Page 37 of Pirate

When she finally spoke, her voice was soft. “Sophia, best friend of my life, Thelma to my Louise, Betty to my Wilma, I love you. Which is why I can say with such confidence that you’re full of horseshit.”

Sophia’s jaw dropped.

But Jasmine held up a hand, silencing Sophia. “No, now is the time for you to shut up and listen to me.” She dropped her hand. “I love your confidence. It’s what drew me to you in the first place. I’ve never been confident. I’m very aware that I’m not the supermodel type or the kind of woman guys stop and stare at. I’m the nerdy girl. When my nose isn’t in a book, my hand is shoved up a dog’s ass.

“Meeting Jumper has been amazing. I am so in love with that man and I can’t wait to marry him.” Jazz smiled dreamily. “But I also don’t want you to be feeling left behind. It’s been you and me against the world for a long time. I’ve been so wrapped up in planning my wedding and my honeymoon, plus the clinic and getting everything prepped for my absence. You’re my rock, Soph. I wouldn’t have even had the nerve to ask Jumper out if it wasn’t for you.

“So I say this with all the love in my heart and all the courage that you have given me over the years: you’re full of shit.” Sophia was still trying to wrap her mind around the first time Jazz had said that statement. Her mind did not clear when it was repeated. “You say that you’re sleeping with Pirate but it means nothing, right?”

Sophia nodded.

“Because you don’t have feelings for him?”

Sophia nodded again.

“And the reason you didn’t tell me you were sleeping with him was because you wanted to make sure nothing ruined my big day?”

Sophia nodded. That was the truth after all.

Jasmine raised an eyebrow. “So you think my life revolves so solely around your vagina that my wedding day would be ruined by your sleeping with my fiancé’s best man and brother?”

“What? No!” Sophia gasped out. “Boo, that wasn’t it at all!”

“Then it must be because you didn’t want some clichéd wedding drama to unfold when it was discovered the maid of honor was sleeping with the best man?”

Sophia’s mouth bobbed up and down like a fish, but no words came out. Who was this woman and where had her demure best friend gone?

“Or maybe it’s because I’m such a bridezilla that everything has to be about me and my day and everyone else’s lives have to come to a stop just because I’m getting married?”

An open-mouthed snort came from her, which sounded extra nasally to Sophia. “You’re the furthest thing to a bridezilla that there ever could be.”

“Thenwhywould you think that you sleeping with Pirate would upstage me?”

Sophia bit her lip. Because it wasn’t just the fact that she was sleeping with him. She’d gottenmarriedto him. Accidentally.While drunk. On a pirate boat cruise around the San Francisco Bay. And now she was just waiting for their mandatory waiting period to end so she could divorce him.

“Do you like him?”

Shock made her head snap up. “What? No!” she insisted. Then backtracked, “I mean, I like him as a…man.” She struggled to say ‘friend’. They weren’t even that. “He’s fantastic in bed. Although,” she added offhandedly, “he’s got this thing about taking me from behind. I rarely actually seen him fully undressed now that I think about it.” She pursed her lips in thought. “But that man’s ass is a work of art in a pair of jeans. He could make a killing off ofLevicommercials if they hired him to model. And…” She hesitated. “In a weird way, he calms me. Like I don’t have to worry about being around him. Does he think I’m too rich, does he think I’m too skinny, does he think I’m too pretty…?”

“Wow, must be awful to be you,” Jasmine deadpanned.

Sophia kicked her, nearly spilling her coffee in the process. After licking the side of her hand that had gotten some coffee on it, she continued. “You know that’s not what I mean. I don’t have to worry about the usual stuff that I do with guys around Pirate. I know he doesn’t think of me like that and I can just,” she shrugged, “relax, I guess.”

“Hold this.” Jasmine held out her mug to Sophia.

Sophia took it and watched as Jasmine moved around to grab her phone from her nightstand with one hand while clutching the sheet to her chest with the other. Sophia had forgotten Jazz was still naked under the bedding.

Sitting back up straight, Jazz started tapping on her phone. At first, Sophia thought she was texting somebody but then thought maybe she was researching something.

“What are you doing?” she finally asked.

“Booking you an eye doctor appointment,” Jazz answered without looking up from her phone. “Clearly, you need your eyes checked.”

With two half-filled mugs of coffee in her hands, Sophia’s options of retaliation were limited. She scooted herself closer to Jazz to nudge her with her knee. “Hey! Stop that. My eyes are just fine!”

Jasmine looked up at Sophia with so much skepticism, Sophia would have laughed if the topic was anything else. “Soph, babe, if you think forone secondthat Pirate doesn’t have feelings for you, then you are utterly blind and you do,” she wiggled her phone screen in front of Sophia’s face, “need an eye doctor appointment.”

Sophia sat back a little. “What do you mean?”

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