Toss the Bouquet (19 page)

Jack barely won a battle with a smile struggling to break free. Barely. This wasn't the time for lightheartedness, and he still had something to tell her. Something he didn't want to say, but he had to get this girl on his good side somehow.

“April, I'm sorry. Really, I am.” There, he'd apologized. She had no choice but to get over it now. “I really don't know what else to say.”

It was silent so long that he looked up. Her gaze met his
with a sad, wary smile. “Thanks, Jack. But honestly, sometimes sorry isn't enough.”

She didn't mean to say those last words, except she did. Because even though
sorry isn't enough
was in direct contrast to the forgiveness she had been raised to believe in, this time it was just the way she felt. She believed Jack was sorry. Sort of. From her earliest memory, she'd had an unusual talent for reading people—and she could read Jack. The man had remorse invisibly tattooed inside the worry lines on his well-scrunched forehead. He also wore cockiness like a pair of expensive new shoes, and that wasn't going away anytime soon.

She just didn't know if she could bring herself to forgive him.

“Did you really not know the lyrics belonged to me?” She didn't know why, but suddenly she thought his answer might contain the key to this whole forgiveness thing.

Might.

Jack pinched the space between his eyebrows. “I didn't. Not until I heard your first message. And then . . . I don't know, I just—”

“Didn't know how to stop it?”

Jack studied his feet as though searching for a way to disagree. But she knew he couldn't, just like she knew there wasn't a way to answer it that would satisfy either of them. April didn't know if there ever would be. The only thing she knew right then was that her shift had just ended. She tore
off her apron and rolled it into a ball, then looked up at Jack with what felt like a weak smile.

“This is it for me. I think I'm going to head home and pretend this day never happened.”

He finally looked up at her. “Come on, it couldn't have been that bad. You got to see me again, after all.”

She made a face before she could stop it. It just figured that she would be the only woman in America less than thrilled at the chance to talk to Jack Vaughn, especially considering her dream of making it big in Nashville.
Oh, the irony.

She sighed. “From what I've heard, you talked to my sister the other day. Otherwise known as Bridezilla. Otherwise known as the bane of my existence. Otherwise known as the woman who makes more demands than Paris Hilton at a sample sale. Otherwise known as—”

Jack gave a soft laugh, and something about the sound wreaked a weird sort of havoc on her heart. “You lost me at Paris Hilton, but I did talk to your sister. She seemed a little stressed.”

April didn't know if she detected sarcasm or not, but she went with it anyway. “Yes, I'm sure she's stressed. Because what bride wouldn't be going crazy when she's busy ordering her sister to call the caterer, take care of decorations, rewrite wedding vows, pick out a negligé for the wedding night, make plans for—”

“Wait—she expects you to write the vows?”

April didn't consider this the most outlandish item on the to-do list she'd just recited, especially considering the fact that wedding night shopping had forced her into three Victoria's Secrets, one Fredrick's of Hollywood, and another
store that she would never speak of again, ever. Not even under the threat of the torture chamber or being forced to give up ice cream for a month. Both pretty much equaled the same thing.

She nodded. “Among other things. I think I've rewritten those vows a hundred times, and each time she nixes them based on a couple of words. Sometimes only one. I've recited them in my head so much that I'm a little afraid I'm accidentally already married to her fiancé.”

This time Jack threw his head back and laughed. He had a nice jawline. Chisled. Slightly unshaven. She liked unshaven.

April hated herself for noticing.

“I don't think it works that way, but I could be wrong.”

“Let's hope you aren't. Sam's a great guy and all, but he's a little shorter than I like. Not to mention he's been dating my sister for three years. I believe in a lot of things, but sharing boyfriends isn't one of them.”

Jack raised an eyebrow and glanced down at himself. “You like your men tall, do you?”

April wanted to punch herself right in the middle of her big mouth. Of course she would say that out loud. And of course Jack was over six feet tall. “Not super tall, definitely not as tall as you.” She raked her gaze over his features to communicate her displeasure. There. That should do it.

Maybe.

“April, I'm thinking . . .” With a hesitant smile, he dragged in a slow breath and all she could think was
please quit thinking, please quit thinking
. But as her usual luck would have it, Jack's mind was in full working order. “You're off work, I'm finished performing. Do you want to get coffee or something?
I'd like to find out more about how you got talked into wedding-night shopping. Interested?”

April gave a little laugh. No, she wasn't interested. No, she couldn't care less what he wanted to find out about her. No, she didn't want to talk to him. She didn't even like coffee.

Which was why she couldn't believe it when her brain seemed to forget their earlier altercation and her mouth opened completely without any help from her and said, “Sure. Coffee sounds great.”

“That isn't true. Just because a person is famous doesn't
mean he's shallow. Not all of us like full-body massages and seaweed wraps.”

“You're telling me that if a girl showed up at your house on Monday morning with a table, essential oils, and a jar of mud, you wouldn't lie down then and there and let her get to work?” April took a sip of her chai green tea latte—something she had never ordered before but made herself choose under some weird sort of coffee shop duress—and set it on the table between them.

“Well, of course I would if it was free and she had nothing better to do. I just wouldn't let her show up every morning for the same reason.” Jack folded his hands in front of him and looked around the room before settling his gaze back on April. “I would, however, draw the line at the mud. Seems like such a strange thing to spread over a person's body, and I'm not buying the stupid health benefits.”

April raised an eyebrow. “So you've heard of them?”

“Of course I've heard of them. I just wouldn't pay for it, not when this entire state is made of red clay. That works just as well. And it, my friend, is free.”

Once again, April's stupid heart gave a stupid flip in her chest. This was Jack Vaughn. So why was it getting harder and harder to remember all the reasons she was mad at him? It was time to give her brain a little refresher course. Time to step up the put-downs.

“At least we've established that you're cheap.”

“Sweetheart, I grew up in a single-wide trailer. You have no idea.”

Again with the flip, and this time it added a little thud. The term
sweetheart
certainly wasn't helping matters. She picked up her mug just to have something to do with her hands. “I forgot about that. Does your mom still live there?”

Jack picked up his napkin and tore a piece from the end. He smiled, a small amount of wonderment filling his expression.

“No, I bought my mom a house in Franklin last year. She objected until we unpacked the last box, but I'm glad she lives in a better place now. I owed it to her after all she sacrificed to raise me.”

So much for stepping up her game. The thought of him taking care of his mother lost her a few dozen anger points. “How does she like it?”

He set the napkin down and looked at her. “She likes it fine, but she won't willingly spend a dime of my money unless I force her to. Like last month, I offered to take her to get a pedicure and buy her some new clothes. She told me
she owned a perfectly good pair of nail clippers and what was wrong with her new Vanderbilt sweatshirt?” He shifted in his seat and pulled the white mug to his lips, but April saw the way he grinned. The mug wasn't big enough to hide it.

April laughed. It surprised her, but it felt good. “I suppose you should count your blessings.”

“Why?” His eyebrow came up.

“You could have a line of family members only interested in your money. Your mom
could
be the type who asks for a monthly stipend to fund trips to Rodeo Drive and the plastic surgeon.”

Jack set his cup down. “Those family members exist. Believe me, they exist.”

“Uh-oh. Long-lost uncles?”

“And aunts and cousins and best friends from high school I supposedly hung out with whose names I don't even remember.”

April shrugged. “Sucks to be you.”

The sentence held steady in the space between them, both of them aware of the words left unspoken. April would love to be him, would in fact
be
him if he'd been more of an honest person a few years back. Thankfully, she smiled.

“New subject,” she said.

Jack barely suppressed a sigh of relief. “Back to the seaweed wraps,” he said. “Are you telling me you would regularly subject yourself to that awfulness just because some idiot says it's good for you?”

April smiled up at him over the rim of her cup. “Not only would I subject myself to it, I would gladly pay the fee no matter how much it costs. Every single day. Because that's
the difference between you and me, Jack.” She leaned forward and looked him in the eye, well aware it was a flirtatious move but suddenly not in the mood to care. She was having fun. She was having fun with a man. She was twenty-two years old, available, and maybe it was the late hour or the fact that she was tired or the idea that going home alone to an empty apartment right now sounded more depressing than going to her sister's wedding dateless—which was her current plan. But for now, April was having fun with a man.

She wished the man wasn't Jack Vaughn, but that seemed to be just the way her life worked.

He blinked at her. “What's the difference?”

She blinked back. “The difference of what?”

He gave her a curious look. “You didn't finish your sentence. You said,
that's the difference between us, Jack
. But you never said what those differences are. And unless you want me to start guessing—”

“No, don't guess,” she blurted. But for the life of her, she couldn't remember what they had been talking about. Quickly, she retraced her steps—the idea that she was young, that she didn't want to head home to an empty apartment, that Jack Vaughn was attractive. Wait, she had
not
been thinking that, so where did the thought come from? She forced her brain back into compliance. They had been talking about seaweed wraps and massage appointments and—

“I'm not cheap. That's what I intended to say.” She wanted to give a little victorious fist pump to commemorate her sudden surge in memory, but refrained. Thank God for good judgment.

“I might argue that point,” Jack said. “I haven't gone on a date in years that cost me only eight bucks. You just might be the cheapest woman who ever lived.”

April gave him a long look and motioned for the waiter. That little dig was going to cost him. In the form of a slice of cheesecake. Maybe two. No one called her cheap and got away with it.