“Uh ... well, I’m pretty good at reading between the lines,” he said.
“Reading between the lines?” she asked. “What does that mean?”
“It means that I’m able to take a limited amount of information and draw conclusions that are usually correct from that information. You’ve heard of Occam’s Razor?”
“Occam’s Razor?” she said, her look of confusion growing. “What the hell are you talking about, Jake?”
“Uh ... well ... Occam’s Razor is a principle of logic that states that when faced with...”
“I know what Occam’s Razor is,” Laura said, exasperated now. “And Occam has nothing to do with what I’m talking about.”
“He doesn’t?”
“I don’t see how he possibly could. You could not possibly have enough information to make an Occam’s Razor type of conclusion in this circumstance.”
“I couldn’t?”
“No!” she said. “No one knows about Z and Dexter yet. I only got the phone call two days ago. The cover story about exhaustion is still holding and, other than their manager, I’m the only one who really knows about it. There is no way you could have heard this news hanging out with Gordon in Oakland.”
Jake took another step back from her, releasing the embrace. He looked in her eyes, truly seeing them for the first time since walking in the room. “What are you talking about, Laura?” he asked.
“Z and Dexter had a major blowup after their concert in Harrisburg on Monday night,” she said. “Dexter resigned from the band and is flying home. He says this time it’s truly over and he will never play with Z again.”
Jake chewed his lip a little. “Z, Dexter ... are you talking about ... what are you talking about?”
“The Bobby Z tour!” she said. “Tim Flicks, their manager, called me up two days ago and told me about the breakup. They had to cancel all the dates for the next month because they don’t have a sax player now. But they need to get back on the road as soon as possible or they’re going to lose a lot of money and possibly be in danger of contract breach. They want me to fly out to Pittsburgh tomorrow and start rehearsing up to replace Dexter on the horn and finish out the tour with them.”
Jake was astounded, too surprised that the news he had thought he was going to hear was not what she had shared to even consider the implications of what she had actually laid on him. “That ... that’s your news?” he asked.
“Yes, that’s my news!” she said.
“Jesus Christ,” he said. “That is not what I thought you were going to tell me at all.”
“Obviously,” she said. “What did you think I was going to tell you?”
“Uh ... well ... I kind of thought that maybe you were ... you know ... pregnant.”
“Pregnant?” she barked, letting out a little laugh. “Me? Where did you get that from?”
“Well, you said you had something important to talk to me about, that you couldn’t talk about it on the phone, and then Elsa said you were kind of mopey the last two days and that you didn’t have your glass of wine tonight and ... well ... you know?”
“Wow,” she said, shaking her head. “Talk about jumping to a conclusion. I skip a glass of wine and your mind goes right to the pregnancy thing? I don’t drink that much, do I?”
“No, not at all,” he said, feeling a tremendous amount of relief that she was not pregnant, but also maybe feeling just a hint of disappointment as well? And was that disappointment because she was not with child or was it because of her actual news? “It’s just ... I don’t know. Forget I even went there.”
“Forgetting it,” she said. “Now then ... what do you think about the real reason I wanted to talk to you? About me leaving and going out on the road with Z and his band?”
He looked at her, trying to read what she wanted to hear from him in her eyes. They were sending extremely mixed messages, however, and he was unable to interpret. He took a deep breath and then slowly blew it out. “Is going out on the road something you want to do?”
She nodded slowly. “I used to love playing in front of an audience when I was in the jazz band with Ben,” she said. “That was one of the best times of my life, truth be told. I’d really love to do it again, to play for larger audiences, with true professionals.”
“Then you should do it,” Jake told her.
“But ... what about us?” she asked.
“What about us?”
“I’ll be gone for five or six months,” she said. “I’ll be traveling all over the country, staying in cheap motels, riding on buses...”
“I’m familiar with life on the road, hon,” he reminded her. “It’s really one of those ‘best of times, worst of times’ things. I think you should do it if it is something you want to do. I’m not going to stop loving you because you’re gone for a few months.”
“Are you sure?” she said quietly.
He leaned forward and kissed her lightly on the nose. “I’m sure,” he told her. “And besides, I can fly out to see you every now and again while you’re out there. Remember, I’m rich. I can afford shit like that.”
She nodded slowly. “I ... well ... I have some other concerns as well.”
“Such as?”
A few chews of her lip, a few deep breaths, and then: “I’m not sure I’m good enough to do this,” she said.
“That’s absurd,” he scoffed.
“It’s not!” she insisted. “This is Bobby Z we’re talking about here, one of the best smooth jazz artists in the world! I’m just a teacher who likes to play around with the sax!”
“No,” Jake corrected. “You’re a professional sax player who used to be teacher. And you’re damn good at what you do. You’re a big part of why Celia’s album is selling like wildfire right now. You’re a big part of why South Island Blur is getting airplay right now.”
“They’re just playing that song because they know you and I are getting it on,” she said.
“That may be why they started playing it, but it’s not why the song is moving up the charts. That soprano sax you laid down for the melody is badass, just like everything else you did on Celia’s album. I know that, Celia knows that, and Bobby fucking Z knows that shit too. That’s why he picked you to lay down those overdubs, and that’s why he’s asking you to go out on tour with him.”
“But...”
“No buts,” Jake insisted. “We can talk about what the separation might mean for us if you want—after all, you won’t be around to help us lay down the next two albums if you’re out on tour—but don’t you dare stand there and tell yourself that you’re not good enough to play with Bobby Z. You are good enough. You wouldn’t have been asked otherwise.”
She took another deep breath and then gave him her smile. “Thanks, Jake,” she said. “That means a lot coming from you.”
“Yes,” he told her. “It does.”
That earned him a giggle and an embrace. He lifted her face up and then kissed her; a long, luxuriant kiss that involved tongues.
“Wow,” she breathed when it broke. “What was that for?”
“That was to put you in the mood for letting me up under that nightie of yours,” he said.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah,” he said. “How did I do?”
“I’m definitely leaning in that direction,” she said. “But shouldn’t we talk about this road thing a little more first?”
Jake shook his head. He ran his hands down to the bottom of her long t-shirt and then slid them slowly up the back of her thighs until he was touching the bare cheeks of her buttocks. “I haven’t been inside of you in three days now. Let’s talk after.”
“But...”
“No buts,” he said again, pulling her close to him, so his strengthening erection was pushing onto her belly. “After.”
“Mmm,” she moaned, grinding herself into him a little, her nipples hardening before his very eyes. “I think that after will work.”