by Ashlyn Kane
Ari stared at Jax. What was happening? He knew Jax didn’t actually think Ari’s degrees and training were useless. He’d never so much as hinted at such a thought. In fact he had admired the techniques and understanding Ari had learned at the conservatory. But the subtle dig still had Ari’s heart squeezing.
His mother narrowed her eyes. “I see. Well, I suppose if you feel education is a waste of time, then who am I to argue.” His father looked stunned and uncertain of what to say.
“Oh, not entirely a waste of time. In our overeducated society, an education to some degree is often needed for a job. But happily there is none required to pour drinks for drunkards, so I’m just fine.” He gave a dazzling and rather vapid smile, as if he had no idea what he was doing.
Ari wasn’t the least bit fooled, but he was absolutely flummoxed. He licked his lips and was about to say something, anything to just stop this, but his mother was faster.
“Well, I guess you must consider us a bunch of overeducated fools.”
“I would never say that,” Jax reassured her with a mock earnest face.
His parents definitely did not miss the implication that Jax might still think it.
“It seems that there isn’t much you wouldn’t say.”
Jax shrugged. “I’ve always been pretty good at opening my mouth.”
Ari almost dropped his jaw. Did Jax just make blowjob innuendo?
“Yes. That is a skill you seem to have perfected,” his mother said waspishly.
Ari was wrong—this wasn’t like watching a car pull out in front of you. This was like watching two cars driving at each other head-on and knowing you were in the path of the fallout and you couldn’t stop it.
“So I’ve been told.” He flicked his eyes in Ari’s direction. Ari wanted to die.
This dinner was pretty thoroughly ruined, and he was starting to wonder if this relationship—Jax’s with his parents—could ever be salvaged. The prospect of being caught between them for years to come turned the ball of anxiety in his stomach into a rock. “Jax,” he croaked helplessly, wanting to do something to make this stop.
Jax looked at him, and his eyes burned with anger and hurt. Ari nearly swallowed his tongue. He wanted to reach out and soothe that hurt, but the set of Jax’s shoulders told him that was a no go.
“Well, if you have no other skills,” his mother started, and God, Ari couldn’t take any more of it.
“Maman! Jax isn’t stupid.” He wasn’t, and he needed her to know that she wasn’t outsmarting him in this game. He fully understood her not-so-hidden subtext. “He got into an MIT doctoral program,” he added to underscore the point.
His parents’ jaws dropped—but Jax went even more rigid.
“Jax is brilliant,” Ari added, because he was, and it frustrated him that his parents couldn’t or wouldn’t see all the ways in which Jax was wonderful.
“MIT.” Ari’s father recovered first. “That is impressive.”
His mother was eyeing Jax critically, as if trying to make this new knowledge fit. “MIT,” she said. “In what program?” Her tone was less nasty, and Ari began to hope that this could be salvaged—that he could get his parents to see the Jax Ari saw.
Jax threw his napkin on the table. “You know what? That definitely doesn’t matter. I think I’m done here.” And he stood up and walked out.
For a long moment, Ari stared after him, shocked. The front door slammed shut, and each Darvish jumped.
His mother huffed. “Well, I never—that… boy—” she gasped, working herself up into a rant.
Ari threw down his own napkin and bolted for the door. He couldn’t let Jax just leave.
Jax was striding down the sidewalk, tapping his phone, and Ari ran after him. “Jax!”
“Go back inside,” Jax snapped without looking back.
Ari ignored him. He grabbed his shoulder and turned him around. “Jax, wait, please.”
Jax’s eyes were dark with anger. “I’m pretty sure that we have nothing good to say to each other right now, Ari, so why don’t you just turn around and go back to your parents.” He spat out the word like it was dirty, or maybe like he’d rather have replaced it with assholes.
That didn’t feel true—Ari had a hundred things to say, like what the fuck were you doing and please stay—but he didn’t think Jax would hear them. “I told you they would be like this,” he said helplessly.
Jax laughed sharply and jerked out of Ari’s grip. “Yeah, you did. But you didn’t mention you’d be letting them walk all over you. And me. You were supposed to be my ally.”
That was rich, considering the lengths Jax went to provoke a response. “Allies? You didn’t exactly consult me before you started poking the bear!”
“You never stood up for me even once!” Jax shouted. “Not one time! If that was a preview of what I can expect in the future, count me out. I have no interest in fending off your asshole parents on my own—”
“Jax!” Ari protested, frantic. He needed Jax to stop talking, needed enough time to gather a reason Jax should stay. “Would you keep your voice down?”
“Oh, right, I forgot,” Jax snarled. “It’s okay to say whatever horrible thing you want, as long as nobody hears it.”
Ari’s heart sank.
Jax had heard.
“Like I said, I don’t think we have anything to say to each other.” Jax’s mouth flattened into a thin line. “Do we?”
What could Ari say? He didn’t want Jax to go. “I told you they would be like this,” he repeated hoarsely. He hadn’t invited Jax to meet them because he knew they would hurt him. “You said you could handle it. Instead you drove the train right off the cliff!”
Jax’s eyes went hard, and he half turned away from Ari. He shoved his hands in the pockets of his coat as the wind picked up. “Yeah, fair enough,” he said. “You told me your parents would be like this. Just like I told you the one sure way to hurt me is to point out all the ways in which I didn’t live up to my potential.”
Ari knew in the moment he shouldn’t have brought up MIT, but he was so desperate to keep dinner from crashing so spectacularly—
“Go back inside, Ari,” Jax said hollowly. He was already turning the rest of the way, giving Ari his back. “You’ll catch a cold.”
He didn’t even have a car. No way to get home. Except that wasn’t true, because as Ari stood rooted to the spot, a Lyft pulled up to the curb and the driver rolled down the window.
Jax got in, and the car drove away.
The sky, which had been threatening the kind of nasty weather London winters were famous for, darkened another half a degree. By the time Ari closed the door to his parents’ house behind him, the front step was dusted in white.
Chapter Eighteen
JAX WAS three-quarters of the way back to his place before he realized his house keys were still on Ari’s counter, next to his bike helmet. Just one more cherry on the shit sundae of his life.
Well, fine. Hobbes was probably home, so the door would be unlocked. He wouldn’t be stuck outside. Jax had a spare key to his bike in his room somewhere, and an extra helmet. If the snow coming down was any indication, his days of riding the motorcycle were done for the season anyway.
It would be fine.
“Thanks,” he told his driver as she pulled up. His voice was rough as he opened the door and got out. “Have a good one.”
It was bound to be a better day than Jax’s, anyway.
There was already a puddle of ice forming at the corner of the garage, where the driveway wasn’t graded properly—as he hunched against the cold, his foot slid forward several inches and he pulled a muscle, but he caught himself on the brick before he could fall.
With a sinking feeling as he reached the doorstep, he realized the house was dark—no lights on upstairs except the one over the stove, which they left on in case the Captain woke them up with a diabetic episode in the middle of the night.
Could this day get any worse?
Of c
ourse, Jax should have fucking known how this would go. He should have canceled on dinner when he realized at the post office that he hadn’t taken his pill. He knew he would be extra irritable, extra sensitive. He knew that was a bad combination to take with you to dinner at your boyfriend’s parents’ house when you were already expecting a goatscrew.
But there was no way he could have anticipated the level of clusterfuckery. And if he’d thought Ari was going to leave Jax to fend off the wolves on his own—
He would have broken things off weeks ago.
Without much hope, Jax tried the door. Locked. But maybe Hobbes had just gone to bed early. He rang the doorbell and shoved his hands under his armpits. Maybe Hobbes would answer, he thought, closing his eyes. Maybe Hobbes was home, and Hobbes would let him in and not ask any questions and make him hot chocolate with a medicinal slug of bourbon in it. Hobbes would sit him down in front of the TV and put on a comfort movie like Star Wars or The Fifth Element, and they’d make popcorn and absolutely not talk about it. And if Jax was extra pathetic, Hobbes would hug him, and it would be even better than before, because it couldn’t be bittersweet if Jax wasn’t in love with him anymore.
At least one good thing had come of this catastrophe.
But Hobbes didn’t answer.
“Fuck,” Jax said under his breath. Out of sheer frustration he rang the bell again, again, again, like an obnoxious kid playing nicky nicky nine door. Then he leaned his head against the door.
Goddammit.
A light went on inside, and after a moment, the bolt on the door was flicked and Jax had just enough time to scramble his weight off the door before it was flung open.
By a sleepy-looking half-dressed Naomi.
“Jax?”
“Naomi?” What was she doing here at… whatever the hell time it was? Without pants?
“What are you doing here?”
“I live here.”
“I know that, but aren’t you supposed to be out with Ari?”
Jax opened his mouth, but no words came out. Instead, his teeth chattered.
“Jesus.” Naomi grabbed his sleeve and hauled him into the house.
“Sorry.” Jax couldn’t seem to stop shaking.
“Don’t apologize,” Naomi said, somewhat exasperatedly. “God, you’re freezing. You need to warm up, get some dry clothes.”
“Naomi?” Hobbes’s groggy voice called down the stairs. “Where did you go?”
“To answer the door! You sleep like a log.” She pushed Jax toward the steps. “Seriously—warming up.”
Jax stumbled at the first riser, his feet clumsy.
“Jax? What the fuck?” Hobbes came crashing down the stairs. Seeing Jax shivering and spaced-out sent him into doctor mode, and he tried to check for pupil dilation, tracking, and temperature in quick succession. “What the hell happened?”
Jax didn’t exactly want to talk about it. Especially since he suspected the answer was I’m having a severe reaction to a bad breakup.
Hobbes glanced at Naomi, who said, “Hell if I know. But he’s freezing.”
“Right.” Hobbes wrapped one of his arms around Jax and practically carried him up the stairs. He brought Jax to his bathroom and stripped him—a former dream come true—and gently nudged him into a warm shower. Oh, the irony. Jax slowly turned under the spray, relishing the sting of the warmth on his chilled skin. He tried not to think, not to relive the evening. How could Ari just sit there when—
Jax ducked his head under the spray and wished he could wash away his thoughts. Why did he always fall in love with people who couldn’t love him back?
Hobbes came back with soft sweats and told Jax to get out of the shower. Then he stuck around to make sure Jax did. Normally being treated like a child who couldn’t be trusted to dress himself would piss Jax off, but today Hobbes’s judgmental company was a comfort.
After Jax was dry and dressed, Hobbes guided him back downstairs, where Naomi was waiting with a pot of herbal tea and three mugs on the coffee table. They settled around it, Naomi and Hobbes on the couch and Jax in an armchair. He wrapped himself around his mug and tried to think of anything but this evening.
Except the best distraction sat right in front of him, and the sight of Hobbes and Naomi side by side made his heart ache. Everything about their body language—the press of their shoulders and knees together, the slight angle toward each other—suggested familiarity. Intimate familiarity.
“So,” Jax broke the silence. “How long has this been going on?”
“Jax,” Hobbes huffed.
With a toss of her hair over her shoulder, Naomi said, “Since the barbecue.” She cast a look at Hobbes. “He looks pretty good in a soaked T-shirt.”
Jax smiled, albeit weakly, into his drink. “Don’t I know it.” Months. Hobbes had been dating someone for months and hadn’t told him.
“Is this what it’s going to be like now, you two ganging up on me?”
Naomi hummed. “Probably.”
Hobbes grumbled. “So, kid, you gonna tell us what’s going on?”
The thought of telling Hobbes about his Ari troubles when Hobbes was apparently happily coupled with Naomi, who was one of Ari’s oldest friends, filled Jax with dread. He ducked his face back into his drink.
“You know what, I’m going to go back to bed. Seems to me this is a you-two thing.” She bussed Hobbes’s cheek and then left with her tea.
Jax and Hobbes sat in silence as she worked her way upstairs.
When the sound of Hobbes’s bedroom door shutting floated down to them, Hobbes turned to Jax once again. “Start talking. Aren’t you supposed to be meeting the parents this evening?”
Jax’s face crumpled. “It was awful. They’re such snobs! His mother all but called me a dumb slut. They kept looking down their noses at me for being a bartender.” He curled tighter around his cooling mug.
“Okay. But they’re not exactly the first parents to not approve of your work,” Hobbes pointed out gently, as though making this about Jax’s mom’s disapproval would help at all.
“He just… sat there. He didn’t even say anything.” Jax pressed a hand to his eyes. He’d felt so alone sitting at that table, being attacked for his life choices while Ari did nothing—except betray him.
Jax heard Hobbes shifting, his mug set on the coffee table, a step, and then strong hands took Jax’s drink and pulled him out of his chair. Jax sagged into the hug and tried not to cry into his shoulder. Hobbes gave the best hugs—warm, firm. Jax burrowed in and let Hobbes comfort him.
After several long moments, he pulled back and Hobbes tugged him down onto the couch. Hobbes picked up his mug and took a sip—then made a face. “Cold.” He set it back down. Jax gave a weak smile.
“So, what’s next?” Hobbes asked.
The smile fell away. “Nothing. I can’t be with someone who can’t—” He choked on the next words, but Hobbes understood.
“Well, shit. I’m sorry, kid. I really thought….” He shook his head.
Jax wrapped his arms around his chest and eyed his friend. His face was all compassion and understanding. Suddenly Jax didn’t want to talk about Ari anymore. “Why didn’t you tell me about Naomi?” Oh, great idea, Jax. Poke at this hurt instead.
Hobbes flushed and smoothed a hand over the back of his hair. “Ah, well… it’s complicated.”
Jax had arrived home from dinner at Ari’s parents’ to find them asleep in bed at just past eight in the evening. It didn’t sound complicated. “Really,” he said dryly.
The flush deepened. Maybe this wasn’t the worst idea after all. Jax did love to tease, and Hobbes was an easy target.
“Because I know I call you ‘old man,’” Jax continued, “but it’s a little early for bedtime even for you, isn’t it? Unless she wore you out, I mean, I wouldn’t judge—”
“Jax.”
Yeah, fuck, okay. Jax knew he was being an asshole.
“Thank you.” Hobbes shifted and looked like he wished he still
had something to occupy his hands. “Considering the circumstances, we figured we’d make sure this was going somewhere before we told… anyone.”
By anyone, Jax read you. Still— “Circumstances?” he asked cautiously.
Hobbes was a pediatrician. Jax knew he had a lot of experience with difficult conversations. But it wasn’t something he thought about most of the time, because Hobbes wasn’t Jax’s doctor, he was Jax’s friend.
So he didn’t appreciate how sensitive Hobbes could be, how delicately he could convey difficult news, until he looked in Jax’s eyes with sympathy but not a trace of pity and said, “Kid… we didn’t want to hurt you if it fizzled out after a week.”
And Jax had thought his day couldn’t get any worse.
Hobbes knew about Jax’s feelings for him. Hobbes had probably known for ages, and he’d never said a word. He’d treated Jax with the same rough-edged kindness he had since Jax was a terrified student trying to make sense of medical software.
“Jeez.” Jax wiped a hand over his face. “I honestly thought this conversation could not get any more awkward.”
Hobbes snorted gently. “Don’t underestimate yourself.”
Jax actually did laugh at that. Okay. Sometimes his taste in romantic interests didn’t completely suck, even if things didn’t work out. And that led him back around to things with Ari’s parents, because talking about that was actually the lesser of two evils. He wondered if Hobbes studied conversational strategy the way people studied chess. “I forgot my fucking pill today. Didn’t think about it until I was already on my way to Ari’s, and then it was too late.”
“That probably didn’t make things any easier.”
“No, I—” He huffed out a frustrated breath. “If I don’t take it, I don’t feel like I did before I started taking them. It’s so much worse, I feel… raw. I take everything too personally. My judgment’s not what it could be.”
Hobbes waited, but when Jax didn’t volunteer any more information, he must have figured out where he was going with it. “Said a few things you wish you could take back, huh?”