The Only Song (Only You)

40. Jaxon

Chapter 40

Jaxon

“ F uck,” I groan. My throat is dry, my muscles ache and I have a whopping pain in my forehead.

Shit, how much did I drink last night?

I might be jobless, but I had no business drinking to this point of a hangover. Even with no performances to work toward or reason to keep my muscles properly hydrated, I should’ve remembered hangover pain sucks . I want to keel over the couch. Why did I drink so much? Was Sadie there last night?

“Rise and shine, boys.” Xander’s deep voice calls from afar.

“How the fuck are you awake?” Max complains from somewhere to my left.

A pillow lands on my face.

“What?” I cry, shoving it off and finally opening my eyes to Xander’s sunlit living room.

“Get up.” Xander picks up the pillow and throws it toward Max next, but he’s face down so it just hits the back of his head and bounces off. “And have breakfast.”

Achingly, I peel myself off the couch to join Xander at his marble island. Max is still on the couch but has flipped onto his back now, an arm hanging off the edge.

“Your breakfast burrito is mine, Max, if you don’t get up,” Xander warns.

“Fuck off,” Max mumbles, finally slinking off to join us sleepily at the island. His head hits the marble surface immediately, as if to resume his nap.

Xander hauls three one-gallon water jugs from a bag and slides one to us each. “Chug.” Next, he slides warm, foiled burritos. Actually, he smacks Max with his lightly. “C’mon Max.”

I twist the cap off my gallon jug and relish the cool water sliding down my throat. The icy chill immediately awakens me and sharp flashes of last night scorch my mind.

Sadie. Fiery red hair half-tied back in a neat black bow.

Sadie. In that little black dress that makes my core light up.

Sadie. Twisting the rules of a drinking game to ask questions.

Sadie. Who I longed for the last two months.

Sadie. My lark.

Max lifts off the counter to dig into his burrito as Xander’s already wrapping his burrito wrapper up.

A twinge of pain hits my forehead and I dig the heel of my palm in it. God, why did we drink like that in our thirties?

“You know,” Max says to me as takes a bite of his burrito. “You still look a little green from last night.”

“How am I green?” I squint at him. Is he still drunk?

He swallows, then grins at me mischievously. “From how jealous you looked at anyone around Sadie last night.”

Dick .

“I wasn’t jealous.” I busy myself by unwrapping my burrito.

“You looked like you wanted to drink Sadie into your system or something,” Max chuckles, mouth full again with another bite.

I shove his shoulder to shut him up. Because yeah, maybe I was a little jealous last night. Even though she ran away at the end, the game we played was the most we’d spoken in months. It was over too quickly, and I had to spend the rest of the evening watching her from a distance.

I round on Xander, narrowing my eyes. “Was this your plan? To bring me over here so I’d run into her?”

Xander pins me with a stare. “I had no idea that she would be there.”

I scoff, but my retort is cut off by his next words cutting through the light morning air—clean, crisp, precise: “I have news.”

Max peeks up from his burrito, then says proudly, “Bet it can’t beat mine. I get to work in Australia .”

He winks, but Xander’s face is stone. It’s so serious, it makes my stomach twist. It reminds me of how I’ve kept my retirement from the two people who’ve supported me from day one. I never keep anything from them for too long and I know if I don’t say it now, it might get buried by their news, so I blurt, “I quit my job.”

Two heads whip in my direction. A beat of silence passes before Xander says in a low voice, “I’m getting divorced.”

Okay, he wins.

“What?” Max chokes out. I stare at Xander, looking for a hint of emotion behind his eyes, but he’s hiding it well. Aside from his serious expression, he looks a little too calm for the bombshell he just dropped.

“I served Vivian with papers last week.”

Last week. Shit. If I’d been less MIA and more present for my friends, then maybe I wouldn’t have missed something as big as this. I would’ve flown out to Xander immediately.

Is that why he flew me here?

I look at Xander apologetically, too speechless to know what to say.

“Wait. You served her,” Max repeats back. “What the fuck happened?”

“She was cheating,” Xander answers with carefully masked rage. His jaw is set and his knuckles go white on the marble surface. A ragged, angry exhale that may as well be a growl escapes his chest as he adds, “With Dexter.”

My jaw drops. When I look at Max to see if he might have known this, he’s just as surprised as I am—mouth open with a little piece of lettuce still hanging from his lip, and his grip on his burrito so tight I think it might spill all over the place.

Dexter is technically a part of our fraternity brotherhood. But I don’t really consider him my brother in the same way I do Xander and Max. He was Xander’s first fraternity Little. They were close during college, but after graduation, we kept him at an arm and a foot’s length. He’s asked all three of us for money at least once a year . And he’s the only one of us who doesn’t live on Bluewater Lane—for good reason now.

We wished he would have grown up after college but instead he always looked at our careers with spite, jealous that his never took off, but how could it when his life was too unhinged and too unsettled? Always starting a new job, in a new location, or with a new girl—or all three.

“Son of a bitch,” I hiss under my breath.

“He’s so fucking dead,” Max says angrily, standing from his chair so abruptly it topples over.

“Don’t break my furniture, Max. Sit down,” Xander says coolly.

“How the fuck can I sit down after hearing that?” He argues and picks up the seat, but instead of sitting, he leans on the marble edge with his arms crossed. His brow furrows and I wonder if he’s thinking the same thing as me—how and why is Xander being so calm about this?

“It’s your turn,” Xander says, pinning Max with a stare that says, relax or else . “Why are you working in Australia?”

“Oh, I’m in the hot seat now?” Max retorts. Xander doesn’t even respond. He just continues to glare at Max until he rolls his eyes. “Fine. I refused to take a vacation at work?—”

“Idiot,” Xander comments.

Max glares at him, and continues, “So they’re going to fly me to Sydney instead to oversee a new acquisition. I guess me being overseas will count as my vacation.”

“What do they need you to do?” I ask.

“Fly over a couple of times. Supervise negotiations.” He swallows his last bite and shrugs again. “They haven’t fully briefed me on it yet. I just accepted. Do whatever it takes to climb up, you know?” He looks at me expectantly since usually I’d be the one who understands. Usually, I would know. If there were an alumni award for most career driven in our fraternity, either Max or I would’ve gotten it. Except I don’t have a career anymore. Guess it’s my turn now to explain.

“I can’t play violin professionally anymore,” I admit. Max’s eyes widen in shock. Xander stares. All I can offer them is an apologetic nod with pursed lips, knowing I kept it from them these last two months. “I’ve been struggling with severe RSI this past year. The tour I was on… was like a test.” I sigh heavily, knowing I didn’t actually make it to the end. But Sadie did. “I retired before the final weekend.”

They regard me softly as I quell the ache in my chest, piercing and sharp, reminding me of everything I lost—my passion, my career, my lark.

Max breaks the silence first.

“Did you quit on Sadie too?” he asks bluntly.

Xander hides his expression by taking a swig from his gallon jug.

My jaw drops. “What?”

“Did you quit on Sadie?” Max asks again, oblivious to how his question feels like he’s stabbing a dagger in my chest. “Or… did she break-up with you?”

“I—” I choke on the memory of Sadie walking out my front door in New York. On not being able to greet her after she performed, hiding away in a back row of the theater and slinking off before the final applause so she wouldn’t feel hurt by seeing me. “I didn’t quit, she… left.”

“Are you going after her?” Max asks. I narrow my eyes at him. Since when did he care about my relationships this way? He’s always rambled on about focusing on your career and to not let love derail you. But at my confused expression, he just shakes his head. “I think the idiot card goes to you, actually.”

“Excuse me?” My brows fly up as Xander covers up his snort with a cough.

I look between them to see if I can make sense of what’s going on.

“I am not an idiot!” Am I?

“Yeah, you are,” Max grins smugly and slumps back in his chair.

“How?” I glare at him because what the fuck else can I do? I don’t know what he’s talking about.

“Because only you would be oblivious to how Sadie was looking at you all night.”

My mouth opens, but nothing comes out. Max spends most of his time riling us up for a laugh, but when he turns serious—like when he’s at work—he means business. He doesn’t lie. And the way he looks at me right now is telling me just that. No lies.

I clear my throat of the lump that just formed. I want to know, but I’m also hoping what he says doesn’t crumble me.

“How was she looking at me?” I ask.

He crosses his arms over his chest and says simply, “Like she loves you.” Then he adds, “Idiot.”

I stare at him in bewilderment because while I know that I am still painstakingly in love with her, the way her eyes kept flitting away from me made me think I might have hurt her to the point of no return.

Before I can question Max on “her look” more, a phone buzzes and we all look around to see whose it might be. Max reaches his phone first and his face pales.

“Fuck. Sorry guys, I have to go,” Max mutters, already scrambling out of his seat and leaving me with that bombshell to figure out by myself. At least I have Xander.

“You good?” Xander calls after Max.

Max spins at the door, gallon water jug and keys in hand, looking panicked. “Fire at work. Need to fix?—”

“Go.” I nod to him. “We’ll catch up later.”

He nods back, then sprints out the door.

Xander circles the counter to take Max’s seat and slides silently into the chair beside me.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you right away,” I murmur, wrapping up the empty foil of my burrito.

“About Sadie? Or about your career?” he asks.

“Both.” My face feels like it contorts from all the suffering I’ve endured the last few months. Max’s words tore apart my thin facade and tears prick in the back of my eyes.

Like she loves you .

But I hurt her.

I shake my head. “You were right. Karma’s a bitch.”

“So she found out,” Xander says. Neither of us need to restate the rumor that got out, and that I did nothing about it. Except this time, I did. Perhaps, I’m overstepping but after she ran out last night, I immediately sent an email to make this right for her, to give her back what I had stolen when that rumor broke out: a chance .

“What did she say when she found out?” Xander asks. He twists open his jug to take another swig of water and I do the same as Sadie’s words play in my mind.

I trusted you, Jax. But you didn’t trust me enough to tell me.

“She left because she couldn’t be around me. I hurt her too much.” I choke on the last word.

I think back to my empty apartment, devoid of life and luster ever since she left. My dusty grand piano, my violin untouched. Ever since she left, I feel like I haven’t slept. The bed is cold without her and I don’t feel that sense of home. She asked me when I’d be going back to New York last night and all I could answer with was “undetermined”. I said it because it was true. There’s nothing tying me down to that expensive townhome anymore. I have a home in Bluewater Lane being built. No career in New York to go back to. All it feels like now is that there’s nothing for me without her around.

I swallow. When I look at Xander, he stares distantly about the kitchen and I sense that same loneliness I’d felt when Sadie left.

“How did you find out? About Vivian and Dex?” I ask tentatively.

Xander’s jaw ticks. “Started off with the sex.”

“Was it bad?”

“Never happened. No kisses or hugs either.” He laughs emptily. “Wouldn’t even hold my hand in a fucking parking lot.”

I shake my head. “Geez.”

“That’s just the start,” he muses.

“What else?”

“Her phone always lit up. Hid her screen and notifications if I was around.” A scowl takes over his face now menacingly. “But finding Dex’s cum-filled t-shirt in the hamper topped the cake.”

“Holy shit,” I gasp as he nods solemnly.

“And I ended up washing that shit,” he grits, then lets out a heavy sigh. “I confronted her that night. She didn’t even bother denying it. Or all the other men. All that’s left of her stuff here is… a bag of shoes?”

Just like me, Xander’s facade drops and his pain is etched all over his face. Divorce is something Xander’s well-acquainted with since his parent’s divorce tore their family apart. It turned him into the type of person who’s serious about every decision he makes. And she was one of them. Yet, she betrayed him.

I fidget with the cap of my jug. Treading lightly when I ask, “I know it’s stupid to say, but… how are you?”

Xander tips his head up to stare at the ceiling. Exasperated. Tired. I-could-burn-the-world-down are my guesses.

“Relieved a little. Angry. But at least now I know.” His face dips down and his shoulders sink defeatedly. “I think it hurt more not knowing how she felt, you know?”

It makes sense. To hurt when you don’t know the truth of how someone feels about you.

I told Sadie I love her in the worst of times, but I do. I still do. Even at the party, playing our little game of questions. Getting drunk off glittery alcohol. I love her.

“How are you?” I asked.

“Fine,” she lied.

But I could tell she wasn’t fine. She had the same rings under her eyes that I did. She still looked beautiful, but I realize I don’t know how she feels about me.

“Was she really looking at me like that?” I ask Xander, hope caught in my throat. “Like she loves me?”

Xander shifts in his seat. “All I can say is Vivian never looked at me like that.”

My chest tightens. All the emotion from the past two months swelling to the point my chest feels like it might burst.

“Give her some time. She’ll come around.” Xander pats me on the back.

“You can’t know that,” I sigh.

“True. But I never knew someone more perfect for you than her. You two look good together. Even last night, you both looked… happy.”

I nod disbelievingly as my phone lights up.

Xander and I both stare at the message. Who it’s from. My heart buoys down then up like I’m on a thriller roller coaster.

Sadie.

The message has no context or greeting. But I knew immediately it meant my email got through. She got her chance.

Sass

I said yes

My heart sings and I type the first thing I think of.

Jaxon

I’m proud of you

Sass

Thank you

Can we meet?

Jaxon

Whatever you want, Sass

Sass

I want to see you

I try not to read between the lines and think that what she means to say is I want you . Wanting to see me isn’t the same as wanting me . At least not in the way that I want her. But it’s a step forward when a week ago, all I could do was live in a state of want miles away from her without contact.

I type my response—a hasty “on my way”—as I’m already sliding off the stool.

“I have to go,” I say to Xander, who’s sporting a smirk now. I’m halfway to the door when I stop. “Wait. Can I borrow your car?”

Xander’s already two steps ahead of me, opening his garage while he passes me the keys. “If you need a place to stay awhile, I got room.” He claps me on my shoulder. “Now, go get your girl.”