Chapter 4

" B ride or groom?"

Jazz glanced between the usher and Liam, Liam's almost imperceptible flinch giving her the urge to wrap her arms around him and get him out of here. Why did they think this was a good idea? No petty revenge was worth him putting himself through this.

But as quickly as his face had fallen, a steely, determined glint flooded Liam's eyes, and he met her gaze with a small I'm okay nod.

"Both," Jazz told the usher with a saccharine smile, before tugging Liam toward the seats on the left-side of the aisle, ignoring the usher's self-important splutter.

The thirteen hour drive down the coast to Northern California had been surprisingly calm. They'd taken turns driving Liam's beat up old Volvo that he refused to let Cal replace, trading the aux cord and alternating between music and podcasts. Jazz treated Liam to some of her favorite conspiracy theories, and he returned in kind with a podcast that covered niche internet drama. Who knew Jazz could become so invested in the online puzzle community?

By the time they arrived at The Bowery Estate, an hour outside of San Francisco, it was after ten and they'd both fallen into bed, too exhausted to bat an eye at the fact they were sharing a bed. At least they'd been clothed this time.

Jazz dropped into a gaudy gilded chair with a white satin bow slung across the back. Liam followed, eyeing the decor with as much distaste as she felt. Why the hell anyone would book out an entire estate full of beautiful, lush gardens and choose to get married inside a ballroom that had the vibe of a less impressive, significantly tackier, Italian chapel was beyond her. It wasn't even a religious ceremony.

"I guess it's true that money can't buy taste," Jazz said under her breath. "For what it's worth, I bet it would've been less tacky if it was you she was marrying."

Liam snorted, his smile working wonders to relax the tension Jazz hadn't realized she was holding in her spine. "That sounded suspiciously like a compliment, Jasmine."

"Feel free to let it go to your head. You could use an over-inflated ego to make you a little less perfect," Jazz replied, gesturing to him. God, the man could really wear a tux. It was ridiculous.

Liam just rolled his eyes, neither bashful nor boastful. Michaelsons . "This style was definitely India's parents' idea," he told her. "And they'd probably have taken over just as much if I were marrying her."

"You dodged a bullet."

"Yep. What do you want your wedding to look like if you get married?" he asked, and Jazz gave him an exaggerated frown.

"What do you mean if ? I'm forcing you to marry me so I can be a Michaelson, remember?" They'd joked about it, drunk, at Maggie and Cal's wedding, and Liam's eyes lit up as she reminded him, as if she was actually managing to distract him from the fact his ex-best friend was about to marry the woman he, himself, had been planning to propose to.

"Alright, well, what will our wedding look like then?"

Jazz took a deep breath, humming as she stared around the venue. There had to be hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of white roses covering the room, but all they did was make the place feel cluttered. The aisle was white marble with gold veining, not unlike a serving board she'd picked up a couple of years ago on clearance from T.J. Maxx. It looked expensive, sure, but that didn't mean it looked good.

"Not like this, that's for sure. Let's see… Halloween," she said, finally, and Liam quirked an amused brow.

"Oh?"

"Yeah, we'd make it seem like it was just a Halloween party and everyone would show up in their best costumes, and we would throw everything into chaos by announcing we were getting married. I would wear?— "

"It's bad luck for the groom to know what the bride is wearing," Liam interrupted and Jazz gasped, holding a hand to her chest in mock outrage.

"You're right. I don't know what I was thinking. I'll guess you'll have to wait and see."

"That sounds like a perfect wedding to me. Think of the Halloween cocktail menu op?—"

"Liam?"

The light instantly drained from Liam's face, the end of his sentence catching in his throat. He swallowed it down and Jazz didn't think twice before grabbing his hand and pulling it to her lap, squeezing.

She looked up at the couple hovering beside Liam.

"Hey," Liam said, a forced smile on his face that soured her stomach. "Um, Jazz, this is Thomas and Veronica. We went to school together. Guys, this is Jazz. My partner."

He didn't hesitate before calling her his partner, but his voice softened, his lips lifting in a hint of a smile. If the job with Maggie didn't work out, he should give acting a shot.

She'd never been called a partner before. Girlfriend, yes, but more often than not, she was just a friend .

" This is my friend Jazz, everyone. " The guy she'd been dating for five months who had asked her to be exclusive—but only her. He continued to see other people.

" Everyone, meet Jazz. She's a friend from work. " The woman who'd told her she loved her every morning and night, a few days after they'd discussed moving in together.

It stung, sure, but it was what it was and Jazz never let it bother her. She didn't need a label to be happy. Nor was she particularly interested in being in any kind of relationship. She just wanted to have fun. But partner … fake or not, it felt nice to be spoken about like she mattered.

Which was stupid. Of course she mattered. It was just a word, and Jazz didn't care about it one bit.

Thomas and Veronica took the two seats on Liam's other side and leaned in closer.

"How have you been? It's been a while since we last spoke," Veronica said, and Jazz wanted to wipe her look of faux-sympathy from her face. If they hadn't spoken in a while, they'd clearly taken Liam's ex's side and, by default, Jazz hated them.

She felt rather than saw Liam stiffen, and ran her thumb across the back of his hand, reminding him she was there. His body relaxed into hers a little.

"Yeah, it's been a while. I've been good, thanks. How have you been?"

"All good here," Thomas answered with a dismissive wave of his hand. "We were sorry to hear you're not at the museum anymore. I know that was your dream job."

Jesus, had these people never heard of not the time or place ?

Liam's jaw ticked, but he was putting on a perfect show of being fine. Jazz was sure neither Thomas nor Veronica could see anything wrong with him .

"Oh, it's fine. I was ready for a new challenge anyway, and my new job is perfect."

The couple raised their brows. "We hadn't heard that you had a new job. What are you doing now?"

It was like a carefully crafted dance, back and forth with forced politeness as if they weren't just trying to collect gossip to spread around their fucked up little social circle. Jazz felt more than one person staring at them, likely just as surprised to see Liam here as Veronica and Thomas were.

But, as Liam answered, explaining his new role with Maggie, Jazz realized he knew what he was doing: he was deliberately giving them a story he wanted them to spread around. By the end of the night, everyone who had been talking about the shit show of his past couple of years would be talking about how he was thriving now. It was the perfect plan.

Veronica clapped her hands together. "We love Maggie Makes Home! I've been begging Thomas to renovate the townhouse so we can hire her to design it. And how did you two meet?" she asked, gesturing between Liam and Jazz.

He glanced over at Jazz. His smile was like warm sugar, but she could see the exhaustion in his eyes.

"Maggie's my best friend," she answered, giving him a reprieve. "And I work for Cal, so we've known each other for years. Just took us a while to see what was always there."

"That's… lovely," Veronica answered, and Jazz fought a laugh at the obvious lie. "And how long ha ve?—"

She trailed off as the soft classical music that had been playing in the background faded out, and a classic rock song Jazz vaguely recognized faded in. The floor to ceiling door behind the altar opened wide and a man in a perfectly tailored tuxedo walked in with a grin on his face, flanked by an older couple who looked like the epitome of wealth.

Bart and his parents, she assumed. Liam's ex-best friend was tall, with perfectly slicked back blond hair that she suspected always looked like that. He looked like he'd just stepped off the pages of an Abercrombie catalogue, ready to harass a customer service associate or accost a woman at a bar, acting like no didn't apply to him.

Flames swarmed Liam's eyes as he glared at the front of the room. Jazz leaned into him, resting her head on his shoulder and murmuring in his ear, "He's no Michaelson, that's for sure."

They both shook as Liam chuckled. "You know I look more like my mom than my dad."

"Yeah, well, your mom's hot, too. Actually, both of your moms are hot. There's definitely something in the water in your family." She neglected to mention how unbelievably gorgeous he was. But she was sure it was written all over her face. There had to be some kind of rule against being so nice and so gorgeous.

Liam wrinkled his nose. "Please don't call my moms hot. I already have to deal with the fact that Maggie and my dad…" He shook his head, as if he couldn't bear to finish the sentence .

Jazz gave him a wicked grin. "Oh, the things I could tell you about your dad."

"I'm begging you to shut up," Liam groaned, but his eyes were lighter. Distraction successful.

For a moment, anyway, until a hush fell over the crowd and the familiar chords of Pachabel's Canon sounded across the room.

What the fuck had he been thinking showing up here?

Liam held Jasmine's hand in a death grip, every note of the music clanging through him like a knife in the chest. He sucked in a breath, willing his heart to keep pumping blood around his body. Was the world tilting, or was that just his body rebelling against his stupid brain for RSVPing yes ?

He heard the doors open, but stared straight ahead, unable to look back. The bridesmaids passed, a blur of pink in his peripheral. He knew exactly who India would have picked, just as he'd known who Bart would have picked as groomsmen. Of course, once upon a time, Liam would have been standing up there as his best man, not Bart's cousin. And once upon a time, all those people were his friends too, just like Thomas and Veronica.

A collective gasp sounded across the room just as the music reached its crescendo, and Liam steeled himself, ready for the pain that was going to blind him the second he saw India in a wedding dress. It should've been him . It was supposed to be him .

Every muscle in his body was drawn tight, pain lancing down his spine with how tense he was holding himself. A small hand moved across his back in comforting circles.

"You're okay. I've got you," Jasmine whispered in his ear. Fuck, he was glad she was there. He couldn't imagine anyone else distracting him so much and keeping him calm.

Liam breathed in Jasmine's sweet vanilla scent, letting it wash over him, and finally turned his head to look at India. And he felt… nothing.

No searing agony, no painful regret, no longing. Nothing. In fact, when Liam wracked his brains, he couldn't remember the last time he had felt the agony, the regret, the longing. Truthfully, he couldn't remember the last time he'd thought about India or Bart—other than when someone else brought them up.

India looked beautiful, exactly like he'd always imagined when he pictured their wedding, but her perfectly practiced smile as she kissed her dad and took her place beside Bart did nothing for him. He didn't know how he'd missed it for so long; Bart and India existed in a bubble that had felt like home when he was in it, but now that he was on the outside, he saw it for what it was: cold, controlled, lavish.

Never in decades of friendship had he and India sat on a dirty, glitter covered floor and played cards, like he and Jazz had at his dad and Maggie's wedding. Never had Bart joined him for lunch with his dad, or danced around the kitchen making pancakes with him like Maggie did. His parents had tolerated India and Bart, and Liam had ignored every red flag because he'd been too caught up in them to know any different.

Part of him wanted answers from them. Why had they done it? How had they been able to look him in the eye for months, knowing that they were doing something so wrong? But as Liam watched them together, he had to wonder: what is really so wrong? The cheating was, obviously, but they really did seem perfect for each other.

And looking back, his relationship with India had been fucking boring. Where was the spontaneity? Where was the excitement? His dad and Maggie arranged surprises for each other all the time, and his moms were always trying new things together. He and India had been picture perfect, if the picture had been one of those generic stock photos used to show off frames. There had been nothing exciting to their relationship, nor to his friendship with Bart.

And Liam was much happier, much more excited, without them in his life. In fact, he could pinpoint the exact moment he'd stopped thinking of them, stopping missing them. A Thursday afternoon in mid-April, a little over two years ago, when he'd walked into his dad's office and a chaotic redhead had greeted him with a smile and a, "Can I help you? "

Liam tuned out of the ceremony entirely, tuning to take Jasmine in. She was gorgeous, as always, wearing a floor length black gown with mesh panels in the skirt, embroidered with wildflowers. A simple gold chain with a single teardrop topaz hung around her neck, and she'd swapped her usual plain gold nose ring for a tiny topaz stud.

Since he'd last seen her, she'd had her hair done, the copper bright and fiery. Her choppy bob was curled in loose waves, her bangs just tickling the top of her brows. Her hazel eyes were lined with smokey shadow, her heart-shaped lips painted cherry red. As drunk as he'd been the night of his dad and Maggie's wedding, he still remembered how those lips tasted—hazelnut and chocolate and?—

"Are you okay?" Her whisper was barely audible, but Liam jumped. Shit. He'd been so busy staring at her he hadn't even noticed her staring back. He slung an arm around Jasmine's shoulders and tugged her closer in to him.

"Yeah. I am, actually. I'm glad we did this." She searched his face, the worry in her hazel eyes softening as she realized he meant it. "Thank you for being here."

She hesitated before leaning in and leaving a light kiss on his cheek, wiping her lipstick mark away with a smile. "Red looks good on you."

The burn of her lips lingered long after they turned back to watch the ceremony, long after the groom kissed the bride. With one brush of her lips against her cheeks, Jasmine had obliterated every wall Liam had spent the past two years building, every lie he'd told himself and anyone who asked. But he couldn't lie to himself any longer: he'd been falling hard for Jasmine since the moment he laid eyes on her, and maybe, just maybe, it was time to do something about it.