Naomi: Way to make him sound like a sex worker.
Hobbes: Don’t give him ideas.
Jax: Snort. I’d be way out of Murph’s price range. Have you seen my ass????
“Unfortunately,” Hobbes said aloud.
“It’s not my fault you’re terminally heterosexual.” He swiped the last of his toast crust through the egg yolk and popped it in his mouth. “Late shift today?”
After one last text—which must not have been to the group chat, since Jax’s phone didn’t ping with a notification—Hobbes looked up. “I’m off, actually. Apparently miracles are real.”
Jax’s eyebrows shook hands with his hairline. “Wow. Lucky guy. Big plans?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know.”
Jaxwouldlike to know, which was why he asked, but he accepted the boundary. It was probably healthy; they didn’t have a lot of them left. That was what happened when you moved into someone’s house to feed their cat when they were in the hospital on a ventilator.
“Well, have fun,” he said absently as an email notification popped up on his phone. The sender came up truncated—OFFICE OF REGISTR—
Wincing, Jax cleared the notification. He looked up to see if Hobbes had caught him, but no, he was in the clear. “Think I’m going to call Sam,” he offered. “She and George are thinking about visiting sometime. Might be nice to actually meet my nibling.”
Sam had given birth at the beginning of the pandemic. After that, she and George moved out of Toronto to his family’s Muskoka cabin to wait things out.
“Yeah?” Hobbes smiled. “Well, we’ve got the extra room. They’re welcome to stay.”
And that right there? That was the Problem. A guy shouldn’t smile at Jax like that over breakfast while inviting Jax’s relatives to stay in his house and expect Jax not to fall in love with him. “Thanks, Hobbes.” Then he narrowed his eyes. “You’re not going to abduct Alice, are you?”
Hobbes rolled his eyes. “I work with kids all day. Trust me, I get my fill.”
Privately Jax doubted that. He had observed Hobbes at work and knew the soft heart that lurked under his lab-coat-lumberjack exterior. “Uh-huh. I’m watching you.”
The conversation was over, though. Hobbes stood, ruffled Jax’s hair, and moved toward the front hall closet for his shoes. “Have a nice day, honey.”
Lord.Okay, he definitely needed to call his sister.
But maybe he’d watch that video one more time first.
“ARI?”
Ari didn’t look up from his music, just kept tapping his pencil on the top of the piano, trying to recall the exact notes from the night before. He couldn’t ethically use them for anything—not without Jax’s permission—but, irrationally, he wanted to remember them, even if it wouldn’t recreate the experience.
“There you are.”
Finally he looked up from the paper to see Afra striding toward the piano next to the window in his sixth-story loft. She took her customary seat on the ultramodern couch along the wall and set her purse down next to her. “You haven’t been answering my calls.Ortexts.”
Ari didn’t text much, as a rule. Modern phones made the eventuality of carpal tunnel a near certainty, and he needed his wrists in peak condition. His ancient BlackBerry allowed him to send the occasional text without sacrificing range of movement. “I’ve been working.”
“Oh?” She shifted forward in her seat and cocked her head as he closed his eyes and moved his fingers over the keys. Jax didn’t have perfect recall of the music, so perhaps he’d been basing his runs on F instead of C here? Ari tried a few variations. Closer, but not quite….
“That sounds familiar.”
“Hmm?” He tried again. There—a different chord inversion, a back-and-forth that walked up the keyboard.
Afra was quiet for a moment while he scribbled down the notes. Then, as he lifted his head, intending to retrieve his violin to attempt to recall his reply, the studio filled with tinny, poor-quality audio.
That’s me and Jax.
Startled, he closed the keyboard cover. “Where did you get that?” he asked, barely repressing the urge to snatch up her phone.
