“Oh yeah?” Jax tilted his head back to look into Ari’s eyes. “Are you secretly into unifying theories of physics?”
“Are you telling me that string theory has nothing to do with pianos and violins?”
Jax laughed, snuggled his head back, and stretched out his legs. Ari got the memo and resumed carding his fingers through Jax’s hair. “No. Well, not more than it has to do with snails or real estate. String theory is… complicated, but it intends to describe a unifying theory of physics. Someone thought, ‘Okay, well, what if the particles we think we know of are actually tiny vibrating strings. Two kinds—one that’s open on both ends, and one where the ends are connected so it forms a loop.’”
“I’m with you so far.”
“You’re doing better than most, then.” Jax flexed his toes. “Anyway, you’ll like this part—strings vibrating at different frequencies constitute different particles. So, like, say a G4 gives you a graviton.”
Ari ceased running his fingers through Jax’s hair and rested his hand on his chest. “Why do I feel as though you’re oversimplifying this?”
With a snort, Jax admitted, “I’m an applied mathematician, not a theoretical one. True understanding of it is beyond me. The thing that got people excited about string theory is it could describe both gravity and quantum mechanics, which had never happened before. People were hoping for a unifying theory—that means something that can describe all the forces that act on particles with a single framework of these strings interacting.”
“C, E, G,” Ari murmured.
“Yeah. And scientists think that the way these strings interact with each other, these open strings are just out there, and sometimes they join with other open strings.” He threaded his fingers through Ari’s. “And then they might join at the other end too and become a closed string.”
“That sounds… very theoretical.”
It sounded downrightromanticto Jax, but Ari wasn’t wrong. “Understatement,” he agreed. “But it’s an interesting field, and it’s led to some breakthroughs that linked previously discrete branches of mathematics, for example. They had to discover, like, seven more dimensions to get there, though.”
Ari rubbed his thumb over Jax’s breastbone. “I admit that I have trouble imagining that.”
“Yeah, me too. I sort of envision them as pitch, color, temperature….” He shrugged.
“I think perhaps I’ll stick toGolden Girls.”
“MaybeGolden Girlsepisodes is one of the dimensions.”
Maybe Jax had spent a little too much time reading up on mathematical journals before bed in preparation for a PhD defense that had been delayed yet again.
“Hmm.”
“What?” Jax asked.
Ari nudged him. “Sit up.”
Bemused, Jax slid his feet off the couch and turned toward Ari. “What—”
Ari recaptured Jax’s left hand and held out the other one, beckoning.
Jax let him have that one too.
Ari ran his thumb over the back of Jax’s hand and smiled softly. “Closed loop,” he pronounced.
Jax went warm all over, but while part of him wanted to melt back into Ari and the couch, instead he stood up and pulled Ari with him.
“Where are we going?” Ari’s voice held a note of laughter.
“Where are we going?” Jax echoed. “It’s three in the afternoon and you just made a romantic math overture. We’re going tobed, Ari.”
Ari flushed. “I thought maybe you wouldn’t want… I made several mistakes.”
“And you apologized, and I forgave you,” Jax said. “Are you saying you’re not in the mood?”Yeah right.Jax had had his head in Ari’s lap for the better part of an hour. He knew a mood when it was right next to his face.
“Just acknowledging my good fortune,” Ari said, pulling Jax close by their still-linked hands.
Jax tilted his face up into a very promising kiss and danced Ari backward.