Witchcraft, he mouthed back as he pulled the pitcher off the tap. Perfect timing.
“Anyway,” Murph said, “if you two’re done lollygaggin’—”
Naomi’s phone chirped. She picked it up with a look of naked relief.
“See,” Jax said, disposing of the foam. “That’s probably your piano guy now, right?” They still had half an hour to doors. Plenty of time. Aria himself wasn’t even here yet.
But she was shaking her head. “It’s Ari. I gotta go let him in.”
“What, you’re not gonna make him go in through the legion of adoring fans at the front door?” After three months, crowds were starting to feel normal again.
Murph rolled his eyes. “There’re twenty people out there, ya drama queen.” He shoved the crate at Jax. “See to these, would ya, b’y? Lord knows we’ll never find them back if I put them away.”
“You can just admit you don’t like spiders.”
“I like spiders all right. It’s the things they eat I can’t abide.”
Jax suppressed a shudder of his own. Maybe he could convince Murph to send him out to do a supply run next week and he could add a couple bottles of insecticide to his purchases. He wasn’t afraid. Just, there was a limit to the number of legs a creature should have, and unless it was an octopus, it was less than seven.
And then there was real work to do—hauling up cases of beer, liquor, and mixer, setting up his station, making sure the bottles of water, disinfectant wipes, and hand sanitizer had been set out behind the stage so the band could access them easily.
You can’t be too careful, as Hobbes would say. Or at least that was what Jax inferred when he said things likeJax, for God’s sake, if you have to ride that death trap, at least wear your leathers.
Jax happily would have worn them every day if he’d had the slightest impression Hobbes might appreciate it the way Jax wanted him to.
But Hobbes was straight, and even if he weren’t, Jax put the chances of him screwing up anything beyond friendship at about 97 percent. Things were better this way.
Besides, there were plenty of fish in the sea… or the bar, in this case. At least there would be, so Jax had better get back to work.
ARI KNEWsomething was wrong even before Naomi released him.
“Sorry, sorry,” she said as she stepped back, composing herself. She’d grown up a lot in the decade since he’d been her violin tutor, and even though he’d seen her at least once a year in the intervening time, it always surprised him to find a tall, composed woman with flawless skin in the place of the shy, pimply thirteen-year-old. “I know you don’t really do hugs. I just—”
“Naomi,” he interrupted with a gentle touch to her arm. “It’s good to see you too. I don’t ‘do hugs’ with fans. You hardly count.”
“Save your judgment till you see my Spotify playlist.” But the lingering threads of awkwardness fell away. “Actually, the hug was for fortification—mine, not yours.”
He raised an eyebrow even as his stomach sank. He knew he should have taken Afra up on her offer to organize this concert—she managed the rest of his life without a single hiccup—but she deserved time off too. She’d been cagey lately. Something was bothering her. A brother could always tell. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Gary, your pianist. He just called to cancel. He’s got food poisoning.”
Ah. “I see. What about Rosa?”
“Already called her. She’s on her way. But….”
Ari hid a wince. “But?”
“You know how they’re doing construction on the 401?” She smoothed down the end of a braid. “Well, it’s down to one lane. And there was an accident.”
That was… not ideal. “ETA?”
“GPS says an hour, hour and a half.”
A headache threatened his temples, and he forced himself to unclench his body and breathe deeply so it couldn’t take hold. Naomi knew piano. She could play accompaniment. But then he wouldn’t have a second violin.
Fortunately they were in a good place to be looking for substitute musicians. “What about Murph?” He hadn’t played often when Ari had worked here as a teenager, but he could hold his own.
“Sprained his wrist.”
