Best Man...with Benefits

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QUESTION: HOW DO you know when someone is truly your best friend? Answer: you love her enough to put up with her semi-douchy fiancé and his completely douchy best buddy.

Asked and answered, Lauren Sanger thought, as she sat on a private patio of Hotel Messina, the swish resort located on a small island off the California coast where, in a few hours, she’d be maid of honor in her best friend’s wedding.

Built at the turn of the century, Hotel Messina had housed royalty and A-list celebrities, and been the setting for movies and thousands of weddings.

Amy Ruehl had dreamed of getting married here since she and Lauren had first seen the hotel in a movie back when they were kids. Her parents could afford the outrageous expense, and all the guests had made the trek over to spend the night, celebrate Amy and Seth’s wedding, and then go back to their much more mundane lives.

Or maybe that was just Lauren.

The wedding would take place at four in the afternoon. That’s what it said on the thick vellum invitations, and with the military precision with which the wedding planner and hotel staff had worked this thing, that’s precisely when the ceremony would begin.

It was two now, and the bride and her maid of honor were taking a late lunch break. Their hair was done, makeup awaiting final touches, and their dresses were pressed and neatly hanging.

She and Amy already wore their fancy underwear beneath the thick hotel robes with the gold M logo on the breast pockets.

While they munched on salad and cold cuts and sipped wine, they enjoyed a spectacular view of the white sand beaches and summer blue water that surrounded the hotel. The weather was perfect. A June day without a cloud in the sky and waves that seemed to laugh as they hit the beach.

“Are you nervous?” she asked her best friend. They’d talked about their weddings a lot when they were young. Amy was a firm believer in fairy tales and happy endings. Lauren not so much, but she couldn’t be happier that her BFF’s dream was about to come true. Seth wouldn’t have been her choice, but Amy was crazy about him and that was all that mattered to Lauren.

Amy shook her head, a smile of pure happiness on her face. She always took everything in stride and didn’t worry much about the future. Lauren wondered what it would be like to be such an optimist and was fairly certain she’d never know.

“Seth is the man I’ve waited my whole life for,” Amy said. Her voice trembled ever so slightly as she added, “I love him so much.”

“No messing up the makeup,” Lauren warned, leaning forward to pat her friend’s hand.

Amy blinked rapidly, dispelling the momentary wetness. “My only wish is that my best friend and Seth’s best friend could like each other, at least a little bit.”

Not even for her best friend would she lie and feign any affection for Jackson Monaghan. All she said was, “Hey, we both love you guys. That’s all that matters.”

“But we’re going to be seeing you two all the time. You’re the first people we’ll have for dinner in our new place, you’ll be the godmother of our first child, obviously, and Jackson will be the god—”

“You’re pregnant?” Lauren’s voice rose. How had she never suspected?

Amy waved a freshly manicured hand in front of her face. “No. I’m just saying.”

“Stop planning so far ahead.” She put a hand to her chest. “And stop freaking me out.”

Amy’s face suddenly took on an expression that Lauren would call fatuous if Amy wasn’t her best friend. She only wore that expression for one person.

She followed the bride’s gaze and, sure enough, two men came into view on the sand below them. Seth, the groom, and Jackson, the best man.

Clearly, the routine for the men of a wedding party was a lot more lax than for the women. The guys were walking barefoot in the sand, wearing their board shorts and sunglasses. They’d ditched their shirts.

She could picture the pair of them scrambling to get dressed fifteen minutes before the ceremony started.

They were a nice-looking pair, she’d give them that.

Seth was a little on the chunky side. He’d been a football player in college and working a desk job, he’d gone a bit to seed. Jackson, on the other hand, was pretty drool-worthy, she had to admit. He sported the torso of an athlete—no doubt, the result of regular workout sessions with a personal trainer at a fancy gym somewhere. He had the permanent five-o’clock shadow of a jaded rock star. His eyes were an Irish blue; his hair a tousled brown that she suspected was salon-highlighted. Everything about him annoyed her.

She scratched her arm. That’s what Jackson was like, she thought. Like an itch. The more she tried to get rid of him, the more he irritated her.

“Why don’t you like Jackson?” Amy broke into her thoughts. “Every woman I know is crazy about him.”

And that was one more thing that irritated her about Jackson Monaghan. He strutted around as if he was God’s gift, and the sad part was plenty of women were apparently foolish enough to buy in to the ridiculous notion.

“Honestly, I don’t know,” she said. “I guess it’s a chemistry thing.”

Amy sighed, finished her wine. “Well,” she said, “I’m going to do everything I can to get you two to like each other.”

Oh, goodie.

* * *

JACKSON MONAGHAN LOVED the feel of sun on his skin and sand beneath his feet. Wearing a monkey suit and being in a wedding party, not so much.

But, for the guy who’d pretty much saved his life, there wasn’t much he wouldn’t do.

He and Seth went way back. When Jackson had lost his folks, his grandparents hadn’t known what to do with a grieving twelve-year-old. They’d packed him up and sent him to boarding school.

He’d never been exposed to rich people. Didn’t know shit about life in a dorm, and the other boys had sensed weakness the way sharks smell blood.

He had been scrawny back then. Sensitive. He’d thought nothing could be worse than losing his parents to a car wreck. He was wrong.

Those first few weeks of boarding school were brutal. Until Seth stepped up. Seth was the kind of kid the other boys respected. He was big, tough, not so good at school but great at sports. From Seth, Jackson had learned how to be one of the boys. And he’d learned how to fight back.

So, if Seth wanted him to show up in a tux and pass a couple of rings to a minister and make a speech, he was down.

He wasn’t sure Seth had made the best choice in brides, but his buddy was clearly convinced that Amy was an angel and he wasn’t one to make waves. The fiancée’s best friend, though?

Ouch. Lauren Sanger was hot, no question. But that mouth that looked as though it had been designed to kiss sweetly and talk dirty mostly hurled insults. At him.

“In a couple of hours, I’ll be a married man,” Seth suddenly said.

“Yep.”