Toss the Bouquet (16 page)

“She wouldn't dare,” Brian said. “Besides, I saw that chick in her tight blue skirt. I'm not surprised you said yes. Not surprised at all.”

“Please,” Jack said, “You don't know this girl. She could have been standing there in a fringe bikini and I still would have found her repulsive. I only said yes for one reason.” Guilt. Guilt and a fair amount of self-loathing. Pair those two attributes with a healthy dose of shame and a guy could be talked into just about anything. But he didn't say that. In fact, he said nothing. It took Brian a minute, but eventually he caught on.

“And the reason is . . .?”

“I owe her sister something.” That was as close to the truth as he dared to admit. He couldn't tell his manager his entire career was launched on a stolen song. It didn't matter that he didn't know it was stolen until exactly four weeks after it was released and playing on an hourly basis on the radio. It didn't matter that over a month of television appearances had gone by before April began to flood his phone with text messages demanding an apology, a retraction, money. It didn't matter that Jack spent the next two months panicking before he finally sucked it up and called her back, or that she had subsequently ignored all his calls—at that point likely too angry and hurt to bother acknowledging him. It didn't matter that she'd written only four lines and Jack had built an entire song around them—he'd spent three years rationalizing that pathetic idea—but his conscience wouldn't let him deny the hard truth that stealing a little was the same thing as stealing a lot. People went to jail for both.

Sometimes Jack suspected jail was where he belonged. Despite the poor conditions or the fact that he might be eye candy for the sexually frustrated, he wondered if landing his
butt in solitary for a few days would make his guilt magically disappear.

It was a long shot, he knew, but he still couldn't help consider the possibility.

“You owe who something?” His mother walked in, the picture of health and stability and normalcy—something he appreciated more and more as life got crazier. She wore her usual uniform of mom jeans and pullover sweater. No matter how many times Jack encouraged her to go shopping and treat herself to something more than JCPenney or Sears, she wouldn't do it. There were definite benefits of having money, but other than this house that Jack purchased for her last year and a cleaning lady who came once a week in spite of his mother's objections, she didn't bother enjoying any of them.

“No one, Mom. I was just filling Brian in on the history of this town.” Not exactly a lie; just a few details left out to protect the less-than-innocent. Namely, him.

“Oh, tell him about the Belle Meade Plantation,” she said, fishing a black mug out of an upper cabinet and setting it beneath a shiny chrome Keurig, a purchase Jack had made the last time he visited. “It's one of the most beautiful landmarks in Nashville. You should take him to see it while you're here.”

And this is what his mother did. Made plans for Jack to tour the city every time he came into town, despite knowing he had only two days set aside before a grueling concert schedule took over every second of the next seven months of his life. Sightseeing was the last thing he wanted to do. But ever the dutiful son, he agreed.

“Sure thing, Mom. I'll try to fit it in.”

He wouldn't, but she didn't need to know that. His mother was the best woman he'd ever met—provided for him and raised him alone, when the only thing they could afford was a trailer park on the outskirts of town and Ramen noodles most nights for dinner. The last thing he would do was hurt her, not when she was excited about the idea of Jack playing Nashville tour guide. But the only thing about sightseeing in Nashville . . . sometimes you ran into people you'd rather not see.

Jack stared at the table, his thoughts a swirling tornado wrapping itself around the same familiar subject.

April Quinn.

He knew he owed April everything, and for the last three years his conscience had begged for release. And now it would have it in the form of a big, fat face-to-face with her. He had no idea what he would say, no idea how he would feel seeing her after all these years. But he knew one thing: if he had to sing ninety-seven verses of “Wind Beneath My Wings” on repeat, he'd do it the entire wedding to keep her from slapping him.

The next morning Jack picked up two grocery bags and
set them on his hips, then turned to walk to the car, trying to change his attitude but failing miserably. He hated grocery shopping. Hated it almost as much as mowing the lawn and unclogging a hair-filled drain. But his apartment contained nothing edible except for a bag of stale Doritos he didn't recall buying and one unopened can of beer tucked away in the back of his refrigerator. Brian was taking yet another nap, so Jack figured now was as good a time as any to get the errand over with. Which meant he'd spent the last half hour of life cursing his existence.

But every internal foul word that had flitted across his brain in the grocery store was nothing compared to now.

He stepped off the curb and stopped short. Twenty feet away from him stood April Quinn depositing bags inside the trunk of her car. She reached for the last bag inside her shopping cart and turned back around, giving him a nice
view of her backside. So he looked. Of course he looked. Until it occurred to him that any second now, she would notice him standing there and quite possibly yell at him across the parking lot.

Jack decided to make himself invisible. After looking over his shoulder to make sure April was still preoccupied, he walked in the opposite direction toward his own car. Everything went well until he made the bonehead move of setting both bags on the back of his Lexus to retrieve car keys from his pocket. Just as he fished them out, one bag toppled onto the other bag and both started shooting contents onto the ground. While he lunged to grab them, his hand hit the panic key. His car alarm blared across the parking lot like a bullhorn announcing a battlefield retreat while Jack just stood there among the carnage.

He clicked the
Off
button and surveyed the disaster.

A carton of eggs lay upside down with four—maybe five—yolks oozing out from the top. An untied bag of apples rolled underneath cars and in the driving lane, fruit heading in too many directions to rescue. Jack watched as a minivan obliterated one. Cereal toppled end over end, but it was cereal, so nothing much happened there, thank God. But the chocolate milk fared worst of all. One side busted and gushed brown liquid in a puddle around his feet. He had to jump out of the way to keep any from getting on his new two-hundred-dollar leather combat boots. A silly expenditure, but he swore it was love at first sight even though he didn't believe in that crap. Seeing no hope for his situation, he gave the heavens a great big eye roll and bent to retrieve an apple. The eggs could stay there and scramble in the hot afternoon sun for all he cared.

“Need help with that?”

Jack's spine stiffened even though he was kneeling down. Who knew spines could do that? But apparently spines could because his did, right then and right there, making it painful and awkward to stretch for more apples. So he gave up trying and straightened, dread and nervousness filling up every crevice of his insides because he would know that voice anywhere. Only this time, it rang with a definite chill. That same sound haunted him at night when he lay awake with nothing on his mind except time and emptiness. It taunted him from its place in the crowd as he stood onstage and pretended to be a songwriter. It jabbed at him in his dreams that played out like real-time memories on repeat. He'd listened to her early messages so often he could recite them on command.

Jack, where did you find that napkin? It wasn't yours to take.

Jack, where did you get those lyrics? And don't even think about telling me it's just a coincidence.

Number one, huh? I hope you're proud of yourself, Jack.

How do you live with being so dishonest, Jack?

She'd said so many other things in those first few months, but these were the questions he remembered the most. Because these were the ones he wished to undo. The ones he wished to deny. The ones he asked himself daily.

Yes, he was proud of his career. But no, he wasn't proud of the way he got here. For every second of every day, his regrets were many. Still, regret did nothing to prepare him for what he was sure to face when he locked eyes with April for the first
time in three years. Wanting to get it over with, he inhaled all the air around them and slowly turned around.

Nothing prepared him for her smile. Or for the fact that three years had done scrawny, short, wispy April Quinn a whole lot of favors.

April kept the smile pasted on her face, unwilling to give him the satisfaction of seeing any other emotion. Maybe he felt guilty. Maybe he felt remorseful. Maybe he felt bad that his career took off instead of hers, which would have been justified.

But she wouldn't let him see her feeling anything except happy. Happy, happy, happy. Despite the past two days spent doing every freaking thing possible for the Sister Bride from Hell, Jack Vaughn was going to see her happy. So she smiled. The sweetest, kindest, Southernmost, fakest smile she could muster. And she kept it there while his mouth opened and closed, the famous singer-songwriter at a sudden loss for his own words.

Imagine that.

“Um, I think I can manage it myself. But thanks.”

An apple dropped from his hands and rolled across his foot before it disappeared under a black Volvo. April nearly laughed at the awkward picture it made, but then she saw Jack wince and saw him shift and saw an embarrassed flush as it made its way up his neck, and then she felt . . . sorry for him? Frustrated, she straightened her shoulders and demanded indignation to return. Like an obedient puppy she'd been
carrying around for three solid years, it did. With a little added anger to make things interesting.

She held that smile in place and said, “It looks like you're handling things really well, so okay then.” She didn't even try to mask the sarcasm in her voice. It was bound to come out eventually anyway. “It's great to see you, Jack. Can't wait to hear you perform at the wedding.” She turned to go, bitterness perched like a devil, wings flapping wildly as it shouted obscenities from its spot on her left shoulder. If she weren't such a nice girl she would probably encourage it to keep going. Instead she slapped it away, then stomped on it for good measure to make sure it was good and dead.

Sometimes it was such a pain to be naturally nice.

“April, wait.”

Sometimes it also sucked to be such a slow walker. She turned back around and worked up that smile again, but even she could feel the way it faltered.

“What? Do you need something else?”

She expected him to stutter; what she got instead was a wry grin. “Why'd you stomp your foot like that when you walked away?”

And just like that the tables were turned. “I didn't stomp my foot.”

His grin only deepened. “Oh, but you did. Kind of an odd display of anger in the middle of all that smiling you did, in my opinion.”

So he'd seen through her façade. Now she was ticked off. “No one cares about your opinion, Jack.”

He shrugged, arrogance practically dripping from that wavy head of gorgeous hair. Wait. She didn't just think that.
His hair was disgusting. Even worse than that tan, chiseled face. April gave herself an internal beat down for noticing.

“Actually, quite a few people care about my opinion nowadays, if you want the truth.”

And finally, there was her opening. “As if you would know anything about the truth. Good one, Jack. You're so hilarious.”

She should have felt better at the way he blanched. Swallowed. And looked instantly sorry.

But she didn't. Instead, she watched him nod and offer the first admission of wrongdoing she'd ever heard him say. “You're right, and I deserved that.” He looked over her shoulder for a long minute, locked in a faraway stare. Finally, he looked her in the eye. “I'll see you at the wedding, April. Thanks for your offer to help.”