Naomi pointed at her. “Yes.That.” Then she returned her attention to Jax. “Anything to add?”
Jax played a quiet F chord and a B flat. Then he settled his hands against the keyboard and leaned into his mic. “Welcome to the Rock!”
After this expert buildup by Naomi, the cheers came even louder. The act had chemistry. Ari, who normally kept himself carefully reserved when he watched other musicians lest he accidentally betray anything that might be interpreted as condescension, found himself clapping in encouragement.
When the noise quieted, Jax nodded to Naomi, who adjusted her capo and then glanced at Kayla for the count.
The guitar part came in first, a cheerful riff of twanging strings that seemed familiar. Ari knew this song. So did everyone else in the bar, apparently. But he couldn’t place it until Jax licked his lips and leaned into the mic again.
Oh my God.
“‘Party in the USA’?” Ari said, glancing down the bar at Murph, who had taken over. A third bartender had brought up another keg and was installing it under the bar. Henry—Ari remembered him from his own days working here.
Murph shrugged. “What can I say? B’y enjoys flouting expectations.”
Another understatement, Ari thought, and he shook his head as Jax bounced out the chords, singing his heart out and apparently having the time of his life. “That he does.”
Ari quickly realized he ought to have taken a seat closer to the stage. But he also realized he would not be safe there. Jax’s sheer magnetism drew him from across the room. Ari wouldn’t trust himself within ten feet of the man when he was playing.
He was sodifferentfrom Ari—lively, unrestrained, almost wild with enjoyment. In just a few moments, his cheeks flushed with exertion.
It was… captivating.
In only a few songs, Ari’s fingers itched for an instrument of his own. But he didn’t want to play along with Jax right now. He wanted to capture Jax in song the way Jax had captured him—the fluidity of his movements, the way his lips twitched as he skipped past a mistake, throwing out a wink in case someone in the audience had noticed. The way he drew the other musicians into his orbit and played off them and they him. If Ari could encapsulate that energy, that movement….
Hastily he shook himself out of his trance and glanced at his drink. He’d finished it at some point while he was watching.
Sex with the Bartender. If Naomi were to be believed, this was likely a perfectly serious overture, but one Ari was not going to respond to tonight. Instead he slipped out his wallet, left a twenty on the bar, and nodded to Murph as he slid off the stool.
Ari tapped his fingers against the steering wheel as he drove and hummed along with the beat. Once finally inside his loft, he tossed his wallet and keys without seeing where they landed and beelined for the piano. He played the bars running through his head. No, not quite right. He shifted into a suspended fourth. Better, but… maybe the key should be G instead?
Hours later several pages of sheet music were covered in scribbles and Ari was rubbing bleary eyes. He stood from the piano and shuffled into the bedroom, where he undressed, quickly passed his toothbrush over his teeth, fell into bed, and passed out hard.
Chapter Four
JAX PULLEDout of warrior’s pose and into mountain. He pressed his palms together and breathed deeply, enjoying the moment to just feel the warmth in his muscles.
He was still cooling down with his bottle of lemon water when the doorbell rang.
“Surprise!”
“Sam!” His sister stood on his doorstep, her husband, George, behind her, holding Alice. “You’re early.”
“We are. We were able to get away earlier than expected.” She stepped close and wrapped her arms around Jax in a tight hug.
God, it had been well over a year since he’d last felt her arms holding him, and the smell of her perfume made his eyes sting. He squeezed her tighter. Memories of their childhood overtook him—his small hand in hers as she brought him to school for the first time, a giantess of nine years to his four; Sam at fifteen gently cleaning his scraped hands, knees, and face after he’d been in a fight; resting his head on her shoulder and asking if she still loved him even though she’d found him kissing a boy—and Jax pressed his face into her neck and inhaled.
“Not to break up the moment,” George said, “but I need to pee.”
Jax stepped back with a choked laugh and ushered them into the house. “Come in, come in.”
Sam took baby Alice from her husband’s arms and pressed her into Jax’s as Jax directed George to the bathroom. Then, his hosting duties discharged, he curled his arms around the baby and stared at her beautiful face. Alice stared back.
“Hi, Alice.”
“Jax?”
“Yeah, I’m your Uncle Jax.”
