The second I arrive at the hotel, and my mum tells me that Jack, Olly and Dougie are at the hotel casino, my heart jumps into my mouth.
The Majestic is the big, beautiful, Vegas-style everything under one roof hotel it claims to be, except, you know, a Blackpool-y version.
Walking through the grand, golden doorway into the casino, I scan the room for the boys. Almost everything is green or gold – or, at the very least, covered with a generous dusting of gold glitter.
My best guess, that the boys are probably at the poker tables, is correct. Thankfully Dougie is playing, while Jack and Olly spectate.
‘Can I borrow Jack for a minute?’ I ask, after greeting the boys.
‘Sure,’ he says. ‘I’m just hanging around to advise Doug, I’m not playing.’
‘Good. I was worried when I saw you.’
‘Hey, we’re like a proper married couple – you’re playing the nagging wife well,’ he jokes, but his words make me wince because we are like a proper married couple now.
‘So, you’re friends again?’ I ask.
‘Yeah, I’ve been giving him a few hints and teaching him a few tricks to make him a better player,’ Jack tells me.
It’s nice to see them all getting along.
‘Listen, we need to talk,’ I tell him, cutting to the chase.
‘We do,’ he replies. ‘Don’t think I didn’t realise how weird you were this morning.’
‘I’m sorry about that,’ I start. ‘It’s just…’
My voice trails off as I notice Jack staring at a girl standing next to one of the poker tables. She’s a tall, leggy, brunette – another one. My mind darts back to the girls in the airport who made his head practically Exorcist, and that girl he was probably flirting with last night.
‘Yeah, just ignore me and check out chicks,’ I say sarcastically.
‘Georgie, shh.’
‘Oh my God, don’t shush me,’ I snap.
Jack walks away from me to get a better look at this girl. I cannot believe my eyes – a matter of hours after sleeping with me, he’s already on to the next chick.
‘Gi,’ Olly calls me over. ‘You OK?’
‘Yeah,’ I lie.
As Jack walks back towards me, I notice the concerned look on his face.
‘So, that couple over there are cheating,’ he says under his breath. ‘Watch them for a second.’
‘I don’t see anything,’ Olly says.
‘So, our lady over there has some cards hidden in her purse – she must have pocketed them at some point. Her dude looks at his cards and if he wants something different, he gives her a signal.’
We watch Jack’s narration play out in front of us. When you know what you’re looking for, it’s actually pretty obvious.
‘Then, watch as she leans over to give him a supportive kiss. She swaps the cards. It’s genius, really. The misdirection with the kiss, bending over in that low-cut top – look, the dealer can’t take his eyes off her chest.’
‘You some kind of expert in cheating?’ Olly laughs.
‘Yeah,’ Jack replies. ‘I work… I work hard, tinkling the ivories, so when I’m not at work, I like to go to casinos.’
An absolutely shocking save there by Jack Bolton – almost an own goal.
‘Right,’ Olly replies.
‘I’m going to go tell the manager,’ Jack says.
‘Whoa,’ Olly says, placing an arm out to stop him. ‘No one likes a grass, mate.’
‘A what?’ Jack asks.
‘A tattletale,’ I tell him. ‘Excuse my brother, he’s painfully northern.’
‘Olly, casinos haemorrhage money thanks to cheaters. The dealer doesn’t give a shit, they’ve got that camera on the ceiling that’s obviously pointing all the way over there – I doubt anyone is even watching it, and if they are, they should be fired.’
‘All right, Ocean’s Eleven,’ Olly laughs.
‘I’ll come with you,’ I tell Jack. ‘We still need to finish our conversation.’
‘Hey,’ Jack says brightly to the receptionist. ‘So, there’s a guy in your casino robbing you blind right now. Is your casino manager around?’
The receptionist simply blinks at him for a moment before slowly snapping into action.
‘Er, Frank,’ she calls out. ‘FRANK!’
‘What’s up, love?’ he asks in a strong, deep Lancashire accent – possibly the strongest I’ve heard since I arrived.
‘This bloke says the casino is being robbed,’ she tells him.
‘Sir, can you come with me?’ Frank says, almost angrily.
‘I’ll wait here,’ I call after him. You know, in case he needs a lawyer or something.
A minute goes by. Then five. Then fifteen. And with each second that passes, I grow increasingly anxious about what I’m going to say to Jack. Do I just get straight to the point and tell him the sex meant nothing, before he can say it to me? Does he realise our night of passion means we’re for-real married now? I don’t know if he does, or if it occurred to him at the time. It certainly didn’t pop into my mind while Jack had my underwear in his mouth.
Forty minutes later, Jack emerges from the office and spots me sitting at the bar.
‘I’ll have what she’s having,’ Jack tells the barman.
‘It’s a cosmopolitan,’ I tell him, as though he might not know that’s possibly one of the world’s girliest drinks.
‘I don’t care, I’m celebrating,’ he tells me. ‘I’ve got a job.’
‘What?’
‘Frank says this place is losing so much money and it’s because their security team is whack. He said if I could spot that guy in a few seconds, at a glance, on the floor, then I’d be unstoppable with cameras and a team to train. I told him it used to be my job, and that I’d just resigned from my current job in Las Vegas – he doesn’t want to see my résumé, so there’s no point telling him I got fired,’ he laughs. ‘Georgie, the money they’re offering is amazing – and that’s in pounds.’
‘So… what?’
‘So, I’ve said I’ll take it. I’m going to stay here. I have this great job opportunity, I can be near my Aunt Bet – I need to start again.’
‘You don’t need to start again, you need to go home and end our mistake of a marriage.’
‘Georgie, listen,’ he starts, taking a seat on the bar stool next to me. ‘News travels fast in Vegas, everyone knows everyone – after getting fired, no one there is going to hire me. I can forget about it. I’m not getting a good reference either. This job is being offered to me on a plate: it’s perfect, it’s good money. This is what I need to turn my life around.’
‘I appreciate that,’ I tell him – because I do. ‘But you can’t stay here. Blackpool isn’t that big and Dougie is a regular at this casino. People will see you. Orchestral pianists don’t just up and quit their jobs and move to Blackpool to be glorified security guards. And what about us? We break up and you move to my hometown? No. You can’t.’
Jack runs a hand through his hair.
‘Princess, no disrespect, but it’s nothing to do with you.’
‘Jack, listen, we need to go back as soon as the wedding is finished and get this annulment – you know what happened last night consummated our marriage, right?’
‘So what?’ he laughs. ‘You know they can’t check that, right? Who’s going to tell them we had sex? You? You going to go in bragging? “Oh, look at me, my name is Georgie, my fiancé cheated on me so I lured some poor sucker into bed and then ran a mile from him the next day.”’
‘Is that supposed to be my voice?’ I shriek. ‘And even if that is what happened, it’s only what you do to poor, female tourists in Vegas.’
Jack immediately knocks back the drink placed down in front of him.
‘You know, you keep saying that, and I feel like it’s something you’ve just decided is true,’ he says. ‘It isn’t.’
‘You’re the one who said you’ve never had a real girlfriend,’ I point out.
‘Yeah, and did you ever think there might be a reason for that?’ he asks me. ‘Huh? You ever think that everyone I’ve ever loved is dead and I’m all alone in the world? Maybe I don’t wanna lose anyone else, and maybe I don’t want anyone I care about to lose me.’
‘Whatever,’ I snap. ‘You expect me to believe that psychoanalytical bullshit?’
‘Believe what you want,’ he says. ‘I’m taking this job. You sort your mess out however you want. Tell people we argued and broke up, tell people I cheated on you – tell them I died in a plane crash when you forced me back to Vegas to annul our drunken marriage. I don’t care.’
I sip my drink, carefully thinking about the next words to come out of my mouth.
‘I don’t think you should come to the rehearsal dinner tonight,’ I tell him. ‘I’ll tell people you’re not well.’
‘Fine by me,’ he says. ‘This week has been exhausting. I need a break from you and your fake feelings and your Stanley Kubrick-style of directing.’
And with that, he storms off. Leaving me to go to the rehearsal dinner as a one-woman show, and figure out how the hell I’m supposed to end this marriage.