Finding My Perfect Rhythm

(Ben's perspective)

Heading into the Nova with the gang from work, there are about 10 of us that are there and I haven’t told them Liam is playing there yet Kayla and Jessie stop and notice the poster out the front “Hey… isn’t he the hot guy we saw at the Old Hamilton on Sunday night? The really hot one with the tatts, cute smile and just sung amazingly” Kayla says as Jessie looks at it.

“Yeah 100% that’s him, he was amazing,” Jessie says telling us all about the gig the other night, I don’t bother to say anything at the moment as they continue to talk about how much charisma and stage presence that he had. As we head in, I decide to say something “You know I know him, right?” I say as their eyes light up.

“Wait what? How?” Kayla says to me as she thinks she can get a look in at chatting Liam up. “He just played gigs every couple of weekends at the Pub I used to be bar manager at when I was at uni and we just chatted you know, nothing overly serious”. Kayla smiles and looks at Jessie “Ben knows Liam… the singer”. 

The reaction from Jessie is almost the same as it was from Kayla “You are going to introduce us right?” she asks as Kayla slaps Jessie on the shoulder. “He doesn’t know him that well so that some psycho bitch can have his number”, the two girls bicker between themselves for a few minutes as I go and get some drinks.

I grab myself a vodka and soda, the girls both want a Martini so I grab them and take them over to the table that we’re sitting at. The first act plays for a little while as I text Liam a good luck message although I’m not sure whether or not he has got his phone on him tonight.

Sitting there at the table, we’ve sort of split up into two groups where there is Kayla, Jessie, Adam, Sam, Chad and me whilst sitting closer to the bar are Jamie, Chelsea and Chloe. Sitting with the group and catching up with them is a really good way to get to know each of them better even though I’m still trying to keep so much secret for now.

I learn that Kayla and Jessie have been best friends since they met during Uni and although Jessie has only been working at the company for about six months, the pair have quickly taken control of what was a previously empty social calendar in the office. Adam is the oldest of everybody in the office, he’s just turned 40 and isn’t married but has 2 sons with his ex-girlfriend. Sam has only been with the company just over 18 months and works in the finance department and is still trying to get to know people. 

Chad, however, is an open book and it’s called the Chad Green story, he grew up in a trust-fund family, and his father is connected to the Prime Minister through his work and all that sort of nonsense. We know everything about him and how he drives a Mercedes and could have access to a Ferrari or Porsche if he wanted to as compared to my old beaten-up Volkswagen.

As the night goes on, I crack a little bit about my personal life “So I still live with my Dad because it’s cheaper than having my own place right now, I graduated top of the class in Uni and really there isn’t too much else going on you know” I know that is far from the truth but it’s all I want to say right now.

The first lot of performers are on and they aren’t all that crash hot which leaves everyone disappointed and there’s even talk about moving on somewhere else. “Come on guys, give the first guy a chance tonight, the girls want to see him and I’ve heard him sing before and he’s really good”.

I see Liam up on stage really baring it all tonight, just in his black t-shirt and jeans with his tatt sleeves showing and his favourite ear studs in. I notice him spot me and smile to himself as he starts talking about what songs mean to him. I don’t know what he is playing so everything is a surprise to me as well.

As he starts singing, Liam’s voice echoes through the bar and everybody is in awe of his performance I can hear the girls whispering about how good he is and then I hear Adam and Chelsea talk about how unexpected this was. I smile listening to his stories through the night and ultimately his song until the end of the night where he tells everybody how much the song means to him and ultimately when he says about how much his fiancé/best friend is his biggest anchor. 

There’s a short break after Liam’s set of songs and we all head out to the deck to get some fresh air for a few minutes “Damn, that guy was absolutely amazing” Adam says as everybody agrees which makes me happy. I still don’t let on how well I know him and actually look forward to showing him off

(Liam's story)

After finishing off the gig, I head out the back to pack my stuff away when there is a guy waiting to see me. “Liam right?” the mystery man says I turn around and see him. “Umm yeah?” I say a bit concerned by his presence.

“I’m Andy Alexander, we’ve actually got an audition this week if I remember rightly?” he says to me as I let out a sigh of relief. The feeling of relief comes over me “Oh yeah, from Impact Music good to meet you man” I shake his hand as we sit down.

“So I know that you were coming into audition for us but I wanna cancel that and talk about contracts going forward,” he says to me which gets me excited by the prospect of things that will be good because it takes that nervousness of auditions away. We finish off talking after about half an hour and part ways before I head out and see Ben with his friends. I don’t know what he’s told them but I call out to him over the music.

“Hey, Ben” I call out as I walk over to him and shake his hand not trying to give away too much right this second. “Hey Liam, you were amazing tonight like usual,” he says as everybody agrees with him as his smile beams widely.

“Do you have a second to talk and catch up?” I ask to get him outside for a few minutes to tell him the news “I met Andy Alexander out the back he was here you know”. I stand there for a minute “He’s changing the audition from an audition to wanting to talk about contracts and deals” my excitement isn’t contained and I can feel it spreading across to him.

Ben’s whole personality is excited with the combination of alcohol-induced good spirits and genuine excitement “Fuck yeah, that’s what we wanted and takes all the stress away of having to audition”. I give him a great big hug and make sure nobody is around from his group so that I can kiss him deeply.

“Should we go back inside with your friends?” I ask Ben as he nods and we go back inside with no real showing of affection to each other and we keep talking as I get to know his friends a lot more. A little while later Jessie looks at me “Sorry for us keeping you and talking to you, you said your fiancé was here and you probably want to spend some time with her” she says as I look across at both her and Ben with a cheeky grin.

“What?” she says as I laugh hard about the situation. “I have been with my fiancé this whole time,” I say putting my arm around Ben and everybody looks surprised about things. “It’s true, Liam and I have been engaged for a few months and been together what would you say as a proper dating couple?” he says looking at me as I shrug my shoulders. “Probably only those few months I think it’s been serious serious, but say probably six or seven years we’ve been together this way”.

Everybody takes the news better than what I thought and what Ben thought for sure as there are so many questions for us about our situation together and everything which is really nice for him in particular given how afraid that he was. It’s about midnight when everybody starts to say their goodbyes and I hug Ben tight “Tonight was absolutely amazing, so I hope that you enjoyed yourself” I say as Ben and I walk hand in hand out to my car and then onto the hotel.

Lying in bed the next morning, Ben’s arm wrapped around me as we sleep, I grab my phone and see a couple of text messages that I missed the night before including ones from guys at the Music store, Josh and then one from Richard which I stop to read fully.

“Good luck tonight Liam, the commitment you put into your music means that you will nail the performance tonight and I am proud of you and I know Rosie will be there with you in spirit tonight because she would be proud of the two of you

Richard”

Reading the text from Richard makes me emotional and I try not to wake up Ben who is still sleeping with the copious amounts of alcohol he had last night and I don’t want to disturb him. I grab my clothes and put them on and go for a walk taking everything in. I grab a coffee from the barista downstairs and take a good long walk.

As I’m walking, I dial the phone and ring, Josh, I’m trying to figure out the time difference in my head but thankfully it’s not as late as disturbing him. “Hey man, it’s Liam,” I say as if he wouldn’t know who it was given that my name would come up on the caller ID.

“Yo bro, how’d it all go last night? Wanted to be there so badly” he says as I sit down on the wall by the river and just talk him through how the night went. “It was so good man, everything just went perfectly apparently, I thought I was a little scratchy but everybody loved it and the producer guy I was supposed to be auditioning for on Monday was there and well he’s decided that rather than audition he wants to talk about contracts”.

Josh’s voice gets excited “Fuck bro, that’s absolutely awesome man, you’ve deserved this for so long and I bet Ben is so excited about it as well,” he says as I look out over the river just taking everything of the sights and sounds in. “Yeah, he was ecstatic but then he’d been enjoying the Vodka and Soda all night so that probably played a lot into it” Josh laughs as he said Vodka and Soda at the same time as I did because we all know what Ben’s favourite drink is.

“Ben’s still in the hotel room sleeping, so I wanted to talk to you about the finding and getting back in touch with Mum's situation and was wondering when you get back, can you help me?” I ask Josh, as I’ve decided that cannot go onto the next step of my life without knowing where she is or what she is doing with herself.

“Of course, bro, I’ll help you out but I need to make sure that you’ve talked to Ben about this situation because the last thing that I want for the two of you is to have any secrets about things because look where it gets you and I don’t want to be on the wrong side of that” Josh says which is completely fair enough because I know that I would face the full wrath of him if anything hurt Ben.

“Yeah, we’ve spoken about it, he’s not exactly thrilled with the idea because he’s worried about me getting hurt and the impact that it has on me when I get hurt and I mean that’s fair but I’m in a different place now mentally with everything”. Josh slowly agrees with me but also gets where Ben is coming from which is totally understandable because my whole thing was trying to put the past in the past.

I sit there and think for a minute about whether it is actually a good idea or not now to do it but I really want to do it “You still there Liam?” Josh says as my mind completely goes away from what he was saying and thinking about everything.

“Yeah, sorry man, my mind wandered off thinking that’s all,” I say as Josh repeats his sentence. “You just need to remember that it might not happen for you at all and that’s ok as at the same time things might not go the way you want them to and that’s ok as well”. His point resonates with me as he uses his own experience to talk me through it.

“I’ll think about it and let you know when you get back,” I say hanging up the phone when I notice Ben has texted me whilst I was sitting there talking to Josh wondering where I had gotten to. I head back to the hotel room where Ben is awake but his levels of activeness are still very questionable.

“Morning sexy, how’s the head?” I say grinning cheekily as he whacks me with the pillow “Like I’ve got a jackhammer pounding it” I sit on the bed next to him and finish my coffee off. “So where did you disappear to for so long?” he asks as he can barely look at me, trying to keep his head onto the pillows.

“I woke up early, so grabbed a coffee and went for a walk and was just ringing Josh to talk to him about last night and other things”. I don’t add anything about discussing looking for Mum because Ben would try to talk me out of it and even though I think he would know what the other things are, right now I think he just wants to get rid of his hangover.

“Do you want anything for breakfast do you want to sleep there for a bit longer?” I ask him as he just groans “Well I’m going down to get breakfast so you can come to join me if you want to but remember we have to be checked out by 10:30 so make sure you’re awake by 10”. I head down and have breakfast and check YouTube to see if there is anything of the gig up which is an outside chance but luckily for me there is something there from the Nova themselves who live-streamed it.

I put in my air buds and listen to my performance; I sit there listening and am actually impressed with the level of quality that I put out although I don’t know if I really like the black t-shirt and jeans casual look I went with. Listening to the originals, I feel the emotion of the performances and watch them back a couple of times and enjoy them as if they were somebody else.

Sitting there eating breakfast, Ben comes down about half an hour later “Good Morning sunshine” I say smiling at him as he just waves me off “It’s most definitely not good” he says as he sits down with just a cup of black coffee. “Did you have a good night last night?” I ask as I sit there eating the food and looking at Ben. “Yeah, it was good last night getting to know everyone and then introducing you to them all, even if they are still in shock,” he says as he forces a smile trying to settle his hangover down.

I grab him so food to put into his stomach and we sit there talking generally about things for a little while, just the two of us which is nice and why I wish we could live alone sometimes that we just have our own moments like this for a while. We head back up to the room and Ben has a shower and I finish packing our bags. “Do you want to go straight home or do you want to do something beforehand?” I call out to Ben as he is in the shower.

“If it’s not somewhere to get Panadol then the home will be good,” he says as he gets dressed and I head down to check out and grab the car. We drive home “So what were the other things you were talking to Josh about this morning?” Ben asks as I was expecting the question and topic to arise but wasn’t expecting it so soon.

“It was about finding Mum and don’t start about it because Josh said that he wasn’t going to do anything unless you 100% knew about everything that we…. I was going to do and if there was any situation where any of us got the sense of trouble then it isn’t happening and if you got hurt well… Josh was going to come down on me”.

Ben laughs “Of course, he would but I don’t care about me getting into anything it’s you that I worry about you know, you take everything so personally and this is probably the last really big thing that you need to deal with and if it doesn’t go your way, I just don’t want you taking it personally.” Ben’s words are coming from a good place and talking from experience that I fall to pieces when things don’t go right because I blame myself for the impact it has and the stupidity of the decision.

“Look at how you went off the radar for a few hours the other night because it was playing that toughly on your mind, you can’t just do that if things don’t go right and don’t say that I don’t trust you it’s because I do trust you and know how caring and passionate you are,” he says as we park outside the house.

“Honestly, I know what you mean and I am open to every possibility of what can happen but I think with everybody behind me I am in a very good place right now and like I’ve said I’m not trying to go back to my old life, but I just can’t go fully forward without knowing,” I say as we get out of the car and head inside. “Don’t tell your dad about any of this alright because I don’t want him going back on eggshells because after what he sent me last night” I say showing Ben the text message he sent me as he reads it both smiling and crying.

We head inside as Richard is heading out “Hey boys, how did everything go?” he asks as Ben quickly wipes his eyes so Richard doesn’t see him crying. “Better than expected, I will fill you in later if you want,” I say as Ben heads inside “Don’t mind him, he just enjoyed the evening a bit too much”.

Richard laughs and heads out the door as we head inside “Are you feeling alright or just want to lay down?” I ask Ben who goes upstairs and straight into the bedroom as I lay down on the couch and put the TV on. Later that afternoon, Ben comes wandering down the stairs “You’re being productive” he says as I’m laying there watching TV flicking through the channels.

“Look who’s talking sleeping beauty” I laugh as he walks over and hit me “I wasn’t asleep that whole time, I was also doing some googling for you,” he says as I turn and look at him. “What do you mean googling for me? You’re not trying to teach me that new position again are you because you remember what happened when we tried” I say as he just whacks me over the back of the head.

“Keep your head out of the gutter for a change,” he says to me as he shifts my legs and sits next to me “I was starting your work for you”. I look across at him with a strange look on my face “Looking for your Mum? I’m not happy about it but I thought very least that I would help you start because you would have no clue where to start”.

I give Ben a quick hug and then look at him “So what did you find?” I say as he just shakes his head at me “Nothing”. I’m disappointed by that but hardly surprised because we’re not going to find an address or anything like that straight away but I was hoping that we could find a Facebook page or something”.

“I probably would never have found her anyway just through my work so it doesn’t matter I guess”. Ben glares at me “You told me you wouldn’t let this bother you and what is this whole attitude” he says as it annoys me a bit because I don’t think I was really letting it bother me, rather than just stating facts that it is a highly unlikely pursuit in trying to find her.

“I wasn’t letting it bother me, I was just saying that given that she hasn’t wanted any contact with me or tried to get into contact with me in the past so it was probably impossible to try and find her just with a quick google search,” I say as Ben’s face changes from one of anguish and worry to one of relief if that’s the right word, realising that I’m not upset by it and just being realistic.

We sit there watching TV for a while before Richard gets home “Hey boys, how did things go last night?” he says as he puts his stuff down and sits on the couch across from us. “It went really well, I got through the gig really well and actually got to meet the producer that I was supposed to have the audition with”.

Richard sits there excited as he almost begs for more information about what the producer said “Well you’ve got to tell me whether it’s good news about what he wants, you can’t expect me to just sit and wait” he says like a proud parent which I guess he really is given that he has been the only father figure I have ever known.

“So, he cancelled the audition for this week,” I say as Richard’s face drops thinking that it’s bad news “Oh… I thought you”. I stop him partway through his sentence “He wants to talk about contracts and a deal going forward” I say as Richard looks shocked at how fast this has all gone.

“A record deal?” he asks as I nod assuming that is what the meeting will be about. “I assume so, he said that there wasn’t a need for an audition and that he wanted to talk about doing contracts and everything like that so I guess that is what it will be all about,” I say excitedly as Richard gives me a hug and lets out a sigh. “That is absolutely brilliant Liam, I’m so proud of you and I know Rosie would be as well,” he says as I smile at Ben who has a tear in his eye again.

Ben sits there and gets up for a minute wiping his eyes as Richard goes over to talk to him and I sit there back watching TV for a bit as Richard and Ben talk in the kitchen before I go in there “Why don’t you two go out for dinner or something tonight?” I say to them just so they can have some time together. Ben and I always get to have a lot of time together but he and Richard never get to do anything just father and son and I think it would be good for them to do something without me being the third wheel.

After an initial rejection and then plenty of persuading, the two of them end up agreeing to go out together for dinner somewhere just so that they can catch up properly. Sitting there back watching TV, I don’t know if Ben is really in the mood to go out but with everybody’s busy schedule, I think that this is the best time that he and Richard can just have a proper father/son time without me being around.