Christmas With the Best Man (3 page)

He hadn’t had enough to drink to use that as an excuse. But he was going to anyway. He remembered what they’d been discussing and tried to clear his head of thoughts of her body. “No, you shouldn’t. Before everyone recognized us, Chaz and I used to hit the clubs. He’s a pretty good dancer, too.”

“I’ve known you more than a year and I know nothing about you.”

Anything she asked, he could demand she answer, too. This discussion could get interesting. “What do you want to know?”

“Favorite—”

“No, don’t do that. Favorites are boring. If you’re going to ask, ask big.”

Jasmine’s eyes widened briefly, then her features relaxed into a cool persona. “Hmmm. What should I ask?”

“Okay, now you’re insulting me. You actually don’t want to know anything about me.”

“I do, but you’re so…you wear this mask when you’re in public. No, you have two masks. One is Joe Average, just any old guy on the street, which makes you invisible to everyone. Then there’s the one you put on just before going on stage. It’s a transformation. You don’t pretend to be Joey Hughes, rock star, you
become
him.”

“I
am
him. You’re crazy.” He couldn’t admit how right she was. An energy shot through his veins as he walked toward the stage. He woke up, became alive. Not because of the lights, the fame. He could easily give that up. The screams of an audience, showing how much pleasure Marino’s music gave them, that’s what drove him. Their enjoyment fed him. Writing and playing music was the nectar of the gods.

Damn, he was lucky.

Leaning back, Jasmine studied his face. “Where did you go?”
 

“Where am I gonna go? We’re stuck on this island until the weather clears.”

She shook her head, a smile spreading her lips. “You know what I mean.”

“I thought you wanted to get to know me.”

“Telling me where your thoughts drift off to would tell me more than any question I could ask.”

She had him there. The question was whether he wanted to let her inside his head. He had no reason not to. She wasn’t going to hit social media the minute he spoke. No one besides Chaz knew him as well as she was asking to know him.

He might not let her fully inside, but it didn’t hurt to open the door. “I was thinking how lucky I am. I’m living the dream. My dream.”

“Well, that’s no secret. All five of you in the band seem to have taken the stress-free flight to happiness. Sometimes I’m envious.”

“What’s your dream?”

Her lips pressed together and she gazed off over his shoulder. “I don’t know. It hasn’t completely taken shape. Isn’t that sad? I’m twenty-seven and don’t know what I want to do with my life.”

The song ended and he led her back to their table. After getting another round of ale, he sat opposite her. “What do the pieces of the dream look like? What did Jasmine-ette want to be when she grew up?”

“She wanted to be out of the house and living on her own.”

You’d never know to look at her that she’d had an unhappy childhood. “Life at home was rough?”

“No horror stories. No made-for-TV movies, either. Mom died young. Dad had to work two jobs to support us. Each day after school we went to the apartment next door to hang out until Dad got home.” Her expression didn’t show how she felt about growing up that way, nor did her tone of voice.
 

“All right. What did the finally-on-her-own Jasmine want out of life?”

She chewed her lower lip, the corners of her mouth twitching upward. “I could give you the correct answer of wanting to earn a living, but I know you’ll just push harder. I didn’t spend a lot of time dreaming about some special career. But after what we pulled off when Chaz’s first wedding fell through, I think I should be an event planner.”

He considered that for a moment. The two of them, working with the original wedding planner, managed to save the day, and help Chaz save face at the same time. Yet it was all Jasmine’s ideas they followed through with. “You’d be good at that. I’m kind of surprised you aren’t one already.”

A guy walked up to their table and grinned at Jasmine. “Will ya dance?”

“I’d love to.” She jumped up and walked toward the fireplace with the guy on her heels.

Out of habit, Joey pulled his phone out of his pocket. He guessed he’d have no signal, but he needed to look like he had something to do other than watching Jasmine dance with other men.

There he went again, sounding like the jealous boyfriend.

Two could play that game. Four young women sat at a table near the bar, so he crossed the room. Smiling at them each in turn, he asked, “Who’s free for a dance?”

Their silence hit him like a punch in the gut.
Take that, ego.
He forced himself not to slink away.

The girls glanced among themselves, and one tipped her head in his direction. Another nodded. A third stood. “I’d love to.”

As they walked away, he heard the remaining girls burst out laughing. He hoped the joke wasn’t on him.

They began to dance at the edge of the small circle of dancers, but somehow Joey moved closer to Jasmine. He didn’t want her to think he was trying to draw her attention, so he pushed back toward the edge.

For a small crowd, they sure stayed in a tight bunch. Naturally, Jasmine noticed him and waved.

He nodded, then turned his attention back to his partner. When the song ended, he walked her back to her table and asked who was next. The four kept him busy most of the evening, which worked out great. No time for him to learn more about Jasmine. The more he did, the more interesting she became.

Joey didn’t date interesting women. Didn’t fuck them either. He spent so much time traveling, he didn’t have time for a relationship. Boring women were easier to leave when the gig ended.

Chapter Three

Somewhere around midnight, Jasmine led the way up the stairs to the room where she and Joey were staying. She opened the door and entered, still shivering. “Brrr. It’s almost as cold in here as outside. Let’s light the fireplace.”

She turned on the single lamp, then hung her coat on a hook by the door.

Joey took a box of matches off the mantel and knelt down in front of the fireplace.

Opening her suitcase, Jasmine took out her sweats and picked up her makeup kit to take into the bathroom. The sink in there was dusty, so she turned the faucet handle to rinse it out before washing her face.

No water came out.

Jasmine tried the other tap, then the bathtub. Nothing. “Joey!” She opened the bathroom door.

The kindling in the fireplace fed a growing flame. Joey rose. “What’s up?”

“We have no water.”

“Have you turned on the water line?”

“I turned on the faucets. That’s how I get water.”

He shook his head and moved past her in the doorway.

After a moment or two fiddling around under the sink, he stood. “We have no water.”

“Can this day get any worse?”

“Let’s not wait and find out. If we hurry, maybe we can get back to the pub before Ned closes for the day.”

“Grab your toothbrush,” Jasmine called as she put on her coat.

Ned and a few customers were still inside. Jasmine and Joey went straight to the counter. She waited until Ned came down to their end, not wanting everyone to know their dilemma. “We have no water in the flat.”

“Alice must have forgotten they’d turned it off for the winter. It’s too late to call her. Use the bathrooms here.”

“Thanks!” She picked up her makeup kit and hurried toward the back hallway to the restrooms. Thank God she wouldn’t have to sleep with her makeup on. That is, if she had any left after being caught in the rain all day.

Joey was sitting at the bar when she came out. “You ready?”

“Yeah.”

As Joey stood, Ned said, “You’ll be wanting a shower in the morning, and some breakfast, too, I imagine. Drop by my place and the missus will fry up a grand feast.” He gave them directions to his home.

“Thanks.” Joey opened the door for Jasmine and they ran through the rain.

The room was much warmer when they entered. Jasmine threw her coat on the hook, calling out, “Dibs on the bathroom.”

Joey shook his head. “You should have thought of that before we left.”

When she glared at him, he winked. That simple muscle twitch sent tingles throughout her body. The guy knew exactly how good looking he was, and got a kick out of torturing women.

Shutting the bathroom door behind her, she prayed he didn’t know he was torturing her. She’d die if he knew how he affected her. So much for her crush on Travis. At the moment, she couldn’t even remember what color Travis’s eyes were.

Once she was dressed in dry clothes, she toweled her hair to squeeze out the last of the water. All that time she’d spent dancing in front of the fire, letting her hair dry, was wasted once she’d stepped outside the pub. She tossed her jeans over the towel bar so the hems of the legs could dry.

“Your turn,” she said when she opened the door.

He was already wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt. He had the pillow propped against the wall and leaned against it. A folded blanket lay on the floor beneath him.

Her gaze went quickly to the bed to make sure that wasn’t the only blanket, which it wasn’t. Neither of the two blankets looked thick enough to keep them warm on their own. “How long do you think the fire will last?”

“A few hours. It’ll get pretty hot in here soon, and if we’re lucky it’ll take a while for the heat to dissipate.”

“Did you notice any wood in the entry downstairs?”

“Nope. This will have to last. Or, whether it lasts or not, this is all we have.”

Jasmine yanked the covers down and climbed under, leaning back on the headboard. Then she noticed what was missing. “You stole the only pillow.”

He shrugged. “You get the mattress, I get the pillow.”

Damn. She couldn’t argue with that. She drew up her knees and wrapped her arms around them, resting her chin on her knee. “I’m bored.”

“So go to sleep.”

“I can’t. My phone’s on the charger way over there, I don’t have a book, or TV…”

He scooted on his makeshift bed and lay down with his hands behind his head. “Isn’t there anything else you do to unwind before bed?”

There was, but she wasn’t about to tell him what she did at home alone while fantasizing over her imaginary boyfriend of the week.

“Do you want me to wait outside the door so you have some privacy?”

God, the man read minds! There was no point in trying to deny what she’d been thinking, with her face heating up the way it was.

Joey broke into laughter. “Why are you embarrassed? It should be more embarrassing to have a guy think you don’t know how to please yourself than to have him assume you do.”

“I guess. I’m just not used to talking about it with someone I have no plans to sleep with.”

“Do you ever do anything you haven’t planned on?”

She gritted her teeth. She wasn’t as rigid, or as anal, as he thought. “I’d say sharing a room with you on the night I hoped to arrive back in the States counts as something I hadn’t planned.”

“Point taken.”

She turned out the lamp and snuggled under the covers, rolling onto her side to rest her head on her arm, since she had no pillow. In the darkness, she could pretend she was with her best friend on a sleepover, spilling secrets and dreams. For reasons she couldn’t explain, she wanted Joey to know who she was deep down inside. “I dreamed of being a mom.”

Joey yawned loudly. “Huh?”

“Never mind, go to sleep.”

“No. You spoke so softly I couldn’t make out what you said.”

All her courage vanished. “I don’t want to say it again.”

“Okay.”

“It’s embarrassing.”

“Would it help if I told you something embarrassing?”

“Like what?” She rubbed her eyes, which were burning for sleep, even though the rest of her was wide awake.
 

“Let’s see. How about, the first time I had sex I lasted less than a minute.”

Laughter bubbled up from deep inside her. “Really?”

“No, I just wanted to make you feel better.” He was silent for a bit. “It was more like three minutes.”

“For the sake of the band-aides, I hope you’ve improved on that.” Their groupies had taken on the nickname
band-aides
after seeing some movie that used the term.

“Have you heard any complaints?”

“Your question should be, ‘Have you ever spoken to any of the band-aides?’” Talking to Joey like a real friend was fun. She was never uncomfortable around him, but there was always a gap between them, a definite feel they were only friends because Chaz and Kenzi were.

Then she remembered how they’d come to be discussing his sexual stamina. Why they were still in Ireland, for that matter. She rolled on her back and watched the flickering shadows the fire threw on the ceiling. All of the stress of what they’d gone through that day—had it only been one day? That stress was gone. Talking with Joey was better than a glass of wine. The idea made her laugh.