If it weren’t for the whole aromantic thing, Jax had said.
Kayla. He’d meantKaylawas aromantic.
So did that mean…. Was Jax looking for Ari to be his hero in a romantic sense? Was that what the song was about?
Well, at least he’d figured it out before he managed to let on to Jax that, as far as he was concerned, they were casual sex partners. He’d only known Jax a little while, but he could guess how wellthatwould go down.
“Ari?” Kayla waved her hand in front of his face. “I didn’t break you, did I? You’re not regretting your life choices? Wondering how long before you can make a break for it? Because Jax won’t have a chance to kill you. I’ll do it first.”
“No,” he said quickly, shaking himself. “Forgive me. It just… it seems like you know him well.”
She leaned her elbows on the bar, affording him an ample view of her cleavage, should he wish it. He kept his eyes on her face. “I mean, I know him about as well as he’ll let anyone, except maybe Hobbes.”
So Ari had been right to believe Jax was holding pieces of himself back. “Maybe you can tell me, then….”
She dimpled at him and finished her beer. “Maybe. If it’s not too personal.”
Ari lowered his voice. “Why does he play so many songs by female artists?”
The dimple became a full grin. “Jax was a gender studies major in another life.”
Before Ari could decide if she was serious, Jax slung himself around Ari’s shoulder and onto the barstool next to him. “Is Kayla telling lies about me?”
Ari looked from Jax to Kayla and honestly couldn’t tell. “I have no idea.”
“I’m a mystery wrapped in an enigma,” he agreed with an irreverent smile as Kayla passed him a beer.
“You’re needed on the stage,” Murph corrected. “What’s-his-name’s request, remember?”
“How could I forget? Guy leaves a hundred-dollar tipper musician? You better believe we’re gonna get that right.” He took a long swig of his beer, then wiped the condensation on his jeans. “I hope this guy knows what he’s doing or he’s gonna kill the mood for at least two songs.” He shook his head and loped toward the stage.
Ari blinked, looking from Murph to Kayla and back.
Kayla patted his arm. “I told you. The marrying kind.” Then she followed Jax up to the stage.
Jax slid onto the piano bench opposite Naomi as Kayla twirled her drumsticks. “This next song is by extra special request from a regular. We don’t normally do this, but I actually heard him sing and can personally vouch that your eardrums are safe.”
The crowd parted to allow a slender fortysomething with salt-and-pepper hair and a leather jacket and sunglasses over a Depeche Mode T-shirt to ascend the stage, where he grabbed a mic stand and set up between Naomi and Jax.
Suddenly Ari understood what was going on—and Jax’s cryptic comment from earlier. It hadn’t happenedoftenwhile he worked at the Rock, but it was always memorable. Sometimes for the wrong reasons.
“It’s fine,” Murph said. “I make them fill out a questionnaire now.”
Ari eyed him wryly. “Is there also a waiver?”
But he didn’t have time to hear Murph’s answer, because Naomi started an upbeat synth piano that Ari immediately recognized as “Just Can’t Get Enough.”
Well, that explained the T-shirt.
It seemed that tonight, the only thing the Rock liked more than paid musicians going all out to entertain them was a member of the audience spending money to do the same. Depeche Mode Guy had a better singing voice than Jax and the energy to carry off a song that had a lot of repetition without seeming self-conscious, but for Ari, it simply wasn’t as enjoyable as watching Jax.
Still, Ari applauded along with everyone else when he stepped off the stage near the end of it and knelt in front of a pretty, plump woman with crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes and she said yes.
Naomi retrieved the mic before anything could happen to it, and then she and Jax caught eyes as she picked up her violin from its stand. At the same time, Murph, Bruce, and Rosa began to disperse from the bar, carrying loaded trays.
“Thanks for your indulgence, folks,” Jax said. “The happy couple have asked me to invite you to celebrate with them. Servers will be coming around with shots of mastic. Let’s all raise a glass”—Jax seemed to have one too, and Ari suddenly realized so did he—“to putting a little love in your heart.”
As one, the bar raised their shot glasses and tossed back the alcohol, which smelled and tasted strongly of pine.