"That was... entertaining," Darian said wryly as she walked over to him. "What the hell happened?" he asked, sitting up and trying to shake away his hangover. She considered toying with his emotions for a bit of fun but after hearing him talk last night, she didn't have the heart to do it. Now she knew why he had looked at her with such anger and sadness last night. It was because she looked exactly like Courtney, who she assumed was the pretty blonde who had just left in a rage. "Nothing. I offered myself to you for enjoyment, you were too depressed to take me up on it, I helped you upstairs, you told me all about your sordid and horribly entangled love life, and then you threw up. All over your shirt and my dress. So I kindly helped you out of your clothes and took a shower," she said honestly, watching his expression go from worried to relief. She smiled and said dryly, "I have never seen a man more happy that he didn't sleep with me."
He looked at her apologetically and tried to apologize but she stopped him. "Aren't you going to go after her?" she asked. Jax finally settled down and all the memories came flooding back to him. Courtney staying in Port Charles, Courtney refusing to come with him, Courtney telling him she would only miss him as a friend. He shrugged and sat back against the headboard. "No," he said, but there was remorse tinted in his voice. Darian looked at his dejected form and her temper finally got the better of her. "Look, you absolutely refused to tell me what the hell happened to you and this Courtney character even though I tried my damned hardest to get you!" she yelled angrily. He looked at her in shock. "What the hell does it matter to you?" he asked.
She took a deep breath and said, "I like to psychoanalyze people and you were a worthy test subject, which is why I stayed up talking to you rather than sexing you up." His eyes finally lit up with amusement as he said, "So you're that type." Her eyes swerved to his face and she reluctantly admitted to herself that this man was probably a hell of a lot more interesting and intelligent than she gave him credit for. It really was a shame. "She obviously came all the way here to be with you and I can tell by your pathetic complaints last night about how woebegone your life is that you wanted to be with her. You're just going to let her leave like that?" she asked, coming over to sit on the bed.
"She doesn't want to be with me, she made that perfectly clear yesterday when she decided to stay in town with her ex," Jax said flatly. "That's Brenda?" Darian asked, remembering her having dark hair. "No, that's Courtney," he answered, climbing gingerly out of bed. Darian worked her mind quickly and finally figured it out. So that's why he was so embittered and miserable. It hadn't just happened once, it had happened twice. Her memory flashed back to the wounded look in the other blonde's eyes earlier. That was not the look of a woman who didn't love this man. She knew it all too well- because just two months earlier, Darian Rousse had that same exact look in her eyes. She sighed. She had no reason whatsoever to help these two people. She would be better off trying to fix her own life so that she didn't feel the need to spend every night looking for a new warm body to occupy her bed. But when she looked at them, she felt their pain and suffering. She knew what it was like and she wished that she hadn't been so alone back when it was happening to her.
"She loves you," Darian said quietly. "No, she loves Jason and she always will," he spat out. "If she loved Jason, she wouldn't have come all the way to Bermuda!" Darian argued. Jax felt a flicker of hope at her words. "She didn't have her outer shirt on and she climbed into bed with you. That is not the action of a woman who wasn't getting ready to pounce on you. Trust me, I know how my sex works," she told him confidently. She saw the slight yielding in the man's eyes and smiled. "You already gave up one love- I don't think your scarred heart can give up another without a fight, right?" she asked, staring at him.