.



“Sorry I’m late, Mom made me take out the garbage before-” Nick started to breathlessly make an excuse for being late but stopped and gaped at his cousin’s playing.

When Cypress had finished the solo, Orion stood and cheered enthusiastically. There was no way they couldn’t win the Battle of the Bands with playing like that. Nick put his hand over his heart and said “Bro, that was completely awesome! Are you playing that in the battle?”


“I could,” Cypress murmured, transferring his drumsticks into one hand and standing up before throwing them to the sofa. He looked to Orion for guidance. Orion had the final say since he was the one writing the music.

Orion held up his hand, Cypress mirrored it, and Orion gave him a high-five, “Absolutely!”

Nick stood beside them and pouted, “Where’s my high-five?”


Cypress laughed and obliged Nick. Orion took his position at the electric double bass and chided, “Okay, come on, now we can start practicing for real.”