"Total derision?" she tried.
He quirked one corner of his mouth in that classic, heart-melting Archer smile. "I guess so."
"Well, sorry to break it to you, but you're not invited. I have to—"
"Get stuff for the bachelorette party. Andy told me." Matt nodded.
"Right, so unless you plan on spending the afternoon picking out plastic penises—"
"I've done worse." Matt shrugged. "Besides, I'm the best man. I've got some bachelor party shopping to do, too. Looks like we can kill two birds with one stone. Three if you want to start working on making me America's darling, or whatever your plan is."
"My plan is not to make you an American sweetheart. Even PR people understand the limitations of what is and isn't possible."
Matt grinned again. "You don't think America would be charmed by our trip to the dirty party store? Or my witty repartee?"
"I can't speak for America, but I know I like you best when you're seen and not heard."
"Ah, so you do like to see me," he coaxed.
Shay sighed and then turned the radio back to Jewel and started the engine.
"I knew you'd see things my way," he shot back.
"I just don't have the energy. Or the patience. Or the—"
She stopped speaking in order to swat his hand away from the radio, but Bret Michaels was already crooning about basements and talking dirty again.
"Do you mean to tell me this is better than Jewel?" Shay crooked an eyebrow.
"Wouldn't you rather listen to music about sneaking around when you were a teenager and getting lucky as opposed to breaking up with someone who was supposed to love you?"
Objectively, Shay guessed it was a profound kind of question, but Matt asked it the same way he asked everything else—like it and the answer to it didn't matter to him in the slightest. Like it was an afterthought.
Still, Shay considered for a minute. "I don't know. I don't have a lot of experience with either."
"A woman who looks like you?" It wasn't a come-on. He seemed genuinely shocked.
A warm rush settled over her skin, but she pushed it away as she turned onto the main highway toward Honolulu. "I'm not saying I've never had a boyfriend. I'm just saying—"
"You never snuck around and got lucky?"
"I wasn't really the sneaking around kind. Or, really, I never had to sneak around." She shrugged. "My mom was the one who did the sneaking."
Suddenly, she stopped. This was a dangerous area. Mothers. She had to change the subject before—
"And let me guess—nobody ever broke up with you either? You were always the heartbreaker."
"I was always the one who knew when to call things quits. Not heartbreak, per se. Besides, I can't say that I remember you ever being too torn up over anyone."
"Hey, I've had my moments," Matt shot back. "When that foreign exchange student went back to Russia, I was devastated."
"That foreign exchange student? Don't you remember her name?"
"I think it was Olga or Ina or... It was something like that. She didn't have the best command of English." Matt shook his head. "She knew how to get a message across, though. I can tell you—"
"I'm sure your point has been made. In fact..." Shay turned the dial on the radio until a twanging low melody burst through the speakers.
"Ugh, Sarah McLaughlin?" He moaned.
She rolled her eyes and hummed along with the tune. Luckily, she was saved from another bout of defending herself when the party store came into view on their right, and she swerved into the parking lot.
When they'd parked, Matt ambled from the car and grabbed a cart and then led her through the automatic doors.
The place was cold, and she ran her hands over her uncovered biceps. Why any place in Hawaii would be air-conditioned, she had no idea. Every day was a perfect eighty degrees as far as she could tell. Matt eyed her for a moment, glanced down at his windbreaker, and then said, "You want to borrow my jacket?"
"No, no, I'm fine. Really." She rubbed her shoulders one more time, but just when she was about to release her grip, she felt something warm and soft nudging her arm. She looked down to find Matt’s navy coat in his outstretched hand.
“I said—” she started, but he shook his head.
“Don’t be stupid.” He bumped the coat against her arm again, and she took it with uneasy hands.
“Thanks,” she murmured, and shrugged it on. The inside was lined with fleece, perfect for all the evening or high altitude games he’d had to play on the road. It was more comfortable than she might have expected, and it smelled musky and manly, like crisp autumn leaves and clove. A scent that belonged entirely to Matt.
She breathed deeply without thinking about it, and then, quick to divert his attention, led him down an aisle filled with wedding favors toward the back of the store.
"Damn, you are walking with some serious purpose."
"Lots of practice." She shook her head and did her best to focus on the task at hand. Considering she'd thrown her first bachelorette party at the age of sixteen and had given ten more since then—the vast majority of which had been for her own mother—she was all too familiar with the layout of party stores. Hell, she was pretty sure she could have given an itemized inventory of the place before they'd so much as stepped through the door.
"Right," Matt said, and then stopped in front of a huge rhinestone-encrusted goblet. The jewels on the glass surface read "pimp goblet."
"I need this." Matt picked up the cup and stared at it like he’d never seen anything more beautiful. "This will endear me to America."
"That will endear you to nobody." She rolled her eyes. "Now come on, we don't have all day."
"Oh, but we do. We could be here for as long as we like, with me spending most of that time convincing you that a pimp goblet is exactly what I need."
She motioned silently to the cart, and he dropped it in. "I knew you'd see things my way." He grinned, and for the tiniest fraction of an instant, she had to fight the urge to grin back.
"Okay, now, we need to get this thing going." She started off again, listening carefully all the while to make sure the roll of the cart's wheels behind her didn't halt suddenly. In the darkest corner of the store, far away from everything else, they found the bachelor and bachelorette party supplies.
Shay surveyed them quickly, mentally taking stock of the things people had and hadn't liked when she’d planned parties before. She grabbed a scavenger hunt kit from the wall and tossed it into the cart, and then, with a quick glance at Matt, she took some phallic straws from the shelf and tossed them in, too.
Apparently, though, despite his pimp goblet obsession, he'd been paying closer attention than he'd let on, because he shook his head and pulled them from the cart. "Nope. No. I won't allow it."
"You won't allow it?" She cocked her eyebrow.
"This is my little sister's party. I'm not going to let her drink out of—"
"She's your little sister by two years. That’s hardly anything. I don't think you have the right to weigh in. It's just some stupid fun." Shay rolled her eyes. "You're just jealous because you can't get, I don't know, vagina lollipops or something for Logan."
"Actually..." Matt pointed to one of the lower rows on the shelf, and Shay grimaced. There they were. Vagina pops. Of course, the product's actual name was a little more vulgar.
She shook her head, biting back the urge to wonder aloud what they must taste like, and then grabbed the biggest, sparkly-est tiara from the shelf and tossed it into the cart.
"That's not going to work, either," Matt said.
"Look, do you know how many bachelorette parties I've thrown in my life? There's always a tiara."
"Maybe so, but you've never thrown one for my sister. Can you honestly picture Andy in a tiara?"
Shay frowned. In all the years she'd known Andy Archer, she was never the kind of girl you'd picture in a tiara. Riding a mechanical bull or fixing a tire on the side of the road? Yes. Tiara? Not so
much. In fact, she'd never even seen Andy in shoes besides sneakers before her little makeover the year before.
"Okay," Shay conceded. "Not a tiara. But then what? There has to be a veil."
Matt grabbed a tiny white cowgirl hat from one of the upper shelves. A sparkly white veil hung from the hem of the Stetson, just long enough to cover Andy's hair.
"That's perfect," Shay said.
"Thanks. I get that a lot." He winked and tossed the hat into the buggy.
"Just when you go and start being charming, you ruin it," Shay grumbled.
"I'm always charming. You just pick and choose when you want to be charmed."
She frowned, but only because she thought there might actually be something to that.
She grabbed a few more things from the shelf—blinking rings and glow sticks, necklaces with shot glasses, and a package of flashing buttons. "Okay, okay. Now leave me in peace. Find some stuff for Logan, why don't you?"
When the rest of the girls arrived the following week, they were going to be a glowing, flashing seizure risk, but Shay didn't care. Unlike her mother, Andy was only going to get married once.
She just knew it.
"None of this stuff seems very Logan to me," Matt said, poking a boob-shaped cake pan.
Shay grinned. "No, I guess it doesn't. Maybe just stick with the basics. A T-shirt and a shot glass. Maybe a silly hat."
"You think Logan is going to wear a silly hat?" Matt raised an eyebrow.
Shay pictured him, all square-jawed with his shaggy black hair poking out from under a whimsical purple top hat. Even in her imagination, she couldn't get Logan to smile. She guessed that was one of his failings. He wasn't the kind of guy who could laugh at himself. Not that she'd ever tell Andy, but Shay couldn't imagine spending all her time with someone so serious.
For instance, if she gave Matt a fez or something to wear, he'd... he'd...
She cleared her head. What did Matt have to do with anything?
"I think I might just stick with my pimp goblet," Matt said.
"Good choice." Shay nodded. "So... um, I guess we'd better get going, then."
They checked out quickly enough, and then they loaded up the car and headed back out onto the street.
For the first few minutes, the ride back was silent. Then, out of nowhere, Matt asked, "Exactly how many times has your mother gotten married?"
Shay let out a sigh. "This last one was number seven."
"Don't you have a ton of step-siblings, then?"
"Thankfully, no. She tends to go for men who are able to lavish all their attention on her. She has an obsession with being an obsession." Shay winced, remembering one particularly touchy break-up when husband number four had called her out on this need. Her mother had not taken that well. Not at all.
"Didn't you ever get close with any of the guys your mom married? I mean, that many divorces..." he trailed off. "I'm sorry. I guess that's a little too personal."
She supposed it was, but for some reason, it hadn’t caught her off guard. "No, no, it's okay, really. I was close with my father. He was husband number one, but he died when I was five. I liked the next couple of guys okay, but by the time I was a teenager, I'd learned not to get too attached. You learn quickly in a situation like that, you know." She shrugged. "This new one seems nice enough. It'll be sad when he's gone."
"You don't have any hope that it'll work out?"
She guffawed. "None. I mean, the odds of finding the one person on earth who will love you all the time and never get sick of you? It's crazy."
"But you don't think Andy is crazy." It wasn’t a question.
Shay paused. "No, I don't think Andy is crazy."
She couldn't lie; it was a thought that had plagued her ever since Andy's engagement. Because, even in all ten weddings she'd been part of, she'd always had some lurking sense of doom. A feeling that it would never work, that it simply never happened that way.
But it wasn't so with Andy. When she looked at Andy and Logan, all she felt was peace. Happiness, even.
"It's one in a million," she said, weighing each word, "but I think Andy really did find her soul mate... or, you know, whatever that cosmic stuff is. He just happened to be your best friend." Shay tacked the last part on playfully, and Matt smiled at her.
"I'm glad for the way it turned out. I couldn't really imagine them together at first, but now I can hardly picture them with anyone else. Love is funny that way. You know, you see these two people who seem like they'd never fit together. Who seem like they'd hate each other. Those are always the people who fall in love, you know?"
"I guess." Shay frowned. "Maybe."
She pulled into the driveway of the villa and then sidled from the car without another word.
Love wasn't something she wanted to talk about. Hell, it wasn't even something she wanted to think about.
Least of all with Matt Archer.
"It's nice. People who find love. Who start fresh," Matt said quietly.
Shay blinked and looked at him, reminded with a sudden sharp pang about his mother. Her new family. Her new beginning.
"I guess so. I'm not sure some people deserve it," Shay said.
Matt's thoughtful expression shifted into something more like pensiveness. "You don't think your mom deserves a fresh start?"
"Do you think yours does?" she asked. Not that she'd meant to. Lately it seemed like nothing turned out the way she meant it to. Still, there it was, hanging between them.
"I do," Matt said. "I really do. But I'm not talking about me. I'm talking about you. And you did have the benefit of being raised with a mother, even if she was less than what you'd hoped for."
"Yeah," Shay hummed, glancing at him from the corner of her eye. "People can really surprise you sometimes."
Chapter 4
For the next few days, Shay was nothing but anxious.
First were the wedding plans. Of course, being a maid of honor was never a piece of cake, but when it came to planning a wedding on an island and managing every single guest, it was practically a nightmare. Not only did she have to make sure Aunt Frieda and Uncle Joel stayed in separate (but equally nice) hotels, but she also had to take on all the business responsibilities Andy couldn't manage at the moment.
Then there was the matter of Andy herself. Lately she'd been so elusive that Shay had trouble finding her in the same room, let alone getting her cornered. Which, of course, she needed to do. Ever since her chat with Matt, she simply couldn't get the idea of the mysterious Archer mother out of her head. She needed to get Andy to spill her guts. Come clean.
Because then, Shay might just be able to tackle her biggest worry of all.
Matt.
It wasn't that his case was tricky. In fact, in the few days since their trip to the party store, he'd practically been a dream to work with. She'd heard him on the phone, charming reporters and joking around about his career-ending accident like it was just another part of his life. Which, she guessed, it was. It still baffled her, though, the ease with which he handled all the stresses of his life. When he'd spoken about his mother, he'd been so calm, so self-assured. It was almost like he was talking about someone other than himself. Something that couldn't hurt him.
Which, naturally, only made Shay all the more curious.
So, when Friday morning finally rolled around and Matt was on the phone with yet another journalist, Shay creeped into the kitchen and caught Andy unawares.
Well, Andy and Logan, that was.
The two were drinking their morning coffee and murmuring to each other in the way that newlyweds did. Like they were the only two people on the planet.
Shay cleared her throat, and they both started and then turned toward her.
"Morning," she said, and then fixed herself her own mug of joe. "You guys have plans today?"
"I've got to go do some press stuff," Logan said. "The old slave driver won't let me off because of my own wedding, if you can believe it."
"You should fire
her," Shay said, and Andy glared at her playfully.
"Don't you dare," Andy said.
"She'd deserve it. I'm telling you, I've never had to work this hard in my life."
"And you still don't work half as hard as most people," Andy shot back.
Logan offered her a deadpan stare. "Anyway, since you do mention it, I've got to get to the gym. You know if Matt's around to join?"
Shay shook her head. "He's got his own press homework to do."
"The pair of you," Logan said. "Slave drivers." Still, he smiled and grabbed a small gym bag from the corner of the room. Swinging it over his shoulder, he said, "I'll be back." And then he disappeared through the sliding glass doors.
"You have big plans today?" Andy asked.
"Only if you do. I've missed you." A little twinge of guilt coiled through her at the words. It was true; she had missed Andy's company in the few days since she'd been on the island, but not as much as she might have hoped. Even with Andy so preoccupied by Logan and the wedding, Shay had found herself more than distracted enough to keep her busy. Then, of course, there was the fact that Matt kept her busy enough for two people on top of that.
"I'm glad to hear it," Andy said. "I've got wedding favors to make, and I can't think of anyone I'd rather have helping me."
Andy stood from the couch, stretched her arms over her head in a yawn, and started back toward the pantry. From one of the shelves, she pulled a crate of tiny wine bottles.
"Jeez, the booze." Shay blinked. She'd never seen so much alcohol in her life. And she had been in a sorority in college.
"Yeah, I went a little overboard. What can I say? I want to have a fun wedding." Andy plopped the crate down on the table. "We're just putting stickers over the labels. Nothing too complicated.”
Joining her at the table, Shay watched as Andy showed her what to do, and then followed suit as her friend worked on one bottle after the next, like an assembly line in her precision.
"So what else is going on?" Shay asked, ignoring the second pang of guilt. "I've barely seen you. How is Derrick?"
Andy grinned at the mention of her brother. "He's good old Derrick. I think he's having some trouble adjusting to life outside of combat, but other than that." Andy shrugged. "Same old Derrick."
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