“Done,” he said as he finished with the apples.
Ari pulled the pan off the stove and divided the eggs between two waiting plates. “As am I.”
They put the plates of eggs and fruit on the table. Ari added slices of bread, the cheese, a pot of honey, and a pot of tea. Then they settled in to eat.
Breakfast was comfortably quiet. Jax didn’t even feel the need to fill the silence. It struck him once again how well matched they were.
“So,” Jax said, picking up a grape, “what are you up to this week?”
Ari cleared his throat. “Actually, Noella has asked me to come to Toronto.”
Jax tilted his head. Noella was… “Your producer?”
“Yes. She wants me to come up for a few days so we can discuss my next album in person. I believe she’s also interested in recording some of it and talking to potential vocalists.” Ari sighed. “They called this morning. I leave early tomorrow and won’t be back until Sunday.”
“Oh. That sucks.”
“Succinctly put,” Ari said wryly.
Made worse by the fact that undoubtedly Ari would be working while Jax was free, and vice versa. Jax huffed. “Well.” He pasted on a smile. “We’ll just have to make the best of today.”
ARI HADspent enough of his life in hotel rooms that their impersonal nature no longer registered. A part of him found it soothing to be in a space with no memories and no distractions. It usually put him in the right mood to compose.
Or it had, before this last tour.
His record label had put him up in the Fairmont, one of Toronto’s most exclusive hotels. In fairness, this one was decorated well beyond what anyone would callimpersonal. It was warm and inviting and spacious, and the room service menu left nothing to be desired.
Ari missed Jax before he even started to unpack.
A car picked him up just before lunch and brought him to the label’s corporate offices, where a receptionist so fresh-faced she could’ve been Theo’s younger sister directed him to a conference room. Noella was there, along with Julia, her boss, and Tom, her assistant.
“You made it.” She raised her eyebrows. “I was afraid we were going to have to send out a search party.”
She basically had—they’d hired a car to retrieve him from London. Ari’s distaste for driving was well-known. “I always honor my agreements,” he protested.
“Uh-huh, save it for someone who didn’t already extend your album deadline.”
Before Ari could defend himself, the necessary pleasantries intervened—handshakes, and then Tom offered to procure refreshments. Ari would make do with the water on the sideboard.
The business luncheon was productive. Ari approved the usual session musicians he preferred to work with. Paul from the art department came in to talk about album art. Ari and Paul batted a few concepts back and forth, and Paul went back to his office to make magic happen.
And then Noella called for a car to bring them to the studio.
“I want to get the majority of ‘Alice’ recorded,” she said. “I think it’s going to be huge for you to do so many songs with vocals, but we need music to bring to potential vocalists, and the sound quality of what you sent is going to give people the wrong impression.”
Ari would have been the first to admit his recording technique wasn’t up to snuff—he usually didn’t even bother with a proper mic. He certainly didn’t have any sophisticated software. He was kind of a Luddite.
“Fine,” he agreed.
He and Linsey and Brian had worked together on his last album, and they were both consummate pros and easy to get along with. It only took an hour to get a good cut ready for sound mixing.
“This is different from your usual,” Linsey commented during a short break caused by the failure of one of the patch cords. Noella was fetching a replacement.
“Yeah,” Brian agreed. “I like it, though. It suits you. Very ‘still waters run deep.’”
For some reason, that made Ari think of the first time he’d met Jax—unstoppable force, meet immovable object. If Ari was still waters, Jax was a tempest in a teacup.
He vaguely remembered a lesson from high school physics about equal and opposite reactions. But if he and Jax were equal and opposite forces, didn’t that mean they added up to nothing?
