The Only Song (Only You)

23. Sadie

Chapter 23

Sadie

W hen I wake the next morning, Jaxon’s nowhere to be found. The living room of the suite is empty, his bed neatly tidied up as if he hadn’t even slept there. I would’ve guessed he fled if he hadn’t left a coffee and a blueberry muffin atop a white paper bag with Sass scribbled over it in his messy, cursive handwriting.

My mouth quirks into a small smile at the gesture. I hope I didn’t break our trust, or truce, or tryst even with my comment. But I needed to be real. We can’t be getting involved with each other on this tour. I’m protecting him as much as I’m protecting myself.

Or, I think I am.

I take a bite into the soft muffin, a blueberry rolling over my tongue, sweet vanilla mixed with salty butter flooding my taste buds. A few crumbs drop from my chin as my mind wanders back to what feels like a secret behind his chocolate eyes. Something neither of us is willing to admit. We’re professionals. We kissed. Nothing else to it, except?—

My thought disappears as the door whirls open and Jaxon traipses in, broad-shouldered with a chiseled chest and abs, hair slightly damp, and wearing nothing but gray sweatpants.

The muffin in my hand drops. My jaw quickly follows.

I school my expression quickly as he turns to close the door and bolt the locks. I try to ignore how my heart rate picks up that I’m alone with a shirtless Jaxon.

But I. Can’t. Stop. Staring.

He’s all tan skin, ripped muscles, and midnight black hair. I want to run my hands through it, see if it makes those dark chocolate eyes roll. But it’s his smirk that tilts my world sideways as I’m downright ogling him and failing to hide it.

I swear I feel my pussy clench, and that is not normal for me.

“Morning,” he calls, dropping his gym bag by the door. “My eyes are up here, Sass.”

Busted .

I squeeze my eyes shut as if that’ll burn away the cut V in his abs that points right to the bulge in his pants. Either he’s turned on by me staring at him or he just packs a big one. Who the fuck knows.

A part of me should have guessed that beneath all those suits were the ropes of muscle and veins before me. I even felt it when we were dancing, and where I could just feel the dip of his shoulder then, without a shirt on, now, I can see the entire outline.

I flush, but instead of guiltily averting my eyes, I shoot back, “Hope I don’t have to play nurse for you today, Tanner. We have rehearsal.”

He grins, an annoying dimple popping on his handsome face, and it makes me squirm. He has no business smiling at me like that with his lean, five hundred percent less body fat build.

“I know we do. I just did cardio. Don’t worry. I won’t have you putting your hands on me again if you don’t want to.” His voice rasps against my skin like he’s smoothing a finger down my spine. Now my flush spreads to my chest and I clench my jaw.

‘Cause here we are again. Toeing the line between professional and not professional. Look, but not touch. Want, but can’t have.

We stare at each other, my hazel on his dark brown eyes, like tennis players on a court, waiting for the other to serve. Waiting for who’ll break. I tip my chin up defiantly. He leans his hands on the edge of the counter. It makes his muscles flex and, based on the way I clench my thighs, I’d say I’m losing the battle right now.

This is what I get for lying last night. For pretending I don’t want him. He’s abiding by my wishes, but he’s not making it easy looking like a downright snack.

And with the way he’s looking at me, like at my word, he’d devour me, I wonder if I made the right choice.

The next few days fall into a blur. We wake, rehearse, practice, rehearse again.

Jaxon shows up shirtless most mornings after the gym and I pretend I don’t want to lick a line up his abs. He leaves me coffees and blueberry muffins and has started to change up the notes on the white paper bags. He’ll leave jokes like save my seat or can’t wait to play the same four bars for four hours, but my favorites have been the ones that say for you or got your favorite.

Like he doesn’t just know , but he knows me.

He knows the silent way we communicate in rehearsal. His violin in my ear and mine in his. Our secret language borne from facial cues, foot nudges, and pencil markings. And while we’re single outside of rehearsal, we’re as much a couple in rehearsal.

Puzzle pieces finding their match.

A good stand partner should make you feel that way. They should be someone you rely on and trust. That’s all he is, I tell myself. A really great stand partner. Even if he makes my stomach flutter every time he walks into a room.

I just refuse to admit anything more for the sake of my heart that knows at the end of this tour we’ll part ways.

He’ll leave me again.

One night, as we’re packing up after one of our post-rehearsal solo practices, Jaxon breaks from our routine.

“Are you hungry?” he asks over his shoulder. He kept his violin out the whole practice, even though he didn’t once touch it. He sat, listening to me play, offering a few details here and there, but mostly, he listened with a look of contentment over his face. A small lick of pride lit up in me at the sight of it.

“Will the food be free?” I throw back, sliding the velvet velcro strap over the neck of my violin to clasp it into place. It’s week three of rehearsals in LA. We’re barreling toward the second concert and a reprieve from our hotel room or rehearsal studio is feeling warranted.

His mouth quirks, violin already packed up in his black carbon fiber case and slung over his shoulder.

“Free for you,” he smirks.

“Are you treating me, Tanner?” I tease playfully with a flick of my red hair over my shoulder.

His smirk turns shy. “You played well tonight. I’m thinking you might not need me anymore.”

My heart tugs. The thought of how in five more weeks this tour ends and we won’t be around each other pulls at something in me. I never thought I’d see the day I yearned for his presence, but I feel confident around him. Safe. He makes anything I desire feel achievable, and it’s rare to feel this free.

“Well, I was taught by the best. You might know him. He’s this smug, egotistical—hey!” Jaxon shoves my shoulder, and while I’m not short, I am light. I fold over like those inflatable balloon guys at car dealerships. “Okay, fine! You’re a fucking delight!”

“I am a fucking delight.” He grins, tugging me softly at the elbow to straighten me back up. My body heats where his hand touches me and as much as I crave for his hand to linger, it doesn’t. All his soft touches have minimized ever since our conversation the first night we got here. He’s become more restrained and guiltily, I feel a pang of sadness about it. The slight hardness in his eyes or terseness of his lips I know is because I said that night was just a slip .

I shake off the harrowing feelings and loop my thumbs under the straps of my mirrorball violin case.

“So, where are you treating us?” I ask.

His eyes light up at the word us as much as I light up every time I recall this case is a gift from him . That previous hardness almost evaporates before he averts his gaze and tips his head to the door.

“C’mon, I know a place.”

I nod and we dip out into the evening night air. Jaxon takes position by the street like always, an arm hanging loose to hover behind me when the sidewalk gets tight and we need to stick together. Sometimes he touches the tip of my shoulder and I ache to lean into him, to take his hand and let him lead me. Instead, I keep my fingers looped in the straps of my case and keep my eyes forward the whole walk there.

The place that Jaxon was referring to is an extravagant rooftop bar and restaurant that overlooks Downtown LA. I roll my lips over my teeth as I try not to gape at our surroundings that are spectacularly stunning.

“Tanner. Warn a girl,” I whisper to him as the server drops our menus above black textured plates lined with gold.

“What?” he asks, innocently.

“When you said you knew a place, I didn’t think you meant a place like this. I’m not exactly dressed for the occasion.”

I look down at my black bodysuit that tucks into pleather shorts over stockings. And with my luck, my stockings have a rip. Not a tiny one, even. It stretches from the back of my knee, down my calf to my ankle. Fantastic.

Jaxon, on the other hand, looks fresh out of VOGUE’s magazine in a black suit with a black fitted tee that hugs all the taut muscles of his upper body. I’d know from how many times I’ve checked him out when he comes back from the gym shirtless. He must know what it does to me. Not that I’m complaining.

I glance around. The tables nearest us are empty. Seems it’s still early enough a crowd hasn’t set in yet, which eases my nerves. There’d already been a few eyes on us staying back to practice. Rehearsals are one thing. Dinner is another. I can’t imagine the gossip if they find us here.

We’re seated along the edge of a glass wall lined with a stone fire pit to keep us warm. The view captures miles upon miles of Los Angeles skyline where the city lights illuminate around us as if the stars were below us instead of above.

The setting is… intimate. Arguably, romantic. But I don’t let myself sit on that thought too long.

A gust of wind sweeps my hair over my shoulder as I take in the view.

“The view is amazing,” I sigh.

Another breeze floats a loose curl over my eyes, but I stare out over the skyscrapers to the sun setting in a tangerine glow with lavender and pink clouds mixed in with the deepening blue sky.

“It is,” Jaxon replies, his voice hoarse. When I tuck the curl back behind my ear, I catch him staring at me rather than the view. A blush creeps up my cheeks, only to simmer down once I look over the menu.

My brow furrows. “Hey Tanner? Is this menu in another language? Or are my eyes just wrong?”

Jaxon laughs, his lips curling into a smirk. “It’s in kanji but there are English explanations below the pictures. ”

I search for the explanations but the translations aren’t much help. I still have no idea what toro, ikura, chirashi or uni means.

“Have you had much Japanese before?” he asks.

I bite my bottom lip, not missing how his eyes glance down before flitting back up when I say, “Outside of what you’ve cooked for me? I’ve had… Top Ramen?”

Oh, if looks could kill.

Jaxon’s smirk morphs into shock as his jaw unhinges.

“Did I just burst your angelic perception of me?” I ask. I figured humor might be my way out of this embarrassment.

“My perception of you was more wicked than angelic.”

“So, I’m a witch to you?”

“A witch who’s only had Top Ramen .” He shakes his head aghast, still smirking, his dimple distracting. “You’ve really only had Top Ramen in your life?”

I roll my eyes, then my lips, hoping to distract him with it again. Or anything, for that matter. But his shoulders begin to shake.

“Hey!” I bat at him from across the table with my menu as he dissolves into uncontrollable laughter. “I just shared with you my number one diet hack. It’s my deepest, darkest secret, you know.”

Jaxon laughs harder and my facade breaks easily. It’s hard not to smile at this version of him. Happier, carefree, more relaxed. A lick of heat circles in the pit of my stomach and I crave for more of it. More of happy him.

“Okay, but seriously,” I whine. “I’ve just never had anyone to introduce me to other cuisines properly.”

Jaxon comes down from his laughing fit, dark eyes shimmering. He looks at me in a way that can only be described as unprofessional. Like I’m the most delicious thing on the menu.

And I love it. As much as I hate it because he can’t be looking at me in that way.

So, I drop my eyes to trace the gold edges on my plate as my skin heats from embarrassment.

Or desire.

“Well, you’re in luck then, because I’m an expert.” His voice is confident, although a little hoarse. It ripples down over my skin, but Jaxon nudges me under the table to pull my attention back. “Do you trust me?”

When I glance up, his dimple pops in the waning sunset, the smolder of his eyes turning a burnt umber like the sky behind him. I mull it over as if I hadn’t been thinking of it already. We’ve made it through the last six weeks without either of us getting fired. We’re even sharing a room, again, and haven’t driven each other out from some insane bathroom schedule or dirty laundry out in the open. It doesn’t take much thought to know the answer. I do.

Playfully, I narrow my gaze to keep him on edge, but it doesn’t take long for my grin to unfurl. He bumps his knee into mine again and I surrender. “Please, just don’t order octopus. I’ll eat anything but that.”

His lips tilt, and my world tilts sideways with it. My stomach doing that flip when he stares at me with bright eyes, like I’m the only thing in the world that matters.

“You trust me,” he whispers. A statement, not a question.

“Yes, Tanner. I trust you,” I whisper back, the wind carrying my voice to his ears. It feels like a secret unwrapped. A wave of relief floods my shoulders, easing them from my ears. It’s nice for once to feel that I can rely on someone else. Even if it is to read a menu in Japanese and hope they don’t order food that may give me seafood poisoning. I’d like to make it to the second concert without any bathroom accidents.

Jaxon orders us an omakase special, which he explains is a seventeen-course meal of hand-crafted sushi selected by the chef. We ooh and aah over every little bite and it feels as though the world zeroes in on this moment. Our rehearsals fall away, the solo practices that follow, the nervousness of another concert looming. It all fades to this feeling of contentedness that blankets us from the cool air, flavors melting in our mouths as the sun finally dips and transforms into a cloudless night sky.

“Would you eat out often when on tour?” I ask over a bite of another scrumptious sushi, an unagi special, which—Jaxon thankfully explained to me after I’d swallowed—means eel or I wouldn’t have tried it otherwise. “Or do you always buy hotel suites with kitchens?”

He chuckles softly. “The last suite came with the kitchenette. This time I requested one.”

He doesn’t look up from his plate even while I’ve frozen over mine. “Why?”

“So, I could cook for you. In case you were hungry.”

My jaw drops. My mind races. He got a kitchen so he could cook for me?

He continues on, picking up the next custom sushi from a plate, wagyu beef with edible gold on top. But I’m more distracted by his words than anything. “You said your mom never taught you. I grew up coming home to my mother’s cooking. It was always my favorite part of the day to finish a rehearsal or concert and come home to freshly made food. Felt like the least I could do. Except for tonight, of course.”

“What’s special about tonight?”

“Nothing. Just appreciating company,” he murmurs over a sip of water, but his eyes look over the skyline distantly. “Tours are lonely when you’re solo. I’ll take sharing a room with you any day, rather than being out alone.”

When his eyes clash with mine, there’s a loneliness behind it I recognize in myself. It’s the lost feeling of going about your day without the ones who know and support you unconditionally. It’s how I feel when I’m without Sloane.

“I get what you mean,” I say.

“About what?”

“How you feel lonely.”

Jaxon pauses and peers up at me through dark lashes with warm, chocolate brown eyes. For a moment, I lose myself in them until I realize he’s waiting for me to continue.

“I’m not close with my family and I don’t have any siblings. Sloane is the closest thing I have to a sister. A real sister. I’ve always wondered what it would be like if I had siblings. I’d hear stories about the pains of growing up with them, then becoming best friends in life later. I don’t have that, so I count myself lucky to have her.” My breath catches as I’m hit with a wave of longing for Sloane, but I power through. “We’re back in the same city now, but I didn’t get my chance to stay with her. It’s worse than being too far apart to see each other. Our schedules are opposites, and then we’ll be leaving again soon and when we finish in New York, I’ll probably just go back to San Francisco.”

Jaxon regards me softly. He’s paused eating, engrossed instead in me venting about how much I miss my best friend. We’ve been too busy with the tour, needing our own solo decompression time after rehearsals and practice to get to know each other like this and it’s… pleasant. Comforting. Easy. Something I ne ver would have thought of from someone I thought hated being around me.

“It wasn’t always like this, just the past few months, actually. Sloane had moved to LA, funnily enough, to chase a guy.”

“Bold move,” Jaxon comments, and I nod. We share a quick smile.

“Bold, indeed,” I agree. “It didn’t work out. He dumped her two weeks after, but she’d already quit her job, moved out from our apartment in San Francisco, and moved in to a new apartment in LA. Lucky for her she wasn’t living with him. She only moved for him. But now she’s stuck on a lease and can’t come back to San Fran ‘til it’s over.”

If she wants to come back. My afterthought seems selfish, that I want her to come back for me, save me from living with my parents, and the longing in my chest stabs harder. Even if being in LA isn’t her number one pick, it means being closer to her parents, siblings and hometown in Luna Bay. I’m the outlier here, not her family.

Jaxon twirls a chopstick between his fingers as he ponders, then says, “No guy is worth uprooting your life for.”

I scoff in surprise. “Even for love?” I tease. I reach for a truffle tuna sushi piece topped with caviar. I savor its fresh taste, easing for a few seconds the sting in my chest at how much I miss Sloane.

“Love can flourish over distance and time, but it shouldn’t force you to want to change aspects of your life unless you both agree upon it. Love’s a conversation, not just a compromise.”

A rush zings up my spine at the seriousness of his tone. I wonder what context he’s drawing from. My parents always seemed in love with each other and loved me to the point of smothering me. Their only—albeit major—flaw in our relationship is trying to live vicariously through me. I want to make them proud, but I want what’s happy for me, too. I don’t know if we always see eye to eye on that.

Jaxon reaches for the wine bottle, the gold foil lettering of Ciel on the label shining as he spins the bottle to pour. He took one look at the menu, shook his head, and immediately asked the waiter if they carried the bottle, insisting I try this apparently famous wine from Cherry Creek Valley. He was right. It’s truly mesmerizing. Sweet with the hint of oak, cherries and vanilla. It’s as if a dessert were bottled into a wine.

We clink our glasses together and take a sip. My nose scrunches and my eyes pinch when the wine hits between my brows. The rush subsides quickly, but it leaves me with a heat. I might crave the spotlight on stage, but I don’t always like it on my life.

“What’s your family like?” I ask, deflecting the heat onto him. I reach for the ginger plate and pop a raw piece into my mouth to cleanse my palate for my next sushi. Another trick Jaxon taught me to help the flavors pop.

“The one I visit only on occasions if I’m in town, or the ones who I think are my real family?” His lips quirk at the word real , echoing when I had called Sloane my real sister. Understanding dances in our steady gaze like the lick of flames from the fire pit beside us.

“Both. I wanna know.”

His eyes light up as if it’s the first time someone’s ever shown interest and my heart squeezes. It’s the first time, outside of Sloane, that someone’s listened to what I have to say. The feeling’s mutual to say the least.

Jaxon sips on his wine before turning to me with his dark brown eyes. “Well, my parents weren’t musicians. My mom met my dad at a corporate function when they interned for some tech company during college. They hit it off and a year later had me accidentally. They got married, of course, made it work and at first, it was amazing. Just the three of us.

“Then when I turned twelve, they decided to have more kids. They said that I’d be the one my brothers would look up to and I was. But that didn’t make me close to them. The age gap made it difficult and with my music crafting a future for me, I didn’t get much time to be home to get to know them. In a way, it was easier for my parents to take care of my baby brothers with me out of the way in rehearsals or practice. I know I’m called a prodigy, but sometimes I think practicing and performing was my way of escaping.”

“Tanner,” I whisper. Jaxon’s usual mask of indifference has cleared for me to see right through to his loneliness. I reach toward his hand. His skin is cold, so I take his fingers in mine and run my thumb across his knuckles. His brow smoothens at my touch, and when his eyes lift, I feel the ache behind them. He sniffs, gives my hand a squeeze back, then pulls away to sip his water.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “You don’t have to keep telling me if you don’t want to.”

“I want to.” He eyes me softly. “I want you to know me.”

My lips quirk as I blush. “I do, too.”

He holds my gaze steady with his own and I feel a rush through my body.

College for us was a game. Who could score higher in a performance exam? Who could play a more difficult piece? Who could be in more ensembles than the other? It never occurred to me why he was filling up all his time like I did. I was doing it for my parents, their approval, their pride. He was doing it for his parents too, but because he felt being away from them would make him less of a burden to their growing family.

Jaxon continues, his gaze tracing over my face as I listen intently. “My parents supported me up until I graduated college, took me to all my performances and recitals, even with my brothers crying along the way. When I graduated and moved to New York, that’s when things got more distant between us. Performances always got booked on birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays. I stopped coming home to visit. They never held me against it, but we just… stopped talking.”

He pauses and a warmth of affection towards him curls around my body like the fire in the reflection of his glasses.

“Sometimes… when I see their family pictures up on social media, it almost feels like they’re their own separate family. Without me, they still look whole and I’m the odd one out.”

“That’s not true,” I react instantly, as if I hadn’t just called myself an outlier. But this is his real family. I was thinking about me and Sloane. Jaxon shakes his head. “Tanner. Your parents were so supportive of you. I even remember them in college. They were at every performance in the front row, smiling. My parents don’t even smile when I see them in the crowd. Your parents love you.”

“Yeah. But then I became an adult, and my siblings needed all their support. They’re athletes, soccer, golf, basketball, and all that. Their schedule is so busy with games and tournaments, it was so hard to coordinate a weekend together. It feels like too much to ask them to come see me, too. Even if I fly home to San Fran, it feels like I’m trying to fit myself into their life.”

“So you just stopped? Stopped talking and trying?” I ask. The loneliness in him seeps into my skin. I want to warm him, but his arms are crossed in a way that shows his walls are up, closing me off from his world.

“You can’t disappoint someone if you’re not in the picture,” he says.

My breath catches, taken aback. Whatever pang in my chest has tripled. The night he left me springs to mind again and I wonder if it’s at all attached. But we’re not talking about that night, we’re talking about family.

“Pictures can be lies,” I say slowly and deliberately for him to hear every word. “Just because you’re not in it doesn’t mean they don’t want you.”

He scratches the back of his head. “It feels awkward to talk to them after so long.”

“They’re your parents . They’ll talk to you.”

Jaxon nods, distractedly. I pull his hand toward me and wrap it in mine again, looking deeply in his forlorn eyes.

“Walls that are built can be torn down. You’re their first son. I guarantee you they have not forgotten you or would turn you away if you called them. I remember their faces at your performances. I wished mine would glow like yours did.”

“My parents would love you,” he whispers softly, and it feels like my stomach ignites as he flips my hand to draw circles in my palm absentmindedly. His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. “And you sound just like Xander.”

“I take it he’s your real brother?” I ask.

Jaxon’s lips tug at the edges. I want to pull at their seams and make him smile, but he pulls his hand away to cross his arms again and the cold air kisses my fingers instead. “Yeah. He’s a real one. My Big Brother in Omega Chi.”

“Sloane was my Big too.”

“I remember,” he murmurs and my heart warms that he does.

“What’s Xander like?”

He snorts. “Assertive. Wise. A little high on the anger spectrum.”

I laugh. “He sounds like a delight.”

“Oh, he likes to say that if he doesn’t call us out on our bullshit, we’d all fail in life. I don’t deny it. He’s not afraid to tell the truth, even if it hurts, and I appreciate that.” He looks at me meaningfully then, a silent I appreciate you, and my body responds as if rockets were set off within me.

“Then there’s Max,” Jaxon continues. “My other fraternity brother, another Little of Xander’s. Serious about his work, has more money than he knows what to do with. For his parties, he bought a giant red tub simply for tequila. Buys the highest-end tequila to go with it too. Probably costs him ten thousand dollars?”

I snort a laugh and his eyes glimmer from across the table, a grin on the edge of his lips. He drops my gaze to look out over the view while I trace the lines of his jaw, his lips, his sharp nose. When I reach his eyes, I don’t miss the lingering loneliness in them, the way it dulls his usual molten brown to a dark gray.

“Hey. A toast.” I nudge his foot. He casts a sidelong glance to me before he turns back and reaches for his glass. I raise mine. “To the ones who know and love us, especially from a distance.”

A spark lights in his eyes as he tips his glass pointedly to me. “To company.”

I blink, then tap the edge of my glass to his and we sip, eyes on each other, until he nudges my foot back under the table, our silent way of communicating, just like in our music stand.

“Thank you,” Jaxon whispers, the glimmer in his eye now more ablaze. “For coming out tonight.”

“I don’t bite, Tanner. I’m a nice person,” I deadpan.

“Really? I just took you to be sassy.” His smile widens and my heart aches to crack him open more, to keep the glimmer in his eye and add warmth to his words.

If I hurt him that first night, he doesn’t show it, but a part of me wonders if I pushed him away like he pushes away his family.

If only he knew I was lying.