“Tonight baby,” Brian kisses Jade deeply and wraps his arms around her.
Jade’s tongue flicks the corners of his mouth and he moans slightly, pulling her tighter to him. He is leaving her to go to the MGM Grand where the Boys will play their final concert in Vegas on this tour. The show is due to finish at 11pm and he would be back at the hotel by midnight to shower and change. Jade has booked a room in another hotel to get changed in so that the two will not meet again until in church. The ceremony begins at 1am. Kevin had been acting a little weird around them these past few days. Whenever they thought they were alone, he had suddenly appeared and started bugging them about the stupidest things. He had actually spent most of last night in their room discussing what hair style he should have next until Jade had fallen asleep from all the excitement. When Brian had moaned about Kevin’s not leaving them alone, Nick and AJ had started snickering but Howie had led him away on the pretext of needing an opinion over some pants. Vegas is having a seriously weird effect on his bandmates. After a long hug with Jade, Brian is driven to the MGM and heads backstage to find the others and get changed. He bumps into (surprise, surprise) Kevin.
“Hey bro. No Jade tonight?”
“Uh, no. She’s kinda seen our show enough that she does the moves in her sleep already.”
“Yeah!” Kevin’s laugh sounds a little forced to Brian. “So, where is she then?”
“Back at the hotel. She wanted to get some sleep.”
“Ok. So, you up to a little gamblin’ after the show?”
“Uh…” Brian chides himself to think faster or else Kevin is going to be tagging along after them all night and all morning too. “Uh… No. I’m…uh…goin’ back to see how Jade is. Yeah. She was feelin’ kinda off earlier.”
“She was? Oh, I hope she feels better.”
“I think she just needs a rest, y’know,” Brian grins and heads past Kevin with a relieved sigh.
He has just about saved that one. Now he just needs to figure out how he can get through an entire show without dying of excitement or impatience. The answer is to be more hyper on-stage than he usually is. So Brian practically bounces through the entire show, throwing himself 110% into dance routines, clowning around with Nick and singing his heart out.
“Jeez, you make me feel old,” mutters AJ as the two guys take a back seat to Kevin and Howie’s audience interaction.
“Just getting’ my second tour wind y’know… Half-way through!” grins Brian checking his watch. Only 3 hours until Jade becomes his wife.
“Calm it down will ya?” AJ groans. “You’re makin’ the rest of us look bad.”
I look at my reflection in the mirror and sigh happily. I’m pleased with what I see. I had gone to an out-of-town mall on my first day in Vegas and this dress had been in the first shop I came too. It’s cut out of white satin and fits my figure perfectly, clinging to my breasts, waist and hips and then dropping elegantly to the floor. My dark hair is pinned back and a few rogue strands are loose around my face and neck. My make-up is classically non-existent. I wonder if guys realise that sometimes it takes more make-up to look like you aren’t wearing any. Probably not. Most of them don’t have a clue about the trials of womanhood. They think it starts and ends with PMS. As if. I reach for the black ring box on my dresser and open it. I take out the ring I had bought for Brian. It’s a simple platinum band and I had the inside engraved with `you complete me’. That simple phrase means so much to me. It’s all those perfect mornings waking up beside him. It’s the way my heart stops whenever he looks at me. It’s the way I forget to breathe when he’s kissing me. It’s the way I feel like I’ve come home whenever he is holding me. Brian has my wedding band engraved with the `my circle baby’, something he whispers to me after we make love. He says it’s cos I’m his beginning and end, and we are everlasting. Like a circle never ends, neither do we. It’s cute and nobody else knows that he calls me that. I kiss the ring and then snap the box shut. The clock tells me that it’s just gone past midnight so I head out to the hotel foyer. I hand my room key over to the clerk and sign out. He smiles at me.
“Last time you’ll be signing that name huh?”
“I guess,” I smile.
He wishes me luck as I head outside to the taxi rank. Before I can whistle for a cab, a long white limousine pulls up and a smartly suited guy climbs out.
“Hello,” he grins at me. “I refuse to let you put that beautiful dress onto an ordinary car seat.”
“You do?” I laugh at him.
“I do,” he nods and opens the door for me. “Let me drive you. Which chapel is it?”
“St Jude,” I tell him, settling myself in the back of the limo.
“Great place,” he grins, starting the car and we drive away. “I got married there myself.”
“Yeah? How long ago?”
“Three years,” he grins at me in the rear-view mirror. “And all of ‘em happy. I’m Joe, what’s your name?”
“Jade.”
“And the lucky guy?”
“Unlucky more like,” I giggle. “His name’s Brian.”
“Say, do you need a witness?”
“I guess. We hadn’t thought of that actually.”
“You need two witnesses. We ended up with the bar-tender and the slot-machine girl!” he chuckles. “My wife works nearby, want me to call her and we could be your witnesses?”
“Yeah, that’d be great. Thanks.”
He smiles and pulls out his cell-phone. After a quick conversation he hangs up. “All fixed. She’ll meet us there. Her name’s Lucy.”