String Theory

by Ashlyn Kane

Jax shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe.” He definitely could’ve handled dinner better. Yeah, Ari had hurt him with his lack of defense, but there was no question Jax had overreacted. Jax was the one who’d stuck a screwdriver in the fissure between himself and Ari’s parents and whacked it with a sledgehammer, then shoved in a stick of dynamite. “If it was going to implode anyway, better to know now, right?”

  Then again, maybe if he hadn’t escalated—maybe if they’d given each other a chance—they could have found enough common ground to avoid this.

  And maybe Jax would go back into academia and win the Millennium Prize.

  “Don’t ask me, kid, I’m not any better at this than you are.”

  Jax knew that wasn’t true, and even if it were, you didn’t have to be better than Jax at relationships to have successful ones, if you had less baggage. He mustered a smile. “Well, do me a favor and don’t fuck this up, okay? You literally cannot do better than Naomi. Sorry not sorry. You’re punching out of your weight class.” Jax knew something about that.

  “I know,” Hobbes said wryly. “No pressure, right?”

  “You survived med school.” Unlike Jax, who’d never finished his PhD. “You’ll be fine.” He gestured with his head toward the stairs. “Now go put your expensive education to good use.”

  Hobbes buried his face in his hands. “Jax—”

  “Yeah, all right.” Jax raised his arms in surrender. He wasn’t fit company for anyone tonight. “I think I’m just—going to go to bed too. With noise-canceling headphones. But thanks, Hobbes.”

  Hobbes emerged from his finger cocoon. “Anytime.”

  ARI WENT home.

  He didn’t bother going back inside his parents’ house for more than to put on his shoes. He could hear his parents mumbling in the other room, but when his mother tried to talk to him, for the first time in his life, he ignored her.

  Even seeing, briefly, the Tupperware container of Jax’s homemade cookies filled him with rage.

  Damn it. If he’d just—if he’d remembered to use the stupid safeword, or if Jax had…. What? They could have gone on forever walking on eggshells around his parents, who would never accept Jax? Ari could go on accepting that his parents didn’t care about what he valued in a partner, or his partner’s feelings, unless they’d preapproved of him?

  No.

  Driving home took all of his attention. London’s roads were treacherous in the snow, and the first snowfall of the year brought out idiot drivers everywhere, people who hadn’t yet put on their snow tires and people who had forgotten it took longer to stop in icy conditions. By the time he pulled into his parking spot, his nerves were shot. His sister and his parents had called four times apiece. He turned the phone off as he threw the car into Park. Then he picked his way across the parking lot.

  His apartment was lit only by the glow of the orange sky through the picture window. He toed off wet shoes and hung up his coat, but when he went to set his keys on the counter, there was something in the way. He flicked on the light.

  Jax’s helmet.

  Ari wanted to throw it across the room. He wanted to hold it to him and curl up around it. Too many emotions—rage, sorrow, helplessness—flowed through him.

  He should have known that this relationship would end like all the rest: Ari’s lover staring at him sad or angry or resigned and pointing out how bad Ari was with words and actions, never saying or doing the right thing at the right time. It seemed inevitable that Jax would come to the same conclusion.

  Ari strode across the apartment, settled at the piano, and began to pound the keys. He wanted to drown out the noise in his head, to serenade his feelings into submission, to forget for one moment that the best thing that ever happened to him was now ruined.

  So he bent over his piano and stayed there for almost two days straight. Sometimes he moved to the violin, but he spent most of the time furiously composing, trying to purge his emotions.

  He wrote a sad song about not being good enough for your lover. Then, after remembering how Jax had promised he understood, that he could handle it, only to spectacularly sabotage the evening, the chords came out angry, confused, discordant. Why had Jax done it? Why had he deliberately made things worse? Why not just retreat?

  Of course, then Ari remembered the hurt on Jax’s face as he’d gotten into the car, and his next melody came out longing, wanting to fix something but knowing you couldn’t. You couldn’t fix a relationship when one of you didn’t want it fixed. Because Jax was done with Ari.

  Ari poured that heartbreak out onto the page.

  Toward the end of the forty-eight hours, Ari stumbled away from his piano and collapsed fully clothed onto his bed.

  He awoke to the sounds of banging on his front door and then the jangle of keys in the lock.

  “I swear to God, Ari, you better not have choked to death on your own vomit.”

  Ari managed to get upright before she came stomping into his bedroom. She sagged when she saw him, relief stark on her features, before she straightened up and stomped closer. She wrapped him in a hard hug, her arms tight around his ribs.

  “Don’t you ever do that to me again! I have been going out of my mind—stuck in Toronto, you not answering your phone, and Maman and Baba calling to demand if I knew about your harlot. What the fuck happened?”

  Ari pressed his face into her shoulder—even if it hurt a bit to bend that far—and took deep breaths. She still smelled reassuringly of mangos from the scented bodywash she started using in college.

  “What’s wrong? Not even you normally go dark for two days. Ben thought I might wear a hole through the hotel carpet,” she chided.

  “Sorry. I know you were looking forward to that trip.” She’d had to go to Toronto on business with the label, but she’d convinced Ben to come along to turn it into a romantic long weekend afterward.

  “Forget about the trip. You look like you haven’t showered. And your piano looks like you exploded a filing cabinet on it.”

  It was covered in reams of sheet music. He had pretty much finished the album at this point. At least his broken heart had productivity going for it. “Good for songwriting,” he mumbled.

  She combed her fingers through his hair. “What is?”

  With a sigh, Ari pulled back—he was getting a crick—and said bleakly, “They don’t have to worry about me bringing my harlot around anymore. Jax made that pretty clear.” He slunk into the kitchen. He’d feel better if he drank some water. Probably.

  “What the fuck?” Afra demanded. “I thought you guys were okay.”

  “Me too. Guess he wasn’t actually ready to meet the parents.” He downed his glass, and Afra frowned at him. “No, that’s totally not fair. He hadn’t really done anything when Maman implied I was using him for sex.”

  “What?” Afra’s deadpan sounded dangerous.

  “That might not even be the worst of it.” Ari put down the glass and buried his face in his hands. “It turned into a fucking war. Jax and Maman taking jabs at each other.” He pulled his face out of his hands and looked at her. “There was blowjob innuendo in the veiled barbs.”

  Afra’s eyes just about popped out of her head. “From whom?”

  “Both of them,” Ari groaned. “It was fucking awful, and I couldn’t stop it from happening.” Ari’s laugh turned bitter. “Which I guess was too big a failing for Jax.”

  Afra’s eyes, her whole body, softened with compassion. “Oh, Ari.”

  “Why can’t I make them stay? Why can’t I make them want to?” Maybe he was being overly dramatic, but Ari had been so sure this time. And he was heartbroken, and his big sister always knew how to fix things.

  She wrapped him up in another hug.

  When he pulled away again, she gave him her best no-nonsense face and told him to go shower and shave. “We’ll both feel better for it.”

  He didn’t have the energy to argue, and he had to admit that he did feel marginally better once he was clean. The clean clothes helped t
oo.

  He found Afra standing by his piano, looking at the sheet music. “Looks like lots of writing.”

  “Another six pieces, I think. I’ll have to take a look at them, record something and send it to Noella, but they’re pretty much done.”

  “Six songs in two days?” she asked, her eyebrows high.

  “Told you it was good for productivity.”

  She looked down at the sheet music. “These are gonna make me cry, aren’t they?”

  He shrugged. “Probably.”

  “All right, well….” She held up her phone. “I’m gonna call Noella and give her an update, because she’ll tear you a new one for having your phone off.” Ari took that to mean Afra would be giving at least some details of why Ari had been in a hole without cell service. He winced. “When will you be ready to record? Not just demos, I mean. Noella’s going to want you in the studio ASAP.”

  Most of the pieces were as polished as they could be without the help of professional musicians who played instruments other than piano and violin. “A week, probably?” That would give him time to practice, pack… clean up the mountain of takeout containers that had accumulated….

  “Great. Meanwhile….” She surveyed him critically. “I’m going to open a window. It reeks in here. And then when I’m off the phone with Noella, we’re going for a walk, because you haven’t been outside since Sunday and that’s horrifying. Deal?”

  Ari glanced out the window. “But there’s snow out there.”

  Afra gave him a flat look. “It’s London in November. That doesn’t mean we pretend outside doesn’t exist. Go find your boots.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  IN THE weeks following the breakup, Jax was grateful he worked late six nights a week. And as November ticked over into December, six became seven again, with the bar rented out for holiday parties.

  On the plus side, this meant Jax had plenty to occupy him at work, a boosted income, and an excuse to sleep late. On the downside, if he had to sing one more Christmas carol, he was going to snap. At least Murph flat-out banned them from non-private events until the week of Christmas itself.

  On this particular Friday night, Naomi picked a request out of the jar, raised an eyebrow, and handed it to Jax. “You up for this one?”

  He’d seen a lot more of her over the past two weeks, which was kind of impressive, considering they worked together several nights a week and she spent the rest of the time studying for her last set of music-therapy finals. Well, the rest of the time she wasn’t spending naked with Hobbes, which Jax was endeavoring not to think about.

  He took the paper. “I Will Survive.” Jax gave Naomi a look.

  “What?” she protested. “I just want to make sure it’s not too soon.”

  “As if,” Jax said with more conviction than he felt. “It’s never too soon for Gloria Gaynor.”

  Truthfully, Gloria should have been a pretty good distraction. The Rock in general should have been a good distraction. But half the time when Jax turned around, he expected to see Ari—in the audience, sitting at the bar with a shy smile, asking for a Sparkling Conversation, standing across the stage from him, lifting his bow as he prepared to accompany Jax on “Señorita.”

  Eventually Murph called last call and Jax went home.

  The nice thing about Naomi and Hobbes dating was that she didn’t mind giving him a ride, so Jax didn’t have to choose between his bike—which he’d managed to convince a friend to pick up for him so he didn’t have to go back for his helmet—or a Lyft. The less nice thing, obviously, being that he’d never get to share that easy closeness with Ari again, and now he had it in his face multiple nights a week.

  Win some, lose some.

  He must have zoned out on the drive home, because Naomi nudged his arm and he suddenly became aware they were sitting in the garage. “Come on,” she said. “Time for all good musicians to go to bed.”

  But Jax knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep. He went inside and closed the door to his bedroom, then stood under the spray of the shower, as hot as he could stand it, and let the water soothe his muscles.

  Too bad it didn’t do anything for the ache in his heart.

  Finally, he dried off and fell into bed long after midnight. Somehow, miraculously, sleep found him, but wakefulness found him much too soon after that.

  Jax startled to awareness at the sound of the doorbell, and he blearily lifted his face from the pillow. He’d gone to bed somewhat damp, and the pillowcase stuck to his cheek.

  What time was it?

  The doorbell rang again.

  Apparently it didn’t matter what time it was, or rather, either way it was time to get up. Jax wiped the last of the sleep from his eyes and tugged on a T-shirt from the pile on the floor. Then he trudged down to the door in his pajama bottoms. Where were Hobbes and Naomi, anyway? God, maybe they’d gone on a date to some horrible Christmas market? Or…. Jax frowned. He was pretty sure Naomi didn’t have a final this morning or surely she wouldn’t have worked last night.

  He was still trying to figure it out when he opened the front door to find a tall woman in her sixties, graying blond hair wisping out from beneath a knit toque, overnight bag at her feet.

  Jax gaped. “Mom?”

  When he didn’t move right away, she took the initiative and stepped forward to wrap him in a hug. Jax let it happen, too stunned to do otherwise, hugging back by reflex.

  “Hi, sweetheart.”

  “What are you doing here?” he asked when she pulled away.

  His mother looked pointedly at her overnight bag.

  “I mean,” Jax amended weakly, “come in?”

  He got her things settled into the guest room, made sure her car wouldn’t be blocking the wrong side of the garage when Hobbes and Naomi got home from… wherever they had gone… and then ran out of excuses not to talk to her.

  Unfortunately, that did not actually furnish him with intelligent things to say. So, Mom, no offense, but seriously, what the hell are you doing here was kind of rude.

  “Uh,” he said instead. Then he glanced at the clock in the kitchen, and—wow, it was only noon. “Jeez, Christine, what time did you leave Kingston?”

  “Early,” she said dryly. “You don’t happen to have any coffee?”

  Under the circumstances, Jax didn’t think Hobbes would mind.

  “So,” Jax said when she was happily curled around the largest mug she could find in the cupboards, “what brings you here?”

  His mother gave him the same look she’d given him when he asked her if she was sure he had to go to school in grade five. Jax had claimed he didn’t need to go, because he already knew all the math. She pointed to his poor spelling, but then talked to the school about giving him enriched math content. In retrospect, ten-year-old Jax should have known he’d lose a battle of logic against a mathematician.

  “I’m here because my son is hurting.”

  Jax stared at her. “What?”

  Her eyes were warm and compassionate. “I talked to Sam,” she said pointedly. By which she probably meant, Sam called and told me some version of the story of your breakup and how, last week during family dinner, you had a minor breakdown and tried to cover it by hiding your face in your niece’s beautiful angel curls. Embarrassing.

  Jax cleared his throat. “So you’ve heard about Ari.”

  “I’ve heard about Ari. Sam was a bit stingy on the details, but she mentioned that it was pretty serious seeming until it suddenly ended.” She sipped her coffee and waited for his response.

  He swallowed. “Yeah. But it ended, so no point on dwelling.” He turned away to… do something. Water. He should get some water.

  He grabbed a glass and filled it from the sink.

  “Jax, it’s not dwelling to take time to fix a broken heart.”

  He tightened his grip on his glass and pressed his lips together to keep the petty response of How would you know? from spilling out. For one, being nasty to his mother, who’d clearly come down
here just to see him, was low. For another, just because she hadn’t had romantic heartbreak in her life didn’t mean she hadn’t had any. He closed his eyes and then opened them again. He turned back to her. “Thinking about other stuff does help, though. So I’m mostly doing that.”

  “What kind of stuff?”

  “Like work. We’re pretty busy these days, what with the lead-up to the holidays. I’m working every night.”

  “Tell me about it?”

  She’d never asked about his job before, too upset with him for “wasting his potential.” Maybe she was too worried about his recent heartbreak to needle him, or maybe he looked so pathetic she didn’t want to take him on in a fight. Whatever the reason, Jax decided against looking at the teeth of this gift horse too closely. He guided her into the living room, and they sat together talking about Jax’s life until Hobbes and Naomi came back.

  A WEEK after the breakup, Ari went to Toronto to record. The experience was even more miserable than the last time. The city was just so… gray. Dull and gray and impersonal. While it snowed in London, Toronto got freezing rain that stung his skin. Ari hated it.

  It took a week to record the album—a long, grueling week during which Ari had to listen to the story of his love affair with Jax over and over again.

  Linsey and Brian eyed Ari over their respective instruments as they played out the newer unhappy melodies. On the second day, Linsey caved and asked, “So, your muse…?”

  Ari glared at her until she held up her hands, mouthed the word Okay, and dropped the question.

  Aiden, perhaps too young, too new, or too grateful for the exposure, didn’t ask any questions about the lyrics for the new pieces. He was as professional as the last time, and his voice gave Ari’s heartbreak a haunting, painful quality that raised the hair on the back of his neck and made more than one onlooker teary-eyed.

  Ari texted Afra, If reaction by sound mixer anything to go by, album will definitely make you cry.

  Good job emotionally manipulating your listeners, I guess? she shot back. Ari almost smiled.