The Rock Star's Wedding

Part 4

FOUR

Jerome's first mistake was to try and hug Xan the moment he saw her. His second was to attempt to kiss her.

Xan tried to feel bad about accidentally elbowing him in the gut and headbutting him in the face, but his nose had made such a satisfying crunch that she knew she'd be lying to herself.

His third mistake was for the first words out of his mouth to be, "She said she was going to get rid of the baby."

She should have walked out of the brewery right there and then. Gods knew she wanted to. But all the weeks of frustration had built up too much not to burst under this pressure.

"Oh, so cheating on your fiancée and getting some kid pregnant isn't a problem if the girl gets an abortion?" Xan hissed, keeping her voice low so the whole room wouldn't know her business. Gossip travelled fast in a small town, after all.

"But the baby wasn't mine!" Jerome said.

Xan failed to see how that improved matters. "You mean while you were cheating on me, she was cheating on you?"

"No, I never cheated on you. I wouldn't, Xan, you know that."

She'd dealt with enough dodgy backpackers to know a liar when she met one. "Oh yeah? She was all over you in those pictures on your social media account. Even my mum said you two were together."

"That was for her parents' benefit," Jerome said. "See, Kelly had too much to drink at one of the school dances. Smuggled alcohol in, just like we used to. I was a student teacher at her school, helping supervise the kids at the dance, so I spotted her and took her aside before her teachers caught her drinking. I called her parents and said she was sick, so I'd drive her home. We weren't in the car more'n five minutes before she was spilling her guts about some boy she went to school with getting her pregnant. She begged me to help her by saying I was the baby's dad, not the boy from school, until she got the money together to have an abortion.

"She was your friend, and she said you'd want me to help her. Said you'd understand. So we took a bunch of pictures and put them on her social media accounts and mine. Told everybody we were in love and going to have a kid."

Xan forced herself to stay calm. "And no one minded that you'd slept with a girl ten years younger than you? A student at the school where you worked?"

Jerome scratched his head. "Well, her parents were a bit surprised at first. So I hung out at her place a lot with her, making them believe we were in love."

"What did you have to do to make them believe that?" Xan asked, keeping her voice level even while she wanted to scream at him.

"Well, just a bit of a kiss and a cuddle at first, but when they still didn't believe it, we sort of arranged for them to catch us in bed together. Once or twice. Or maybe a few more times." Jerome raised his hands in surrender. "Just to sell the story, honest! There wasn't any other way."

"You slept with one of your sixteen-year-old students while you were engaged to marry me. Not just once, but a few times. In my world, no, in most people's worlds, that's cheating, Jerome." Xan wet her lips. "Not to mention it makes you a paedophile, too. She's barely legal – and still at school!"

"Barely legal's still legal, and it wasn't cheating. I didn't love her – I only love you! I'm sorry if you see it differently. Maybe I made a mistake, but I'm sorry. We belong together and you know it. I'm sorry. You weren't around to ask, but I figured you'd want me to help your friend. You were never supposed to know!"

If the man dug his hole any deeper, he'd bury himself in it. If he hadn't already.

"Jerome, like I said before on the phone, it's over. I won't marry a man who can't stay faithful." She rose and headed for the bar. She could have one drink, and she intended to have it. The hard bit would be not pouring it over Jerome's stupid head.

"Hey, Xan. Nice to see you in town again. They keep you busy out on that island, don't they?"

Xan smiled at Steve, the manager of the Mangrove Hotel. They'd been nodding acquaintances when she ran the backpackers, but they'd become colleagues when she started working at Romance Island Resort. In fact, she'd negotiated a range of tour and day trip packages with him, where tourists could stay at his hotel in town and spend a day or three sampling the island's delights while they were in Broome. Together with the day trippers from the construction camp at Lorikeet, all the new tourist traffic had meant that the Resort had experienced its best earning season since it opened.

"Yeah, it's the platypires. There were so many new ones born this year, their mothers couldn't keep up, so we've had to bottle feed them." Xan tried to keep a straight face.

"Platypires? I haven't heard of those," Steve said, sipping his beer. Mango, by the smell of it.

"Oh, you don't get them on the mainland. They've been hunted almost to extinction over here. Kind of like drop bears on the east coast, or Nannup tigers down south. But on the islands, they're really flourishing." Xan's ginger beer arrived and she took a deep gulp to hide her laugh.

"What do they look like?"

"Oh, like a cross between a platypus and a vampire bat. You know, a duck bill with the tail, but sort of leathery wings with a furry body. They use their echolocation to find their prey in the dark."

"Oh yeah?" Steve raised his eyebrows. "What do they eat?"

"They don't. They're blood drinkers, like giant mosquitoes. See, on either side of their beak, they have fangs, and – "

A heavy hand landed on Xan's shoulder. "Who's your friend, babe?" Jerome asked, bristling at Steve.

Steve wiped his hand on his shorts, then held it out for a shake. "Steve. I manage the Mangrove Hotel. Not as luxurious as Xan's resort, but we've been refurbishing it. Got a new restaurant opening soon. Oh, that reminds me. We're planning a big party to celebrate when it opens. Next Staircase, it'll be. I'd love you to come."

"We'll be there, won't we, Xan?" Jerome said.

Steve looked surprised. "Of course, if you're Xan's partner, you're very welcome to join us."

"Wouldn't miss it," Jerome said sweetly. He kissed Xan's cheek. "Gotta go, babe. You have a think about everything I said, and when you're ready to admit you were wrong, I'll forgive you with open arms. I'll see you at the party."

Xan wanted to scream, or at least wash his slimy kiss off her face. Instead, she forced herself to remain calm and finish her beer before she headed back to the resort.