Free Christmas With the Best Man by Ari Thatcher Page B

accomplish-stealing him from her. There’s no point talking about what might have been.”
    Thinking about him had never been painful, even after he became the name on every girl’s lips. He was a happy memory, nothing more. Now if she could just convince Jasmine to leave him there.
    ~*~
    Chaz ran a towel over his head, tossing it in a corner of his room before padding out to the living room in his sweatpants, where he found Joey sitting on the sofa with his feet on the coffee table. “Dude, this isn’t your apartment.”
    “Huh?”
    Pointing to Joey’s feet, Chaz twisted his lips into a wry grin. “With what we’re paying for the villa, the least you could do is act like you grew up in a house, not a barn.”
    “Whatever.” Joey dropped his feet to the floor. “Have you heard from Vanessa?”
    “Yeah. She’s flying in tomorrow night.”
    “Wow, keep your excitement under control.”
    Chaz shrugged. “I save it for her. She needs the adulation.”
    “She’s so many levels beyond high maintenance. I’d get exhausted just trying to keep her happy.”
    “She’s happy without my help. Ease off her, man. I know you don’t like her, but she’s going to be my wife so she’s going to be around awhile.” He went to the kitchen and grabbed a bottled water before sitting in a chair that looked out onto the narrow bay. Joey had done a great job finding this place. It felt private while being close enough to the banquet hall to make it easy to slip away after the wedding.
    He remembered seeing Kenzi jogging down the road. “You’ll never guess who’s on the island.”
    “Who?” Joey didn’t even look up from his phone.
    “Kenzi.”
    “No kidding?” Joey smiled. “Please tell me she’s gone pale and plain after spending too many hours in front of a computer screen.”
    Chaz’s mouth pulled to one side in a smile as he pictured her. Her hair was a shade lighter, blonder than ever, and looked as long as he remembered, in her ponytail. She had curves now. Nice ones, especially the fuller breasts. A waist that looked small enough to span with his hands. “Not hardly. If anything, she’s even hotter. She was out jogging with a couple of friends.”
    “Jogging, huh? On St. Thomas? She’s the one you should be marrying.”
    Chaz had considered it once, for all of a few minutes. He hadn’t been thinking marriage back then. Any hours he wasn’t supposed to be in a classroom, he and Joey had been writing songs and playing their guitars. In fact, a lot of the hours he should have been in class, he’d been doing that, too. And writing lyrics during a lecture or three. Some of his classmates had glared at him when he started humming a tune he wanted to remember.
    Kenzi was the complete opposite. She took her books seriously, but she didn’t look down on him for being free-spirited. She admired his drive, she’d said. With his voice, his talent, she’d been sure he’d make it big. She’d encouraged him to audition for Star Launch and sat in the audience cheering when he made it through round after round.
    He finished in second place, but it was enough to get him going. With Joey, Devin, Nate and Travis backing him, he’d never looked back. And when it was time to move to L.A., Kenzi had let him walk away.
    That had stung. He’d weaned himself from her slowly, calling, texting, just needing her to celebrate with him. Then life got so wild he had a different girl in his bed with each album. Well, there’d been four albums and six girlfriends since Kenzi, including Vanessa.
    Sometimes Vanessa pissed him off enough to make him think about how things had been with Kenzi, but it wasn’t in Vanessa’s makeup to just sit by and be supportive. She had her own career in the public eye. It was part of what made them work together as well as they did. Between them they were in a different state, a different country, each month. Reunions made for hot sex.
    Joey continued with his train of thought, a track he’d