Chapter 12

 

Lizzie

 

It looks like a wedding; with men in trim tuxedoes and women in dresses that straddle classic and sexy without being much of either. It feels like a wedding; with kids running around not really understanding the occasion and families reconnecting. It even smells like a wedding; all floral bouquets and slightly too much cologne.

So why do I get the impression I’m willingly attending my own personal hanging?

Maybe it’s because from the moment I entered the hall everybody’s shot me all kinds of looks, but nobody’s really spoken to me. When they have, they seem to be competing for who can give the shortest, most disinterested greeting. Maybe it’s because half of the people acting like they barely know me I would have called my closest friends up to about five days ago. The people I laughed with, hung out with, shared my life and my feelings with. Now they’re acting as if I’m the carrier of an infectious disease that they’re scared of catching.

If my breakup with Brody was a divorce, there’s no mistake over who got custody of all the friends.

In a way, it makes me feel right for ending it. Nothing makes it clearer that the life I’d been leading up to this point was Brody’s, and not my own. Still, it’s hard to feel like you’re in the right when you’ve spent ten minutes pretending to be fascinated by the buffet, because you know that when you look up, you’ll see nothing but shameful glances and badly-concealed whispers.

As I fling another cheesestick onto my paper plate I hear someone behind me.

“She broke up with him? Are you sure?”

And as I pass along the table, it just keeps on coming. The Lizzie Hate Parade.

“Lucky to have him for so long in the first place.”

Lucky I got out when I could, I mutter under my breath.

“Not good enough for him anyway.”

Oh if you knew what I’ve been doing since, you’d know I wasn’t a ‘good’ girl.

“She’s taking it hard. Look how much she’s eating.”

That last comment makes me pull away from the buffet table with the reluctance of a child breaking away from the edge of the pool for the first time. I carefully guide my eyes to the entrance, cautious not to latch onto anybody else’s eyes.

Where the hell are you, Jax?

Is he pissed about last night? I thought I was supposed to take charge, and I did. Even if I hated going home to my vibrator instead of Jax’s incredible cock. But that can’t be it—he wouldn’t have just flaked on me today, right? I push the thought away, trying to ignore my anxiety.

Then, as if by magic, he enters the room. For the first time since I got there all attention on me disappears, and refocuses on the incredible specimen walking into the hall like he’s out for a morning stroll. With gentle stubble across his strong jawline, and his hair easily falling into perfect formation, half the girls with working libidos swoon, while the other half drink in his magnificence like he’s the wedding cake. Even the men are checking him out, wondering how he can make a plain black tuxedo look a million times better than theirs.

They say you should never upstage the bride or groom at a wedding – for Jax, that’s somewhat difficult.

Even I’m standing slack-jawed as he strides through the crowd, scanning the group as he looks for me. When he does find me, his face breaks into that charmingly rebellious grin as he comes over. He wraps a strong arm around the small of my back, kisses me gently on the lips, then grabs a pizza roll from my paper plate and bites into it.

“Pretty quiet for a wedding,” he says, chewing happily.

“They were talking plenty before you arrived,” I reply.

He looks around him, noticing how people are openly staring at us, their faces going through expressions I never knew existed.

“Are they looking at me, or at you?” He asks.

“Probably both,” I nod.

“Well, you look great.”

“Thanks, but I think you’ll get the prize.”

Jax grins widely, then pops the rest of the pizza roll in his mouth.

The service goes off without a hitch. Jax, as expected, plays the perfect role. As comfortable as if it were his own friend getting married. In the few moments I can pull my attention away from the incredibly alluring, and more than a little panty-wetting, sight of him in a tuxedo, I notice the change in my ex-friends. They’re not looking at me with pity or disgust anymore – now it’s more like full-on envy. I try not to let myself get a little smug about it, but every time Jax leans in, just a little closer than he needs to, I cast the bitchiest pair of eyes at the nearest ‘ex-friend’ around. I figure I’ve earned it, after the way they treated me earlier.

When the service ends, everyone heads outside, where food tables surround a dancefloor under an elegant linen tent. Before Jax came, I was wondering who I could approach without walking into a brick wall of a brush-off – but now that he’s by my side, people are only too keen to sidle up to me and see what Mr. Perfect is doing with the whore who broke Brody’s heart.

“Lizzie!” one of my closest – and now one of Brody’s closest – friends screams. “I thought I saw you here earlier. Wasn’t sure it was you.”

“Hey Sandy. Yeah, I’m pretty sure I saw you earlier too.”

The three amigos. Sandy, Jessica, and Lauren. Purveyors of crap jokes, bad advice, and experts in preying on insecurities whilst making it look like they care.

To be honest, some friends I’m pretty happy to give up.

“So who’s your friend?” says Jessica. The squeaky one who moves and acts like her panties are way too tight.

“Jax. Nice to meet you,” he says, and the three women forget about me entirely.

“You’re… friends?” Lauren adds.

Jax and I exchange glances. I pray for one of the dining tables to spontaneously combust and end this conversation before it gets embarrassing.

“Um…” I start.

“No,” Jax says, putting an arm around my back and pulling me close, “we’re… more than that, you could say. Though I have had my eye on her for awhile.”

I give him a look that says ‘God bless you and your future children.’

“Wow! Really?” Jessica squeaks in a tone a few megahertz short of dog-range.

“How did you snag such a hottie?!” Lauren says. She hasn’t taken her eyes off him since she came over, though they’re constantly moving up and down his gorgeous frame. If her gaze was any more intense she’d be in sexual harassment lawsuit territory.

Jax shoots me a quick look again, as if asking permission to take control, and I raise my eyebrows. Go right ahead.

“Actually, I snagged her. Or, I’m still trying to,” he says. “She didn’t want anything to do with me at first. You know, after the…” he inclines his head towards Brody, who slumps in a chair at another table, hunched over his phone as usual. “Took all my charm and energy trying to convince her to go out with me. And now, here I am.”

The three women gawp like they’ve just witnessed a miracle.

“Huh,” Sandy says, with a look on her face like she’s rethinking everything she ever thought she knew about men, relationships, and me.

“To be honest,” Jax adds, seeming to enjoy the moment as much as me, “I can understand. She’s too good for me. Way out of my league. But I’m doing my best to please her.”

Pow! Total knockout.

Jax nods a ‘nice to meet you, goodbye’ and drags me away to the dining table, leaving the three women standing there, staring into space blankly like waxworks.

I put a hand on his chest to stop him, look him in the eye, and say in my serious voice: “If you ever need a kidney, I’ll cut it out myself.”

Jax laughs. “No offense, Lizzie. But your friends are kinda assholes.”

“They’re not my friends. They’re Brody’s.”

“In that case, it makes perfect sense.” Jax nods his understanding.

As we fill our plates, Gary – Brody’s long time squash buddy – and his wife Michelle pop up beside us.

“Hey Lizzie,” Gary says, wearing a disingenuous smile. Suddenly I’m seeing these people I used to spend so much time with in a new light. I may be their best friend’s ex-girlfriend, but I’m still worth more than a shit-eating, patronizing grin from a bald guy.

“Hey Gary. Michelle. Nice to see you guys.”

“Good to see you too,” Michelle says. “I see you brought a date.”

“Jax Wilder,” he says, offering his hand. She visibly swoons before reluctantly letting go.

Then Gary shakes it and looks Jax up and down.

“So what do you do, Jax?”

Gary loves to ask this question, not because he’s actually interested, but because he loves telling people what he does in reply. He’s a programmer at one of the biggest tech companies in Silicon Valley. A name every house in America knows. He’s not the boss, or a shareholder – he’s a programmer. A lead one, sure, but nowhere near as high-level as his arrogance about it would let you believe.

“Guess,” Jax says, his smile turning sly.

“I’m good at this,” Gary says, tapping his finger on his lips and squinting like he’s admiring a painting. “You’re a… bartender?”

Jax laughs, which is good, because otherwise I may slap Gary.

“Usually on the other side of the bar,” he says, with more good humor than he should.

“Waiter?”

Jax shakes his head slowly. “Not even close.”

“Haven’t I seen you at that store across from Fred Segal in Hollywood?” Michelle probes.

“The one in that three-part development? Fountain in the middle, glass towers?”

“Yes!” Michelle says, while Gary gives her a congratulatory nod.

“No,” Jax says, stopping their laughter, “but closer.”

Gary and Michelle’s quizzical expressions match in an almost creepy way.

“I designed the towers. And the fountain, for that matter.”

Gary’s brow dips so low I’m afraid it might fall off.

“You’re the architect? The one that—”

“That everyone’s talking about? That Michael Denton just hired? Yeah. That’s me.”

I bite my lip and look at Jax, but he’s enjoying their squirming almost as much as me.

“Well that’s…”

“Hey,” Jax shrugs, “we can’t all be bartenders. What do you do, Gary?”

“I’m a programmer,” he says, with a humility I’ve never heard before, and wish I could hear every time he spoke. “For a… ah… social media company…”

“Not the one that’s building a new headquarters over by the coast?”

Gary sighs, hanging his head, defeated again. Two for two, Jax.

“Hey! That’s one of mine, too!” Jax takes my arm in his hand, and uses the other to slap Gary playfully on the back. “Maybe I’ll stick a statue of a waiter in the lobby, so you can get a better idea of what they look like. Nice meeting you.”

And then he’s wheeling me away, over towards the dancefloor.

Once again, I stop him. I’m half-smiling, and half-apologetic. “I’m really sorry, Jax. I shouldn’t have brought you here. This is… pretty shitty.”

“No way!” Jax says, clutching my shoulders like he’s consoling me. “I’m having a great time.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. If there’s anything that convinces me I made the right life choices, it’s seeing people like this and seeing what would have happened if I made the wrong ones.”

I laugh for about zero point seven seconds – that’s when I catch a glimpse of Brody, staring directly at me, and I feel a cold chill. Jax notices and turns around.

“What is it?” he says. “Another asshole?”

“The asshole.”

“Oh,” Jax drawls. “The one with the cute chick in a blue dress?”

“You think she’s cute?” I growl.

Jax looks at me. “Not if it’s going to make you look at me like that.”

“That’s the girl from his office.”

“The new one.”

“No. Back where we used to live.”

“They look real close,” Jax says, as Brody twirls her around on the dancefloor before pulling her close and kissing her full on the lips. His hands squeeze on her ass. “Real close.”

“Fuck!” I say, just loud enough for people near us to look. “I’m so stupid!”

I start walking as fast as I can. Away from the tent. Away from Brody. Away from all the things that are making me feel like someone just lit a very short fuse in my head. I get about twenty yards from the wedding garden before I feel Jax’s hand grab mine and pull me behind a tree, out of view.

“Lizzie. Hey. Look at me.” He cups my face and lifts my eyes to his. “What’s going on?”

“He was cheating on me!” I say, hot tears already burning tracks down my face, sobs emerging from the pain that’s twisting in my gut. “And I was too fucking stupid to see it!”

Jax raises his hands like a traffic policeman who wants to stop four lanes of traffic.

“Wait. How do you know that? He could have just got with this chick yesterday.”

I shove Jax hard in the chest.

“Look at them! Look! You know girls, right? Well look and tell me what you think, Mr. Expert.”

Jax looks for a long time. His face goes from studious, to accepting, to full-on pity.

“Well, he’s got his hands on her ass. That’s good. Means it could be new, still finds her hot. But… They don’t dance like it’s their first time. The way he touches her face. That’s definitely not a new couple thing. She pulls his hands away from her hair – that’s definitely not a first week thing. I’d say a couple of months, maybe more, if it was a secret.”

When Jax looks back at me I’m pacing up and down, stamping my heels so hard they’re digging into the dirt.

“He told me had late nights – even when projects were just starting. He’d be in the shower as soon as he got home, before I’d even say hello. His credit card bill was full of steak dinners in nice places. Who has business meetings ten miles out of town? His boxers would disappear. And his socks – he barely has a pair that matches anymore.”

“That’s actually a surprisingly common thing,” Jax says, trying to lighten my mood, but right now that’s like lighting a match in a snowstorm and calling it summer.

“I could see the way she looked at him. And he’d change the conversation when I asked about her. I just never thought he’d actually do it. How could I be so—”

Suddenly my heel digs so deeply into the dirt that I stumble. Jax leaps forward, catching me in his arms, and when I look up at him, I sob louder and harder than I’ve done since I last needed a diaper change.

And what does Jax do? In my hour of need, my lowest point, my abject misery?

Jax laughs.

“Why… are… you laughing?” I scream, fighting back tears.

“Because,” Jax says, as he lifts me up, leans me against the tree trunk, and looks me in the eye, “your old friends are assholes who talk to you like shit. Your ex-boyfriend is an asshole who took you for granted. And you’re the most beautiful, smart, intelligent woman I ever met – even though I’ve met most women who’ve been in LA.”

I smile slightly.

“And for some cosmically fucked-up reason, some weird fucking imbalance in the force, I’m in a bizarro world where the assholes are dancing, while you’re over here crying yourself to dehydration and stumbling in the grass.”

Jax reaches out and wipes the few tears from my cheeks, but I can already feel myself mellowing, regaining control. Because everything he just said? Is true.

“How do I make it right?” I say, softly.

“I have one idea,” Jax grins. “After all, you do have something to make up to me after that disappearing act you pulled last night.”

“You mean…here?” My eyes dart around. “Now?”

“Right now,” he commands, taking my hand and leading me away.