The Rock Star's Wedding

Part 6

SIX

Xan took a moment to stop herself from laughing. How much had Jay had to drink this time? "Why are you so set on getting married?" she asked carefully. "The mail order bride, the virginity auction, the reality TV show...and now an old friend who worked here before Meier hired me. If you ask me, it smacks of desperation. Which is pretty strange, considering how easily you seem to charm the women you want. What am I missing, Jay?"

"Angel's wedding," he mumbled, so quietly she barely caught the words.

"Your bandmate, right? But if it's her wedding, she's the one getting married, not you."

"The invitation said to bring a partner."

Xan waved her hand. "But you know that's just a courtesy, right? If you don't know the name of your guest's partner when you write the invitation, which can be printed a year in advance, that's what you put on it, so they can still bring a partner along if they want, and she or he still has an invitation."

"Not this time. Not when it's from Angel. It's her telling me to bring a partner because she thinks I need one." He eyed the jetty boards, avoiding her gaze.

"And you always do what she says?" Xan asked.

He looked up. "f**k yes! I like living, with all my bits attached, thanks."

"But it didn't say wife, did it? Your invitation? It just said partner, right?" Xan pressed.

"Yeah. The wife bit...that bit...that was me." He kicked a rock off the jetty. "I said I'd come with my wife, and we'd be so in love we'd put the other couple in the shade."

Tempting fate, of course. The beginning of a true Greek tragedy. Or a Roman farce, seeing as this involved Jay Felix.

"You could just bring a partner for the night. You don't seem to have a problem keeping a girl interested that long. I'm sure there are hundreds of girls who'd kill for the chance to attend a wedding with you."

"Bring a fangirl to Angel's wedding?" Jay's eyes widened in horror. "She'd crucify me. Once Jo was done with me, because she'd never forgive me, either. This won't be a public wedding. You'll see. Angel won't allow any media on the island. s**t, she'll probably have armed security guards stationed along the beaches, ready to shoot down any aircraft within range, drone or manned."

Xan still didn't understand what passed for logic in Jay's mind. "But she'd be happy have a reality TV show starlet or some girl whose virginity you bought in an online auction at her wedding." She almost added something about his black widow mail order bride, but stopped herself in time. Phuong's betrayal was a low blow that still had the power to upset him. Xan might not like Jay, but she wasn't that cruel.

"She wouldn't have known," Jay said.

Xan snorted. "That reality TV show aired its first episode last week. The whole country knows about your very public search for a wife. Paige told me the studio is in talks to sell the rights to this season to one of the big networks in the US. Everyone wants to watch the music world's hottest bachelor find a wife, live in their living room. Your Angel would have to be living under a rock in a bunker with no access to the outside world not to know about THAT."

Jay sighed heavily. "She's not my angel. Never was, never will be." His shoulders slumped and all the fight went out of him.

Finally, Xan understood. "How long have you been in love with her?"

"What's it matter?" Angrily, Jay swept the remaining rocks off the jetty with his foot. "She's marrying that psycho, not me. And Audra says cheaters never get a happily ever after, so I'm f****d on all sides now. Doesn't matter who I go to her wedding with, because whoever she is, we won't be happy." He laughed bitterly. "Because if I cheated on Audra by getting with fangirls on just that one farewell tour, I've cheated on Angel hundreds, maybe thousands of times. Doesn't matter that there was no love or relationship involved with any of them. She'll never want me."

"Sometimes the one person we want is the one we can't have," Xan said. That was the whole bit about the hero's quest in all the ancient stories, right? A hero haring off after some impossible goal?

"Would you get back with a guy who cheated on you?" Jay challenged.

Xan hesitated. Would she get back with Jerome? "No," she answered finally. "It's too big a betrayal. I hope his d**k shrivels up and no one ever loves him again."

Jay plucked at his shorts. "You want my d**k to do what? Hey, there's nothing about that in any of the books. Never being loved is enough, don't you think?"

Yes. Maybe it was. Xan would settle for never seeing Jerome again, to be honest, let alone any shrivelling. Except....there was the problem of the reopening of the Mangrove Hotel. Maybe she and Jay could help each other out.

"You know what?" Xan said. "If you come with me to an official function in town next month, I'll make a deal with you. If you still can't find an acceptable partner to attend your bandmate's wedding with, I'll go with you."

"And marry me, too?" Jay realised his mistake as soon as the words left his lips. "Okay, sorry. I shouldn't have said that. Forget I said it. She'll already know you're the hotel manager here, and she won't believe..."

"That's right," Xan interrupted. "What do you say? Is it a deal?"

"Yeah." Jay eyed her with what Xan might have called relief. "Thanks, Xan. I guess that makes us friends, doesn't it?"

Xan nodded, biting her tongue before she blurted out the bit about her friendship coming with an absolute lack of benefits. Instead, she wished him a nice evening, and headed back to her house, vowing to help him find a better date for the wedding than her. Whatever it took.

And she had to meet this Angel, who had the power to both terrify and enthral a man like Jay Felix.