Silence fell for a moment, waiting for something to fill it, and for the first time in what felt like years, Jax found it within himself to be brave. “I won a province-wide math competition when I was fifteen.”
He watched the words land. Ari barely blinked, only tilted his drink and gestured for Jax to go on.
Somehow the silence seemed to pull even more words from his lips. “My mom’s a professor of applied mathematics at Queen’s,” Jax explained. “I used to want to be just like her.”
Of course it was theused toAri found interesting. “But now?”
What a loaded question. Jax shrugged awkwardly and swallowed half the truth. “Ah, I realized academia’s just not for me.”
Ari didn’t probe any deeper, but Jax didn’t think he’d totally bought the line either. Shortly after that he had to go back up on stage.
When the song was over, Ari was gone.
ARI HADtwo songs sketched out now—whatever the elusive Alice piece turned out to be and the one he thought of as Jax’s theme song, with the remixed notes of “Strangers in the Night.” That was two songs more than he’d managed to write on the entirety of his tour, and though he knew they weren’t perfect—not ready, not polished—he did actually need to prove to the label that he hadsomethingto show. So he spent the week recording a no-frills version in his simple home studio, just piano and violin with no vocals for “Alice,” because Ari was a lot of things, but a gifted singer was not one of them. Then, with great trepidation, he sent them off to Noella.
The trouble was, after that, he still had todo things. He had dinner with his parents again, and this time they invited not only Afra and Ben but Theo too, saying that home-cooked meals were important for students away from their families. He went grocery shopping and cleaned his apartment. He found a tai chi class taught by the same instructor he’d had fifteen years ago, when he’d needed a physical outlet so he could focus on things beyond teen angst and his own ever-present erection.
These days Ari would have preferred sex as a means to focus his mind, but he liked the way tai chi kept him limber. He needed a full range of movement to perform up to his own standards.
But as Monday edged over into Tuesday and Wednesday and finally Thursday, he had to admit that the one thing he was not doing was being inspired to write anything else.
On Thursday afternoon Noella called.
“Ari,” she said without preamble. “I got the tracks you sent.”
Music executives, Ari thought, should know better than to open without giving artists some inkling of what they thought. “And?”
“I like it. The first one’s a little technical, but that’s typical for you. Your audience expects that. The one with vocals—are we calling it ‘Alice’ for short? I like the metaphor. I can see the devices you’re using in the song.”
Ah. “But,” Ari prompted, hearing everything she had not said.
“But,” Noella said, proving him correct, damn her, “they’re very… cerebral.”
That was one of the words critics used to describe his music, it was true. And itwascerebral. Ari liked his music to make people think. But making people think didn’t sell records. Making them feel did. “They’re still in early stages,” he hedged.
“Mm-hmm. Afra tells me you’ve hit some kind of well of inspiration?”
Damn it. “Something like that,” he agreed.
“Well, dig deeper,” Noella ordered. “I like where this is going, don’t get me wrong. The bones are there. The flesh is there. Just… it needs some heart. You know? So whatever you’re doing that’s bringing this into your work? Do that, but more.”
More spending time with Jax and being inspired by whatever was building between them? Ari didn’t have to be told twice.
He went back to the Rock.
It turned out to be a wise decision because that evening Naomi cornered him during his visit and insisted he attend her barbecue. “Everyone on staff will be there,” she said with a twitch of her lips. Ari didn’t acknowledge the hint but promised he would see her on the weekend.
Naomi and Kayla lived just outside the city proper, in a house on Dundas Street that Naomi’s grandparents had left her when they passed away.
On Sunday Ari arrived at the barbecue with a couple of bottles of wine in hand. At Naomi’s insistence on the more, the merrier, he also brought Afra, who brought Ben and Theo, an enormous stack of homemade flatbread, and a vat of hummus.
Ari arched an eyebrow at his sister when he saw her intern, and she shrugged in response. “I’ve grown fond of him. Besides, he needs more food in him.”
Theo cast large, adoring eyes at Afra and didn’t dispute the need to be fed. Ari remembered those undergrad days well, constantly hungry and always happy for free food.
They walked around the house and into the backyard, where the party was in full swing.
Ari spotted Naomi standing near the food table and headed in her direction, confident the entourage would follow.
