String Theory

by Ashlyn Kane

  “Jax….”

  “I can’t.” Jax hadn’t been back to Cambridge since the day they closed the campus. Even now that it was open again, he couldn’t bring himself to return. He hadn’t been able to bear the thought of Grayling’s empty office, and he’d avoided it for the past year, but the thought of the office being occupied by someone new hurt even more.

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  “Either? Both?” What did it matter? The result was the same.

  She said nothing for a long moment, probably studying his face. She did that a lot. “You’re almost done—”

  “I know.” Jax was all too aware of how close he was to finishing his PhD. The only thing left was his defense. But talking about his mathematical program for predicting the growth of various populations in ecosystems seemed pointless after spending a year modeling pandemic spread and death rates. “I’m just… tired.”

  “I know.” Sam ran her hand over his head again. “But you can’t tell me you want to stay an ABD forever.” All But Dissertation. Once upon a time, he’d mocked people for failing to go the distance—privately, in his own head. He wasn’t that much of an asshole.

  “I’m not twenty anymore,” Jax pointed out. Having the paper didn’t seem important somehow.

  “Jax, Grayling wouldn’t want—”

  “Don’t tell me what he would have wanted. You didn’t know him.” Sam had never visited him in Cambridge.

  “Maybe not in person, but I knew him through you. And everything you have ever told me leads me to believe that he would want you to finish what you started.”

  A sharp pain seized his heart, and Jax scowled. He would not feel guilty. But before he could open his mouth to reply, the front door opened.

  “Jax? Whose car is in the driveway?”

  Hobbes was home. Saved by the doc.

  Or maybe not. Sam took one long look at Hobbes—the slightly hangdog face he had, like he’d just been scolded for leering at a waitress or something, the thick groomed beard peppered with gray… the lollipop still tucked into the pocket of his scrub top.

  Jax was so incredibly busted.

  Oh my God, Sam mouthed at him. George turned his face away to disguise a laugh, and Jax sighed resignedly. “Hey, Hobbes.”

  “Oh my God,” Sam whispered, out loud this time.

  “Shut up!” Jax hissed back. This whole arrangement depended on Hobbes remaining blissfully ignorant of Jax being even remotely capable of sincere romantic attachment. If Hobbes started feeling guilty, it’d ruin everything.

  Hobbes looked at Jax—raised his eyebrows at Alice, which, fair; Jax did not strike most people as the comfortable-with-children type, except in the sense that they thought he still was one—and then got a look at Sam.

  Those hazel eyes widened and then—

  “Hey!” Jax said reflexively. “Eyes up here!”

  “Oh my God,” Sam said loud enough for everyone to hear this time.

  Hobbes ran a hand over his face in obvious and deserved mortification. “Hi. Sorry. Dr. Calvin Tate, Jax’s roommate. You must be Sam?” He held out his hand to shake, drew it back, offered it again. “Wow, I made that awkward. Jax’s told me a lot about you, although he didn’t mention the uncanny resemblance.”

  Sam shook his hand and accepted his explanation. “Nice to meet you. This is my husband, George”—they shook too—“and the little barnacle hiding in Jax’s sadness beard is Alice.”

  Jax felt rather than saw Alice turn her face out, then back in toward him. He hoped his beard didn’t give her a rash.

  “She does really seem to love the stubble,” Hobbes commented, taking off his shoes. “That’s nothing, though. You should’ve seen it in the winter. Thought the birds were going to nest in it.”

  Almost overnight, Jax had gone from a near complete inability to grow facial hair to the kind of guy who could use a shave again at five o’clock, so he didn’t think it was fair of Hobbes to pick on him for wanting to experiment. Especially since—“You could scrub pots with yours, old man, so don’t be casting stones.”

  “Speaking of pots. Did you offer our guests a drink?”

  Jax started, guilty. “It’s possible I got hung up on baby cuddles?”

  Hobbes’s expression softened. “Yeah, that’ll happen. Can I get anybody anything?”

  Sam and George exchanged glances. George said, “That’d be great, actually. Let me help.”

  Then he abandoned Jax to Sam’s less than tender mercies. Rude.

  “Well, at least now I know why you never bothered looking for your own place,” Sam said lowly.

  Jax hid behind Alice, who wouldn’t judge him. “It’s not like that.”

  “Oh, so you didn’t intentionally attach yourself to someone who could never want you back, thus saving you from experiencing the potential disappointment of a failed relationship?”

  God. Now Jax was mortified. “Nothing about this was premeditated.”

  “Uh-huh.” Sam bumped his shoulder. “You always did fall in love at the drop of a hat. But he seems nice anyway. By which I mean he seems like an asshole, but in a way that’s good for you. Aside from the obvious.”

  “He is.” On all counts.

  “However.” And her eyes were sparkling, which meant Jax was about to catch even more shit. He couldn’t wait. God, he’d missed her. “Word is there’s more than one tall, dark, and handsome in your life.”

  This was more stable ground. Given the choice of examining his feelings for his roommate or his obvious hard-on for a guy he barely knew…. Hell, Jax would’ve talked about Ari voluntarily. He was fascinating. “Truly it’s an embarrassment of riches,” he agreed.

  “Embarrassment my—butt,” Hobbes said, returning from the kitchen with George and a tray of glasses and iced tea. “You’re medically incapable of that.”

  Mostly true, so Jax let that slide.

  “Have you seen the video?”

  “I’ve been waiting to watch it with Jax for his commentary.”

  “I’ve seen it,” George said.

  “You’re in for a treat.” Hobbes took his phone out of his pocket. A second later the smart TV came on. “Assuming you enjoy watching Jax make a fool of himself.”

  “Hey, I make good money making a fool of myself.”

  Sam gave him a look that said not as much as you would if you finished your PhD. Hobbes joined in. George and Alice seemed not to notice or care. Jax liked George more every moment.

  “I feel like I should’ve made popcorn,” Hobbes said, “but that would take longer than watching the actual video, so….” He hit Play.

  The video had less charm on the big screen, and the sound quality was noticeably worse when played on the built-in TV speakers.

  “So, hold on,” Sam said before it really got started. “How’d you end up playing in this guy’s show anyway? I love you, little brother, but an orchestral quality pianist you are not.”

  “Dumb luck,” Jax admitted cheerfully. “The first pick got food poisoning, and the backup was stuck in traffic.”

  On the screen, Jax raised his eyes and grinned as Ari responded to his first deviation from the song with an improvised echo, then a longer, more involved challenge.

  In his arms, Alice turned toward the screen.

  “Oh, you like the music, huh?” Jax asked, bouncing her a little and holding her around her middle so she didn’t squirm onto the floor. Their place wasn’t exactly babyproofed. The corners of the coffee table were sharp. “Good taste.”

  “You can’t resist, can you?” Sam said, shaking her head. “Someone says ‘I dare you to keep up’ and it’s like they’re talking directly to your… disco stick.”

  George made a noise like he was dying. Hobbes looked at Sam, raised an eyebrow, and tilted his iced tea toward her as though in a toast. “I like you.”

  In the video, Jax’s eyes flickered from the keys to Ari. It was innocent; he hadn’t had time for more than a glance, and he’d needed to look—had to see wher
e Ari was taking the song, see if he could catch a cue—but it looked for all the world like he was batting his eyelashes.

  Which, fair enough. He’d done that too, when Ari came to the bar. But Ari had left without saying goodbye while Jax was in the middle of a set, so it looked like he’d have to work a little harder.

  Jax really did love a challenge, dammit.

  “You should come out and see the show sometime,” he said when the video ended. Maybe she’d let up about his ABD if she could see he was happy doing what he was doing. But of course she’d need a babysitter, and it wasn’t like she lived in the area, and—

  “We would love to,” George said.

  “In fact,” Sam said, “we’ll be getting more chances in the future.”

  “Oh?” Jax’s heart leaped in anticipation.

  “As you know, we’ve both been working almost exclusively from home for the past year, and George’s office has officially announced that they won’t be reopening—”

  Jax swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry.

  “—and I’ve been looking for a change….”

  “Put the poor man out of his misery,” George suggested.

  Jax shot him a grateful look.

  “We’re moving to London.”

  “What?” Jax whipped his head round to stare at her. “What? When? Why?”

  Sam laughed. “I got a new job here in town. As soon as we can. Actually, that’s why we’re here this weekend—house hunting.”

  For a long moment, Jax fish-mouthed in her general direction, too stunned to say anything. Then he lurched across the couch, Alice still in his arms, and wrapped both ladies into his embrace. “Fuck, tell me you’re not joking.”

  “I’m not joking,” Sam repeated, her voice sounding suspiciously choked.

  “Good.”

  Alice squirmed, and Jax pulled back. “Hey, hear that, Hobbes? My sister is moving to town.”

  “I heard. We’ll be glad to have more friendly faces nearby,” he added with a raise of his glass.

  “Thanks,” George said. “It was a long time coming. Sam’s always thought about moving back, and now that Jax is based out here… no-brainer.”

  Jax beamed at his brother-in-law, then at Hobbes, then Sam, who laughed at him and ruffled his hair. Nothing could get him down right now.

  ARI SPREAD his notes out on his closed grand piano and then lifted his violin to his chin, ready to try to make sense and order out of the chaos.

  He was still at it—alternating between scribbling on the pages and testing the notes on the strings—when Afra arrived.

  “Come in, Theo. Don’t worry about him. If you wait for an artiste to be ready for you, you’ll grow old and die.”

  Ari scowled at his music but refused to otherwise acknowledge her or her digs. She was interrupting him in the early morning when he was working. What did she expect?

  “Noted,” Theo said softly. “Where should I put…?”

  “On the table. I’ll get the starving artist.”

  Ari set his violin on the piano and leaned in to make various notations on the page, perfecting the line. Still, his eyebrows climbed up his forehead even before he turned to her. “I’m hardly poverty-stricken.”

  “No,” Afra agreed. She put her bag down on the coffee table and inched up to the piano so she could see his work. “But you’re probably hungry. It’s after one.”

  He blinked at her and then looked at the clock. His stomach gurgled, pleased to have an audience.

  It also earned him a big-sisterly look of contempt. “Did you even eat breakfast?”

  Not wanting to answer that minefield of a question—did one leftover eggroll count?—Ari put down his pencil and followed her to the table, where Theo was setting out plates and cutlery.

  “So what brought on this splurge of writing?” Afra asked him over their lunch of takeout Chinese.

  “I felt inspired.” How could he tell her that another encounter with the subject of his music boner prompted him to write for hours in an attempt to perfect the piece humming through his veins?

  “Inspired.” Afra took a bite and chewed it slowly. Then she looked at Theo, the intern she had picked up at the university job fair. “That’s basically Ari code for ‘I’m writing an opus for the pretty face I met at a bar,’” she said in the teaching tone she had adopted for him.

  Theo, who had the babiest of faces, widened his dark brown eyes and nodded very earnestly. “I have seen the video. It is a very pretty face.”

  “Isn’t it? Maybe we should go meet it in person. See the muse for ourselves.”

  Theo nodded enthusiastically.

  After months of working with the pair of them, Ari was not charmed by their double act. “You have jumped to conclusions regarding my inspiration. Your ideas are unsubstantiated.”

  “Uh-oh, Theo. He’s going debate club on us. Better run for it.” Her eyes twinkled at Ari: I see through you. “Did I ever tell you about his stint on the high school debate team?”

  Theo’s lips twitched. “No. I bet he was… a formidable opponent.”

  “Damn right, he was.” Afra grinned and launched into one of her favorite stories—the time Ari absolutely destroyed the MC and judges at a formal debate for suggesting the topic of repealing the newly legal gay marriage act. She had never been prouder of him than when he ignored the timer to continue speaking about the damage such debates could have in a high school setting.

  “Very cool, Ari,” Theo murmured quietly to him as they gathered up all the dirty dishes and cleaned the kitchen.

  “I don’t know what you’ve done to do that”—Afra pointed at the piano—“but keep it up.” She hugged him tightly and then dragged Theo out of his apartment and left Ari to it.

  Only… the piece was almost finished—at least the first draft. It would need tweaking and input from others, but for the moment, Ari’s work was nearly done.

  And he suddenly felt like he was back where he started—needing to write music and unsure where to begin. But he knew where he could get inspiration.

  Hours later, as he sat at the bar watching Jax ham it up while he played “I’m Just a Girl,” with Naomi glowing by his side and Kayla behind him on drums with a grin on her face, a lightness filled Ari once again, and he knew more writing would follow this visit too.

  He had arrived late enough that he caught the tail end of the first set, the musicians breaking after only one more song. But that hardly mattered, since he’d managed to procure a small table near the stage, and he caught Jax’s eye on his way to the break room.

  Instead of continuing toward the back, a grinning Jax took the stool opposite Ari. “You’re back.” The grin segued into a smirk. “Couldn’t stay away?”

  “Perhaps I’m merely a glutton for punishment,” Ari answered wryly, but he could feel an answering smile trying to creep out.

  Jax threw his head back and laughed, mouth open wide enough Ari could’ve counted his fillings if he’d had any. He didn’t.

  Ari wondered at the extreme enjoyment Jax seemed to get from Ari busting his chops, but perhaps it was all part of the game for him.

  “Fair enough.” He shook his head. “Well, I can’t stick around for too long, because I really do need to go figure out some songs for the next set. But I have enough time to atone for some sins of the past. Just—give me a sec?”

  Ari spread his hands. “I am at your disposal.”

  Jax laughed again, softer this time. “No, you’re not. Not yet. But that’s okay. You might have noticed I like a challenge.”

  He slipped away from the table and eeled behind the bar, moving around the other bartenders with familiar touches to waists and shoulders, making space for himself. Ari had never been that at ease in his own skin unless he was playing an instrument, but Jax inhabited his body and the world so seemingly effortlessly, in tune with everything and everyone.

  Ari could already hear the melody of it—the smooth tied eighth notes in an arpeggio skipping up and down th
e scale for violin, the piano always ahead or behind, never quite touching it, as though the violin were playing hard to get.

  Perhaps not so appropriate for Jax. But then, maybe it was.

  Jax returned a moment later, never seeming to spill a drop or miss a step despite the crowded bar. He deposited a tall champagne flute of sparkling pink liquid in front of Ari. “Voila!”

  Ari pulled the drink toward himself, bemused. “Are you going to tell me what this one is called, or do I have to wait for the translation from Murph?”

  “Murph wouldn’t know anyway. That’s prosecco, Bitter Truth Pink Gin, and pink limoncello.”

  That didn’t sound like any cocktail Ari had ever heard of, but he wasn’t exactly a connoisseur. He picked it up and took a sip. It had a light fruity flavor, and the sweetness of the limoncello perfectly balanced the bitterness of the gin.

  Ari liked it even better than the first drink Jax had made him. “It’s delicious. You just came up with it?”

  Jax lifted a shoulder like it was nothing. Maybe it was nothing; Ari didn’t know the first thing about mixing cocktails. He’d only ever played music when he worked here. “I’ve been thinking about it for a couple days.”

  That was nice to hear. Maybe too nice.

  Ari was treading on dangerous ground. He didn’t want to lead Jax on. One-night stands simply weren’t his style, but he was too intrigued to blow him off. And if he asked to spend time with Jax because Jax inspired him to write sweet, sweet music—well, someone was going to get the wrong idea. “Why?” he asked, to distract himself from the direction of his thoughts.

  Jax shrugged and ran a hand back through his hair and over his neck. He seemed flushed, maybe even genuinely abashed, but he had so much natural charm it was hard to be sure he wasn’t playing it up for Ari’s benefit. “Well, based on the fact that you left without saying goodbye last time, I figured you weren’t ready for Sex with the Bartender. This seemed more your speed.”

  Ari went warm all the way through, cool refreshing drink notwithstanding. This man was dangerous. “And what do you call it? Since no one here will be able to enlighten me.”

  The question earned him a grin and a waggle of Jax’s outrageous eyebrows. “I call it a Sparkling Conversation.”