String Theory

by Ashlyn Kane

  “Yeah?” Hobbes smiled. “Well, we’ve got the extra room. They’re welcome to stay.”

  And that right there? That was the Problem. A guy shouldn’t smile at Jax like that over breakfast while inviting Jax’s relatives to stay in his house and expect Jax not to fall in love with him. “Thanks, Hobbes.” Then he narrowed his eyes. “You’re not going to abduct Alice, are you?”

  Hobbes rolled his eyes. “I work with kids all day. Trust me, I get my fill.”

  Privately Jax doubted that. He had observed Hobbes at work and knew the soft heart that lurked under his lab-coat-lumberjack exterior. “Uh-huh. I’m watching you.”

  The conversation was over, though. Hobbes stood, ruffled Jax’s hair, and moved toward the front hall closet for his shoes. “Have a nice day, honey.”

  Lord. Okay, he definitely needed to call his sister.

  But maybe he’d watch that video one more time first.

  “ARI?”

  Ari didn’t look up from his music, just kept tapping his pencil on the top of the piano, trying to recall the exact notes from the night before. He couldn’t ethically use them for anything—not without Jax’s permission—but, irrationally, he wanted to remember them, even if it wouldn’t recreate the experience.

  “There you are.”

  Finally he looked up from the paper to see Afra striding toward the piano next to the window in his sixth-story loft. She took her customary seat on the ultramodern couch along the wall and set her purse down next to her. “You haven’t been answering my calls. Or texts.”

  Ari didn’t text much, as a rule. Modern phones made the eventuality of carpal tunnel a near certainty, and he needed his wrists in peak condition. His ancient BlackBerry allowed him to send the occasional text without sacrificing range of movement. “I’ve been working.”

  “Oh?” She shifted forward in her seat and cocked her head as he closed his eyes and moved his fingers over the keys. Jax didn’t have perfect recall of the music, so perhaps he’d been basing his runs on F instead of C here? Ari tried a few variations. Closer, but not quite….

  “That sounds familiar.”

  “Hmm?” He tried again. There—a different chord inversion, a back-and-forth that walked up the keyboard.

  Afra was quiet for a moment while he scribbled down the notes. Then, as he lifted his head, intending to retrieve his violin to attempt to recall his reply, the studio filled with tinny, poor-quality audio.

  That’s me and Jax.

  Startled, he closed the keyboard cover. “Where did you get that?” he asked, barely repressing the urge to snatch up her phone.

  Afra didn’t answer him as she continued to watch the video. “I thought you said Naomi asked Gary to play for you.”

  “Gary got food poisoning.”

  “And Rosa was going to be his backup?”

  “Stuck in traffic.”

  “Huh.” She paused the video and raised her eyes. Ari forced his gaze away from her hand. “So who is this guy? Because someone tweeted this video, and it’s trending on Twitter in Ontario. Ten thousand views.” She nodded at the sheet music on the piano top, and Ari’s ears went hot for no reason he could decipher. “And unless my ears deceive me, now it seems like you’re trying to catch lightning in a bottle.”

  His stomach twisted unpleasantly. “I wasn’t going to use it for anything.” At least now he didn’t have to worry about trying to capture the music before it faded from his memory.

  A beat. Then Afra opened her mouth, closed it, and frowned. “I didn’t think you were. But you didn’t answer my question. Who’s the pianist?”

  “His name is Jax Hall. He works at the Rock.” It was safest to stick to bare facts. Every syllable that came out of his mouth would reveal him further. Though really, his sister knew him better than anyone. She’d figure him out eventually. “I was fortunate he was able to step in at the last minute.”

  “I’ll say.” Afra hit Play on the video again. “Not a great technical player, but he’s got good energy. And he was able to riff on your song pretty well.”

  “He didn’t know it,” Ari said, unable to help the note of marvel in his tone. “He only had twenty minutes to learn the songs.” Perhaps not impressive for a professional, but Jax wasn’t. By his own admission, he’d only taken a handful of lessons as a child.

  Afra quirked a smile. “You’ve got a big musical boner, eh?”

  Ari shot her a look. “There is no such thing.”

  “Uh-huh, sure there isn’t. And you definitely don’t have one for the gorgeous bartender at the Rock. I perfectly understand you.”

  Ari scowled and turned to the kitchen. His throat was suddenly very dry. “Would you like a glass of water?”

  “Sure.” Afra followed him into the kitchen and leaned against the breakfast bar. “So. Since you’re trending… I’m going to up the social-media schedule a bit. Maybe you could film some ‘in rehearsal’ stuff for Insta?”

  He scowled. “You know I hate—”

  “Yes, yes, boohoo. But you know Noella’s going to be blowing up your phone in twenty minutes, because that YouTube video isn’t making you any money, but something else could be.”

  Ari blew out a frustrated breath and drank some of his water. He knew that Afra wasn’t simply not wrong but was in fact very right. Didn’t mean he was happy about it. It was why she took care of things managerial and he played the music. She was just… better at that stuff.

  “Fine. Have her email me a list of what she wants and I’ll make it happen.”

  Afra grinned, triumphant. “Excellent.”

  Ari waved her back to the couch, and together they settled into comfortable seating.

  “So, sounds like the break is helping creativity.” She tipped her head toward the piano.

  Ari pressed his lips together. Last night hadn’t just been an electric connection with another person; it was the first music he’d written in almost six months. When the vaccine finally become widely available, Afra had created an intense cross-continent tour schedule that left Ari exhausted at the end of every day. He had hoped some rest might bring the notes back to him, but the past week had been uneventful until last night.

  “Ah. Well. Last night was good, right? You obviously haven’t lost it.” She tipped over to bump their shoulders together.

  “Indeed.”

  Afra’s phone pinged, and she glanced at it before setting it down. “Do you ever wonder if teaching Maman how to text was a mistake?”

  “Maman is an extremely intelligent woman who would have figured out the basics of texting without your assistance.” Ari took a sip of his water. Shame he hadn’t made chai.

  “Bitch,” Afra grumbled.

  Ari didn’t smirk. “What does she want?”

  “Dinner. She wants everyone to come over tonight.” Afra wrinkled her nose and twisted her water glass in her hands.

  “Has she been asking again?”

  Afra huffed, which was as good as a yes. Ever since Ari came out in college, their parents had focused all their grandchildren desires onto Afra. Once Afra passed her thirty-fifth birthday, the hints morphed into questions edging on demands.

  “I’m sorry.” He touched her arm gently, and she allowed it for a moment.

  Then she pushed her hair behind her ears. “So, please tell me you’re coming to dinner with me and Ben? Don’t let me be the only disappointing child who shows up.”

  His lips quirked. “Of course. I wouldn’t want to abandon you.”

  “Exactly.” Before she could say more, her phone rang. “It’s Ben. Sorry, just— Hi.” Her voice softened on the word, and she tilted her head as she listened to her husband on the other end of the line. She had always been that way when it came to Ben. Ari hadn’t met many of her boyfriends before him, but right from the start, she had spoken about and looked at Ben like he was something precious. A soft pang of jealousy hit below Ari’s heart, but he pushed it away.

  “I’m about to head there now…. Yes, Ari is s
till alive, and he’s coming tonight. He says hi.” She cast the stink eye in his direction, as if he might change his mind or forget in the next few hours. “Yeah, see you soon. Love you.”

  “What time for dinner?” He stood with her and followed her to the door.

  “Maman says five. So I’ll see you then?” He nodded. Once upon a time they wouldn’t have eaten until seven or later, but these days his father tired early. “Good. Don’t obsess over hot piano man so much that you forget to compose, or that you wear it out.” Her gaze flicked down and up, and then she was gone before Ari could scrape his chin off the floor.

  He honestly tried to compose something, but he couldn’t seem to keep his hands from wandering toward his phone and pulling up that video one more time.

  The performance was as electric in the viewing as it had been in the playing. Even through the poor lighting, anyone would be able to see the look of intensity on his face and read it for what it was—profound joy.

  And Jax was as captivating in pixelated video as he was in person. The way he played with his whole body, the acute concentration on his face, the looks he kept shooting Ari—

  Fuck, Afra was right. He had a massive music boner for Jax Hall. Ari dropped his head onto the piano keys. The discordant notes punctuated his feelings.

  He was an idiot. His mother would not be pleased if he brought home a bartender. Which was the least of the issues.

  Jax was probably not interested—but before he could finish the thought, an image of Jax giving him sultry elevator eyes flashed through his mind. So Jax was probably interested in sex, but judging from Naomi’s comments, that was all he was interested in.

  Ari lifted his head and let it drop back onto the keys.

  His phone rang in his hand, and he raised his head enough to read the screen. Noella Johnson.

  Shit.

  Ari did not want to talk to his producer today, but he should answer. It wasn’t Noella’s fault that she was contractually obligated to ask him questions about his creative nonprogress.

  The phone stopped ringing. A few moments later a text came through.

  Hi Ari, just checking in. Why don’t we set up a chat next week and you can update me on how things are going. I’ll send a calendar invite. Ciao!

  Ari lay his head back on the keys.

  ARI EASED his white hand-me-down BMW 3 Series into his parents’ driveway and thrust it into Park. He wondered if he could find a way to swing the system of ready drivers and hired cars he enjoyed on tour back home in London. Did anyone still have their own chauffeur? And what would that cost? Probably outside his budget, he thought ruefully, and probably for the best. Afra would never let him live down that kind of pretentious douchebaggery just because he hated driving.

  He could always take a Lyft, but he hated waiting. Unfortunately, admitting that seemed worse than wanting a chauffeur.

  The scent of frying eggplant hit him even before he opened the door, which meant his father was preparing khoresh bademjan. The stew had been Ari’s favorite growing up. Ari’s mother had done most of the cooking, but this was his father’s specialty.

  It was the dish Ari had prepared when he came out to them at seventeen. He’d wanted the comfort of food he loved in case it didn’t go well. Of course, it actually went fine if you didn’t count the mortification he experienced when his parents revealed that they’d known for years.

  It could have been worse, but the end result was that now Ari associated khoresh bademjan with someone springing something on someone else. He felt like he was walking into an ambush.

  Knowing his parents, he probably was, but at least it would be the mostly loving kind. Mentally fortifying himself, he took the three steps up to the front door, knocked twice, and let himself in. “Baba? Maman?”

  “Befarma! In the kitchen!” his mother called cheerfully.

  He found her sitting at the breakfast bar, watching as his father lifted the eggplant, lamb, and onion into the simmering tomato sauce. In the time since Ari had left on his last tour, his father’s hair had finished going white, but he seemed stronger now than he had a few months ago. He was recovering.

  How much further he’d recover was anyone’s guess.

  “Hi, Maman.” Ari leaned over and kissed both his mother’s cheeks, then crossed the kitchen to greet his father. “Baba.” He bent so his father could kiss his forehead the way he always had until he turned sixteen and was suddenly too tall. “You look well.”

  His father gave him a narrow-eyed look. “I’m not ready to shuffle off this mortal coil just yet. Stop looking so surprised.”

  Apparently he’d been reading Shakespeare again.

  “Not surprised,” Ari placated. “Happy.”

  “Hmm.” He brandished a wooden spoon at Ari. “Go and make chai for your mother, hmm?”

  Ari quirked a smile. “Yes, Baba.”

  The motions of home comforted him—filling the kettle, locating the correct loose-leaf tea, warming the teapot. “Where’s Afra?”

  “You know your sister,” Maman said, smiling even as she shook her head. “She was born in Iran.”

  Afra did just fine getting Ari to gigs on time, scheduling his life, ensuring everything was where he needed it when he needed it. She was only ever late for dinner at their parents’. But it wasn’t like Ari could tell them that.

  “Perhaps they have big news to share and they want to make an entrance,” Ari’s father put in.

  Ari elected to excuse himself from that conversation and paid a lot of attention to measuring out the tea.

  “Regardless of what your father thinks, we aren’t going to be around forever,” his mother said, picking up the thread.

  Unfortunately this situation called for something stronger than chai.

  “We just want to see you and your sister settled.”

  A lot stronger.

  “I have an apartment,” Ari said, keeping his voice as level as he could. But it was a losing battle. His parents loved him. They wanted him to be happy, and they accepted that he was gay. It was being single that was the problem. Or recently, single and only in town for half the year. “I have a good career. I’m settled.”

  The kettle whistled an interruption, but he got no reprieve.

  “You need someone to look after you,” his mother said. “Afra can’t run around after you forever. She has Ben. She isn’t getting any younger, you know. What will you do when she has children?”

  Afra was thirty-eight. Ari didn’t even know if she and Ben wanted kids, but he was extremely well acquainted with his parents’ arguments in favor of them.

  “Afra is an independent woman. What makes you think she would quit her job?” He looked pointedly at her. “You didn’t.”

  Ari’s parents had emigrated from Iran thirtysomething years ago, after the Islamic Revolution in 1978 and the Iraq-Iran war. They told Ari and Afra they wanted a better life for their children, and Ari knew they had never regretted their choice—especially because of what life would have been like for him living there as a gay man. They had both worked at the hospital until Ari began touring at twenty-two.

  They’d gone back when the pandemic hit. Ari’s mother was a pulmonologist.

  “She wouldn’t have to quit working to take a job closer to home,” his mother pointed out. “She’s done other jobs. That law office she managed would kill to have her back. Or she could hire staff!”

  That was probably true, but…. “And in the meantime, what?” Ari asked. He reminded himself to breathe deeply while he took down the teacups. “I’m supposed to meet a man, marry him, and make him my tour manager?”

  “What about that nice intern?” his father put in, forestalling what was doubtless a comment from Ari’s mother that he could just give up touring completely. “What is his family like? Does he have a degree?”

  Ari’s heart migrated to his toes in an attempt to escape his body. “Theo?” Now that was a horrifying concept. “Theo is an infant, Baba.” He was what, maybe twenty
? He was still too young to be served in the US, that was for sure. “And even if he weren’t, I’m pretty sure he’s not interested in men. And I’m not going to hit on an employee!”

  “Well, you can’t expect Afra to arrange your life indefinitely.”

  No, that’s your job, Ari almost said, but fortunately he bit his tongue before the words could escape. “Our work is between the two of us.” He poured a cup of chai and set it in front of his mother. “It would be disrespectful of me to discuss any changes with you before I talk to Afra, and I won’t do it.”

  It was going to be a long evening.

  Afra and Ben did eventually arrive and took most of the brunt of Ari’s parents’ meddling. Ari wanted to jump to their defense, but he’d exhausted himself deflecting them earlier. By the time the leftover khoresh bademjan was packed into Tupperware for Ari to bring home and the last of the tahdig had been eaten, he was more than ready for a change of scenery.

  But if he went back to his apartment, he’d only stew. There was no way he’d get any composing done in this mental state. He’d only end up dwelling on the failure of the past few months.

  “You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here,” he muttered to himself as he slid behind the wheel.

  And suddenly he knew exactly where he wanted to go.

  Chapter Three

  THE VIDEO really must have been a hit, because there was already a lineup to get in the door when Jax got to the Rock at seven thirty. He parked his bike, cut the engine, slung his body off of it, and tucked his helmet under his arm.

  “Hey, Bruce,” he greeted the bouncer, bumping fists with him.

  “Hall.” Bruce shook his head. “You know you’re supposed to go in the back.”

  “Bruce. Buddy.” Jax nodded at his bike. “Look where I’m parked. To get to the back I’d have to walk through the alley.”

  Bruce gave him an unimpressed look, keeping one eye on the crowd. “Aren’t you the one who’s always giving Murph a hard time about the spiders?”

  Okay, so the man had a point, but— “Aw, come on. You’re not really going to make me walk around, are you? These are new boots!”