String Theory

by Ashlyn Kane

  “I understand that I need to fill out form 35-B before I can schedule the next bit, but the form wants to know information I don’t have yet.”

  “And what is that?” She looked at him over the rim of her reading glasses. She was forty and had the strongest strict-librarian vibe Jax had ever encountered. Part of Jax—a small part who was still a seventeen-year-old boy—wondered if she’d punish him for being naughty.

  “My advisor. The college hasn’t cleared that up yet—whose name I should put, Grayling’s or Greenwood’s—and I don’t want to put in the wrong name and have things delayed.”

  “Surely that’s a question for Greenwood. She has, after all, taken over his workload.”

  “Yes, but she doesn’t know either—”

  “Jax?”

  He turned to see Rebecca Grayling standing in the doorway to the admin office.

  She looks old. Her dark brown hair was shot through with gray that hadn’t been there two years ago, and lines were etched near her eyes and mouth. But though she looked tired, a bright smile slowly transformed her face.

  “I thought I heard your voice.”

  “Yup, it’s me.”

  “Are you busy? Why don’t you come see me in my office?”

  “Well.” Jax looked at the admin and then back at Rebecca. “I’m filling out forms, but I’ve hit a wall. So….”

  “You’re all mine. Come.” She motioned for him to follow her out of the office, down the hall, and into hers.

  Jax hadn’t spent much time in her office on campus—he’d seen it, of course, and spent too much time in her home, but he hadn’t had much cause to spend time in the department head’s personal office when she wasn’t his advisor.

  “How have you been?” She settled into one of the chairs in front of her desk, and Jax took the other.

  “Oh, you know, same as everyone else, probably. Busy and then not busy.”

  She gave a wry smile. “Yes. I heard you did good work on statistical models up north.”

  Jax snorted. “You know, London is barely farther north—”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Barely means that it is. Don’t try to outpedant me, kid.”

  “Never.” Jax, Rebecca, and Chris had spent more than one evening, after the kids had gone to bed, debating the semantics of pretty much everything. The devil was in the details, and they all loved to debate the absurd as much as anything else.

  She asked more about his life in London until, several minutes later, he’d exhausted that topic almost entirely. He looked down at his knees, took a deep breath, and said, “I’m sorry. For not—” Calling? Coming back sooner? He shrugged helplessly.

  “Not what?” she asked softly.

  “I don’t know. Being here?”

  “Oh, Jax. I don’t blame you for going home or for not calling. I know how much Chris meant to you.”

  “Thanks.” He blinked furiously. “But I should have—you were alone—”

  She held up a hand. “Jacob Stirling Hall, you stop thinking that right now. You did not leave me alone. I have a fantastic brother and sister-in-law who basically moved into my house to help me cope. I had all the support I needed during what was the worst time in my life, and I made it through that awful first year.”

  Jax hadn’t known that. Probably because he hadn’t talked to Rebecca since days after he fled the country.

  “Yes, I missed you and would have loved to have you around. But don’t think for a moment that I wasn’t relieved that you were north of the border.” She clenched her hand into a fist. “Chris was too. We didn’t have to worry about you too much.”

  Jax’s mouth trembled. “Rebecca….”

  She stood and he followed suit, and then she was wrapping her arms around him. “I missed you, but I didn’t need you here.”

  Minutes later they settled back into their seats, both of them rubbing their faces. “Now, tell me about your admin troubles.”

  Jax raised his eyebrows.

  “You think I couldn’t recognize the look on Miranda’s face? What’s the problem?”

  Jax outlined everything, and Rebecca laughed. “Oh, is that all? Well, I think I might know a few people and can pull some strings.”

  “Yeah?”

  “On one condition.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Come for dinner.”

  “Oh, I can definitely do that.” Jax thought of Ari, with whom he’d had dinner every night for the past week. “But uh, only if I can bring someone along.”

  “Oh?” One of Rebecca’s eyebrows arched high. She looked positively eager for some gossip.

  “Yeah.” He rubbed his neck. “Have you ever heard of Aria Darvish?”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  JAX LEFT the math department with a spring in his step. He wouldn’t have thought it possible when he arrived two hours before, but Jax actually felt light in this space. As he hurried down the steps and out of the building, eager to burn some energy, he fished his phone from his pocket.

  Ari had tried to call him half an hour ago and left a text asking Jax to call him when he could. Nothing serious.

  “Jax,” Ari said, all warmth and affection. “What are your plans for the day?”

  “Well, now that I’ve slain some bureaucratic dragons, I thought maybe I would see what my handsome and talented boyfriend is up to tonight.”

  “Handsome and talented? Anyone I know?”

  Jax smiled despite himself. “Maybe I’ll introduce you later… if you finish what you were going to ask me.”

  Ari cleared his throat. “I ran into one of my old professors at the conservatory this morning. Several of the faculty are going out to dinner tonight, and they asked if we might want to join them.”

  Jax’s heartbeat sped. On the one hand, he was pleased to get a chance to meet some of the people who had shaped Ari into the musician he was. On the other hand, the last time they’d had a dinner with outside influences had been an absolute shitfest.

  They’d only just found and forgiven each other again. Did he want to risk it so soon?

  Then again, if it was going to be a nightmare, better to find out now. Right?

  “Jax?” Oops. Apparently he’d deliberated for too long. “If it helps at all, I promise to throw the first punch if any of my old acquaintances call you a whore.”

  That startled Jax into a laugh. “Don’t you dare. You’ll break your fingers.” He paused. “Kick them in the privates instead.”

  “Joking aside, you have my word that this won’t be like the dinner with my parents. I don’t know everyone who’s coming, but I like and trust the majority of them. I think they’ll like you.”

  Jax was getting pretty good at decoding what Ari didn’t say, and the subtext here was pretty clear—they’ll love you because I do. In the end, that decided it for him. “All right,” he agreed. “What time, and what do I wear?”

  ARI HAD originally planned to pick Jax up at his apartment, but Jax texted him an hour beforehand that he was on the phone with the admin at the college, and since he might be late, he’d meet Ari at the restaurant.

  Part of Ari wondered if he didn’t have cold feet—he couldn’t exactly blame Jax if he did—but in the end, he decided the least Jax deserved was the benefit of the doubt.

  It turned out he needn’t have worried. Their group was still congregating in the lobby of the restaurant ahead of their reservation when Jax blew in, liberally dusted with snowflakes, cheeks red with the cold.

  He lit up further when he saw Ari, and Ari knew that he must be doing the same, but as much as he found public displays uncomfortable, he couldn’t help himself. When Jax was close enough, Ari grabbed his hand and pulled him in to kiss his cheek. “You made it.”

  Jax was even redder now, but he squeezed Ari’s hand and grinned. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

  “Ari!” Professor Marston cut through the milling crowd, eyebrows first. “You made it. And this must be Jax.”

  “It is,” Ari confirmed,
tugging Jax forward. “Jax, this is Professor Marston. He taught me almost everything I know about composition.”

  “It’s Chuck, Ari, I keep telling you. And he flatters me, Jax. I taught him half of what he knows at best.”

  “It’s nice to meet you.”

  The host called them to their table before Ari could make further introductions, and they were led to a private room near the back of the restaurant, where they had the opportunity to hang up their coats. Jax had chosen a fitted charcoal collared shirt and tailored gray trousers Ari had never seen on him and which he planned to remove at their earliest mutual convenience.

  As Ari and Jax were the out-of-towners—and as Ari had some degree of celebrity, much as it pained him—they were cajoled into the seats in the middle of the table, where everyone could hope to have a turn talking to them. Jax hooked his ankle around Ari’s under the tablecloth, where no one would see, either as a gesture of support or a request for comfort, and the proper introductions commenced.

  Apart from Professor Marston—Chuck—Gianna Handel, the piano chair, and Tomas Markovic, who taught music theory, Ari knew two other faculty—Janie Cheng, a violinist who’d been finishing up graduate studies when Ari was at the conservatory, and Marco Cervini, who also played violin but wasn’t in Ari’s cohort. Two others, Marisa Lopez and Adi Singh, he hadn’t met before.

  “I’m a vocal instructor,” Marisa said, smiling. “So if you ever decide you’d like to sing on your own album….”

  Chuck and Gianna both laughed. “Don’t think we haven’t tried that before, but he is very determined.”

  “I’m very aware that my singing voice is average at best,” Ari corrected. Besides, sometimes the emotion in his own music got to him. It made singing challenging. “What about you, Ms. Singh?”

  “Just Adi,” she corrected. “Contemporary improvisation and musicology.” She darted a glance at Jax. “Forgive me, but I feel like I may have seen you somewhere before….”

  “You don’t look familiar,” Jax said apologetically. “Have you been in Boston long?”

  “This is my second year teaching.” She tapped a finger against the edge of her water glass. “Well, never mind. It’ll come to me.”

  The server came by to take their drink orders, interrupting the flow of conversation. Jax got only one raised eyebrow for opting to stick with water, from Marco, who had never been able to mind his own business when they were undergraduates either. Ari hoped that the presence of his coworkers would prevent him from acting on the same misguided impulses that had driven him to needle Ari back then.

  “You don’t like wine?” Marco asked, and Ari squeezed Jax’s leg under the table—both a warning that Marco could be unpleasant and a show of silent support.

  “Interferes with my medication,” Jax said smoothly, “so I limit consumption.”

  Ari hid his smile by taking a sip from his own water glass. He should have known that Jax could defend himself while making Marco look like an asshole without drawing even the slightest scrutiny.

  The server disappeared and Chuck turned to Jax. “So what is it that you do?”

  Since Jax had just lifted his glass to his mouth, Ari said smoothly, “He’s a bartender. It’s how we met.”

  “Do you enjoy it?” Chuck asked. “I hated my months as a waiter.”

  Jax shrugged. “I do, actually. I like people and making them happy.” Chuck nodded and smiled, and a look around told Ari that only Marco was being judgmental.

  “It’s the same bar I worked at years ago. Murph is a good man,” Ari added.

  Adi smacked the table. “That’s where I know your face! The video!” She pointed a finger at Jax and continued happily, “That was some truly impressive ivory-tickling.”

  “Ari was the impressive one. I was just trying to keep up.”

  “So you play piano at this bar?” Marco said between sips of wine. “I commend you. I’m not sure I could survive playing that many renditions of ‘Piano Man.’”

  “Ehh. I don’t play it as often as you’d think. I’m more of a Beyoncé and Taylor Swift man.” Jax smiled beatifically. Ari wanted to kiss him.

  Adi grinned. “You do covers of Beyoncé?”

  Jax shrugged. “My ‘Bootylicious’ is legendary.”

  “I thought,” Ari said with a smile, “that your version of ‘Single Ladies’ was more impactful.”

  “You just like my dance moves.” Jax fluttered his lashes outrageously.

  “Yours? I thought they were Beyoncé’s?”

  Jax laughed, squeezed Ari’s thigh under the table, and turned to Adi to continue their conversation. His recounting of bar stories got them to their drinks, and for several minutes, everyone was distracted giving their orders.

  “I cannot imagine having to play such derivative music every night is very entertaining for you,” Marco said into the silence after the server left.

  Ari wondered if Jax would let him start kicking yet, but Jax gave another almost vapid smile and said, “It’s not to everyone’s taste, I’m sure. But like I said, I like entertaining people, and most people are entertained by derivative pop music.”

  “Jax is very good at it too. The patrons at the bar love him.”

  “I’m sure they do,” Marco said.

  Jax squeezed Ari’s thigh once again, and when the server stepped back up to the table to inform Marco that they were not able to make the alterations on the dish he requested, Jax leaned in to murmur in Ari’s ear, “That definitely isn’t a kickable offense.”

  For a while the conversation eased away from them, but Jax quickly became everyone’s darling—well, except Marco’s—as he charmed them all.

  “It tends to be above the layman’s understanding,” Marco said when Jax asked after Marco’s advisory work at the conservatory. “I’m working with students who are heavily steeped in compositional theory.”

  “That sounds intense,” Jax agreed. “I’ve barely taken piano lessons, so I have very little knowledge about theory.”

  Adi’s eyebrows flew high. “I’m even more impressed at your improv now.”

  Jax flushed. “Well, you know, if you don’t know the rules, you don’t have to worry about breaking them. Besides, I was mostly flirting with Ari.”

  Ari might not be one for PDA, but how could he resist? He lifted Jax’s hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss to his knuckles.

  “So what kind of work do you do with your students?” Jax asked Adi, and spent several minutes asking her follow-up questions about teaching musical improv. Soon he was leaning across the table asking if she had any advice for his job, nodding along with her answers.

  “You look very happy,” Chuck said softly to Ari.

  “I am. Jax is… special.”

  “He is that, and very good for you too.”

  “He is indeed very good for me,” Ari agreed as he considered how loose he felt at this meal, how natural it was to be in public with Jax, introducing him to friends.

  After their dishes were carted away, when Jax was making noises about dessert while Ari gently urged him on, Chuck asked what had brought Jax to Boston. “Ari has said he followed you here, and from your accent and your job, you’re obviously not local.”

  “Oh,” Jax said, looking up from the menu. He’d made drooling noises over the chocolate gateau. Marco was looking down his nose so hard, Ari could practically see up it. “Needed to come back and finish the PhD.”

  Chuck blinked but barely missed a beat. “Oh?”

  “Yeah, I got interrupted a couple years ago. I was putting it off—going back to school and all—but MIT’s letters were getting kind of angry.”

  Marco choked on his water.

  “What is it about?” Chuck asked.

  “Statistical models. Applied mathematics,” Jax added with an almost apologetic smile that seemed to say, Don’t worry, I won’t bore you with details.

  “You are earning a PhD in mathematics at MIT?” Marco said, the disbelief so clear that the whole tabl
e fell into an awkward silence.

  Except for Jax, who blinked guilelessly and said, “Everyone needs a hobby.”

  Ari briefly contemplated crawling under the table to blow him.

  Marco turned red. “Going to MIT was a hobby.”

  “Massachusetts is a nice place to live when it’s not winter. No one wants to live in New Jersey, even if Princeton is beautiful.”

  Chuck barked out a laugh. “Ari was right—you are definitely entertaining, Jax.”

  Jax raised his water glass to Chuck in acknowledgment.

  Ari ordered dessert too, took two bites and declared it too sweet as an excuse, and slid it in front of Jax, who gave him a look that said he wasn’t fooled but also wasn’t going to look a gift gateau in the mouth.

  The party broke up in the lobby, and Ari and Jax shook hands with everyone as they went their separate ways.

  “I hope you’ll be making another stop in Boston for your next album tour?” Chuck inquired as Gianna and Adi waved goodbye to get into an Uber. “I’d love to get dinner again.”

  “April twenty-seventh,” Jax said absently, watching the snow come down out the main doors. Then he seemed to realize he’d spoken aloud and added, “Uh, unofficially.”

  Ari fought not to gape at him. The dates wouldn’t officially be released until next week. “How did you even—?”

  Jax flushed. “Afra sent me your itinerary, just in case I might still be here?”

  That sounded like an incomplete truth, but Ari wasn’t going to call him on it in front of Chuck. “I’ll be sure to text when the dates are confirmed,” Ari said instead.

  Chuck clapped his shoulder, and then his car pulled up and he too disappeared into the night.

  Now that they were alone—or at least their group had gone—Jax slid his hand into Ari’s. “So that was a much better time than the last time we did this.”

  Ari laughed helplessly and leaned his head against Jax’s. “Call it a trial run?”