Ari inclined his head. “That would be fine. It was good to see you.”
Jax didn’t bother attempting a smile. He was pretty sure it would have made him throw up. “You too, Ari. See you around.”
He was halfway home before he realized he’d forgotten the marshmallows.
Chapter Twenty
“… AND THISis Murph,” Jax said finally, gently nudging his mother down onto a barstool. “Murph, this is Christine, my mom.”
“What are ya at,” Murph said, nodding. “Get ya a drink? On the house.”
“Avoid anything that sounds like moonshine,” Jax advised. “Because it is. I have to go check in with the other musicians, but I’ll be back. Please don’t seduce my boss.”
“Yer boss can look after hisself,” Murph scolded. “Get gone, b’y.”
Jax turned, but not soon enough to avoid hearing his mother say, “Jax said something about moonshine?”
Honestly, and people wondered where Jax got it.
Kayla, Naomi, and Rosa were clustered around Naomi’s phone when Jax came into the break room, but they looked up and turned away from it as he sat at the practice keyboard. “All right, sorry I’m late. Are we working on anything new?”
Naomi had puzzled out a new Billie Eilish hit, which they ran through twice—maybe not smoothly enough to manage tonight, but later in the week they could add it to the repertoire. Jax ran them through Dua Lipa’s “Don’t Start Now,” which earned him an empathetic side-eye from Naomi. He thought Kayla might be considering sharpening a drumstick into a shiv. Then Rosa brought up Bieber’s latest pop earworm, which was brainless but fun and easy enough to play stripped down. They could add more complexity as they got familiar with it.
Jax was banging happily away, getting into the feel of it, bullshitting the lyrics because the real ones were absolute nonsense, when the door opened and his mom stuck her head in.
A few months ago, Jax would’ve faltered or stopped, but he was done being ashamed. So he’d never be Ari, and he’d never be his mom. He was having fun. His job wasn’t to be a musical genius; it was to entertain. And Jax wasgreatat entertaining.
When he finished, with an over-the-top musical flourish, his mother burst into applause. “That was delightful,” she said with a glance at them all, but her gaze rested on Jax. “I had no idea you’d gotten so good at the piano.” She gave a mock frown. “Where have you been hiding that talent all these years?”
Jax played along. “Probably under my undiagnosed, unmedicated ADHD.”
She smiled. “Probably.”
Naomi glanced at her phone and announced practice time was over. “See you out there in five minutes,” she said with a warning glance at Jax. He pressed a hand to his chest and mouthed,Moi?She flicked her hair over her shoulder and swanned out.
Kayla and Rosa followed, and Jax was left alone with his mother.
“I’m sorry,” she said into the quiet, “for not realizing how much joy this was bringing you. You look so happy performing. I should’ve listened when you told me that months ago.”
Jax stared hard at his hands. “Thanks. That means a lot.”
“I know that I tend to get fixated and stubborn—sorry for handing that on to you, by the way—but I still should have realized you needed something out of life that wasn’t math. I should have seen that need. I didn’t have two children by accident, you know. But I’m sorry I didn’t recognize that this”—she waved a hand about the room—“was a similar thing.”
Well, that deserved a hug. He wrapped her tightly in his arms and squeezed. He couldn’t remember the last time they’d had aproperhug. Probably before he’d told her about MIT.
As they released each other, his mother cupped his face. “Now, I think it’s time for you to go be fabulous.”
Jax grinned and winked. “Christine, I am always fabulous.”
He led her back out to the bar and watched her settle into a comfortable out-of-the-way table. Jax didn’t blame her; the chairs closer to the stage were usually occupied by the bar’s drunkest patrons.Or the flirtiest, his mind supplied, with memories of Ari watching him from a front-row seat. Jax pushed the image away. He couldn’t think about Ari and the myriad emotions he churned up for Jax: longing, love, guilt, hurt, resentment, affection.
On stage, Jax pasted on his performer’s smile and bowed when Naomi introduced him. “I’ll be your favorite this evening,” he said into the mic.
Naomi rolled her eyes and told the crowd not to encourage him.
They were halfway through a duet adaptation of “Take Me to Church” when Jax spotted her. Fortunately Naomi was singing at the time, because Jax almost swallowed his tongue.
Nasreen Darvish stood awkwardly at the bar with a glass of something that looked like straight ginger ale in her hand and her purse clutched close to her stomach.
