“Jax, it’s not dwelling to take time to fix a broken heart.”
He tightened his grip on his glass and pressed his lips together to keep the petty response ofHow would you know?from spilling out. For one, being nasty to his mother, who’d clearly come down here just to see him, was low. For another, just because she hadn’t hadromanticheartbreak in her life didn’t mean she hadn’t had any. He closed his eyes and then opened them again. He turned back to her. “Thinking about other stuff does help, though. So I’m mostly doing that.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“Like work. We’re pretty busy these days, what with the lead-up to the holidays. I’m working every night.”
“Tell me about it?”
She’d never asked about his job before, too upset with him for “wasting his potential.” Maybe she was too worried about his recent heartbreak to needle him, or maybe he looked so pathetic she didn’t want to take him on in a fight. Whatever the reason, Jax decided against looking at the teeth of this gift horse too closely. He guided her into the living room, and they sat together talking about Jax’s life until Hobbes and Naomi came back.
A WEEKafter the breakup, Ari went to Toronto to record. The experience was even more miserable than the last time. The city was just so… gray. Dull and gray and impersonal. While it snowed in London, Toronto got freezing rain that stung his skin. Ari hated it.
It took a week to record the album—a long, grueling week during which Ari had to listen to the story of his love affair with Jax over and over again.
Linsey and Brian eyed Ari over their respective instruments as they played out the newer unhappy melodies. On the second day, Linsey caved and asked, “So, your muse…?”
Ari glared at her until she held up her hands, mouthed the wordOkay, and dropped the question.
Aiden, perhaps too young, too new, or too grateful for the exposure, didn’t ask any questions about the lyrics for the new pieces. He was as professional as the last time, and his voice gave Ari’s heartbreak a haunting, painful quality that raised the hair on the back of his neck and made more than one onlooker teary-eyed.
Ari texted Afra,If reaction by sound mixer anything to go by, album will definitely make you cry.
Good job emotionally manipulating your listeners, I guess?she shot back. Ari almost smiled.
By the time Ari returned from Toronto, December was well underway and his heart was still broken.
Back in London, Ari was at loose ends. He had taken to filling the hours of his days with Jax, and without him, he wasn’t sure what to do with his time. Especially since he still hadn’t spoken to his parents since the breakup and didn’t particularly want to see them now either.
He reorganized his closet and deep-cleaned his kitchen. They were hardly satisfactory replacements for Jax either.
Afra sent Theo around with documents to sign, and with nothing better to do on a Wednesday afternoon, Ari let him stay and taught him more musical theory and fed him dinner before sending him on his way again.
On Friday Afra called and said, “They asked if you’re coming to dinner tomorrow.”
Ari shut his eyes. He wasn’t sure he could face them yet. He wasn’t sure what he’d say. “Afra….”
“Look, I get being mad at them and wanting to stay away, and you can stay away as long as you’d like. Don’t go if you don’t want to. But maybe you’d feel a bit better if you cleared the air? They sounded pretty upset about how things ended the other night.”
He sighed. He didn’t want to go, but maybe Afra was right. Maybe he could at least fixthatrelationship.
On Saturday he arrived at the house long after the set time—he refused to be left alone with them—and was grateful to see Afra’s car in the driveway.
He put the car in Park and then sat contemplating the wheel. He’d been here just two weeks ago and had been nervous but optimistic. He glanced at the empty seat to his right, then turned off the car and walked inside—a condemned man on the way to the gallows.
“Ari!” his father said when he opened the door. “There you are.” The words themselves should have been cheerful and welcoming. Ari’s father’s delivery, however, held mostly surprise and desperation.
It was difficult to take this as a positive sign.
“Hi, Baba.” Ari hung up his coat and scarf, trying not to notice that his father was basically wringing his hands. His mother must be vibrating at a particularly irksome frequency today.
“You’re late,” Baba commented.
By what cultural standard? Since their second retirement, his parents were never on time for anything by Canadian ones. Ari let this remark pass without commenting. “Do you need help in the kitchen?” he asked instead, hopeful for anything that would keep him out of his mother’s warpath.
“Dinner is ready,” his father said almost apologetically.
Okay, maybe Ari was alittlelate, but only by his own standards, not his parents’. “Let me help you bring the food to the table?”
