Regrets Only (24 page)

“See?
That’s my point. Not everything can be singing doves and rainbows, right? I’ve
had so many opportunities to be with guys like William, who are great and would
make good partners, but I’ve dumped them for practically no reason.”

“I
thought you weren’t really in love with William.”

“I
don’t know. I did love him; I did care about him. Maybe this whole ‘being in
love’ concept is just an amplified version of that. For some people, it happens
all at once, with chemistry and fireworks; for others, it’s a slow build,
through commitment and mutual respect. You and Jake had a slow build.”

Marci
bit her lip, considering. “Well, yes and no. It took us a long time to get
together, yes, but I think we always felt fireworks for each other. I know I
did.”

“
Always?
Marci, come on.” Suzanne knew for a fact there were times in Marci’s life where
Jake Stillwell had been far, far from her mind. She didn’t say this out loud,
but she wondered whether the happiness of their marriage now was causing Marci
to take a rosy view of their past. “Even when you were so involved with Doug?
Asshole!
”

“Well…”
Marci started, and then held back. She seemed to be trying to figure out how to
say something, and then evidently gave up. “Well, anyway. This isn’t about me. So
you found William?”

“Not
yet. But I left a message at his parents’ house a week ago and I’m hoping he’ll
call me. He could be married or gay or something, so I’m trying not to get my
hopes up.”

Marci
nodded and was quiet for a while, watching intently as the pedicurist who was a
Dylan Burke fan painted her toes a deep red. Eventually Suzanne broke the
silence by asking about the plans for the baby, which launched them into a conversation
that lasted the rest of the pedicure, and halfway through a trip to the mall
before they returned to Marci’s house.

“I
still can’t believe you had dinner with Rebecca
alone
,” Marci said as
they entered the front door with shopping bags. “Jake! We’re back!”

“It
wasn’t that bad, actually,” Suzanne said softly.

Marci
gave her a quick skeptical look. “Well, it wasn’t,” Suzanne said. “I mean, it
wasn’t like having dinner with you or anything, but Rebecca…”

“What?”
Marci demanded. Suzanne was astonished how quickly her best friend had rounded
on her. Whether it was bitterness about Jake, jealousy of Rebecca spending
quality time with Suzanne, or just pure pregnancy hormones coursing through her
veins, Suzanne decided that their make-up was too fresh to risk on this
particular point.

“Nothing,”
she said. “It just wasn’t the same without you, that’s all.”

Marci
looked dubious, but placated. “Staying for dinner?” she asked, in a way that
assumed the answer was yes.

Truthfully,
Suzanne wanted to get back home to paint and check her answering machine for
signs of William, but neither of these seemed like a valid reason to bail on
Marci after she’d been missing her so much the past few weeks. “Sure,” she
said.

They
found Jake on the back patio, firing up the grill. He wore a Georgia Bulldogs
apron and held a bottle of Bud Light in one hand, grilling tongs in the other.
“I have burgers and chicken,” he said, and when Marci made a face, “and veggie
burgers just in case meat didn’t sound good to you.”

Marci
kissed him on the cheek before plopping into a deck chair, shopping bags
falling at her feet.

“I’ll
get those,” Suzanne said. She scooped up Marci’s bags and carried them in with
her own, pulling her phone out of her purse to check it before putting it away.
Apparently she had forgotten to turn it back on after the nail salon, because
there were two voicemail messages.

The
first: “Hey, Suzanne, it’s Chad. I was just calling to see how you were doing.
I was thinking about stopping by the office next week for lunch if you’re free.
Have you remembered to check the voicemail on my line? I bet you haven’t. You
always forget stuff like that. Maybe I’ll check it now. Anyway, let me know
about lunch next week.”

That’s
nice
, Suzanne
thought, and she was making a mental note to call Chad back tomorrow afternoon
when the second message started. “Hey, Suzanne, it’s Dylan. I know you
debutantes probably stay busy on Saturday nights, but I wondered if you might
happen to be free for dinner tonight. Call me.”

An
involuntary shiver ran down Suzanne’s spine. Simultaneously, she wondered whether
it would be prudent to ignore his message and call him back in a couple of days
so he wouldn’t think she had no life, and whether it was too late to back out
of dinner with Jake and Marci without being amazingly rude. She decided to
split the difference and call him back immediately to tell him she had plans.

“Hey,”
he said, picking up on the first ring.

“Hi
there. How was the rest of your evening?” She kicked herself for being unable
to resist asking.
What do you care?

“Good.
I caught up with that waitress and her friends,” he said. “I’m pretty sure more
than a few laws were broken.”

“Oh,”
she said stiffly.
I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care.
“How lovely.
I look forward to seeing the pictures on TMZ.”

He
chuckled. “Just messing with you, Scarlett. I went straight to my place and
went to sleep. Protecting you from bad guys wears me out.”

Her
laugh was thin and brittle, like a sheet of ice. He didn’t seem to notice. “So
did you get my message about dinner? There’s a pizza place in Midtown I really
like, but if I go alone I’ll have to spend the whole time fighting off
well-meaning fans.” Marci came into the kitchen then, fanning herself and
waving apologies at Suzanne for interrupting.

“Rough
life,” Suzanne said to Dylan. “But I’m sorry, I have plans tonight with
friends.”

At
this, Marci stopped her progress toward the stairs and perked her ears
curiously. “Who is it?
”
she mouthed.

Suzanne
waved her away, but she might as well have told a hungry cat to ignore a small,
flightless bird. “That’s too bad,” Dylan said. “Maybe tomorrow night.”

“I
thought your sister said you were taking her to a show or something tomorrow,”
Suzanne said, recalling a conversation with Kate from the week before.

“Dylan?”
Marci mouthed, and Suzanne nodded. “Invite him here.”

“Oh,
yeah. I almost forgot,” Dylan said. “Where would I be without you?”

“No,”
Suzanne said, meaning to address Marci but saying it to Dylan instead.

“Sorry?”

“Nothing,
I was just…saying something to my friend.” She tried not to laugh at Marci, now
on her knees in the middle of the kitchen floor, making an elaborate plea in exaggerated
mime.

“Oh,
okay,” Dylan said, sounding put off. “Well, you seem kind of busy there, so…”

“No,
no. I’m sorry,” Suzanne said. She didn’t want to hurt his feelings. Or
disappoint the pathetic pregnant woman making an ass of herself on the floor. “I
was just saying, my friends are grilling out at their house tonight. Would you
like to join us? No hot tubs or anything, but it should be fun.”

She
stuck her tongue out at Marci. To her surprise, Dylan answered quickly. “Sure. Where
do they live?”

“It’s
up in Alpharetta—do you know where that is? It’s kind of a long way from
Atlanta…” Suzanne realized she had no idea where Dylan stayed when he was in
town. Hotel? Apartment?

“I
know where it is. That’s fine.”

She
gave him the address, still shocked that the country star had nothing better to
do on a Saturday night than to drive forty-five minutes to eat burnt chicken in
the suburbs. Perhaps the life of famous musicians was not so glamorous as
Suzanne had always thought.

For
the next hour or so, Marci went completely insane in the way only a star-struck
pregnant woman could manage: alternately cleaning, crying, giggling, and
complaining to Jake that she wished their stuff were “hipper.” Neither Jake nor
Suzanne could reassure Marci that their furnishings were just fine, no matter
what argument they made, so they eventually just started ignoring her rants and
sat out on the patio together, drinking beer.

After
a while, Marci joined them. She was a bit sweaty and winded from her efforts to
tidy up the house, but Suzanne couldn’t help but notice with a smile that Marci
had changed into a dressier black maternity shirt with laced edges and put on
mascara.

Jake
noticed it, too. “So what’s the plan, Marce? Distract me with a grill fire or
something and run away with him?”

“What
are you talking about?” Marci demanded. Her tone was indignant but her cheeks
were ruby red.

Her
husband did not relent. “I’m just saying, it’s been a while since you wore
makeup for just me, that’s all.”

“That’s
completely unfair,” Marci said. “I can’t clean up a little when we’re meeting a
new person? Someone special to Suzanne?”

Suzanne
snorted. “Don’t drag me into this.”

“He’s
a
famous
special person,” Jake said, lifting his beer bottle to Marci. “You
can’t deny that plays some role in all your primping and preparing. It’s not as
if you do this every time Suzanne brings home the flavor of the week.”

“Hey!”
Suzanne snapped.

“Sorry,”
Jake said.

“Yeah,”
Marci said, trying to get the heat off herself. “But Suzanne really likes this
guy. I can tell.”

Suzanne
opened her mouth to speak but a voice behind them cut her off. “I’m glad to
hear that.”

Apparently
none of them had heard the doorbell, and Dylan had entered through the side
gate. He approached without hesitation and kissed Suzanne gallantly on the
cheek. “Nice to meet you,” he said to Marci, and kissed the back of her hand
while she turned a shade of red Suzanne had never seen on a person before.

“It’s
the pregnancy,” she said, fanning her face. “Makes me blush at anything.”

“Then
I won’t have to work too hard,” Dylan said huskily. “Thank you for having me in
your home.” He handed Marci a bouquet of wildflowers and a bottle of wine,
before turning to shake hands with Jake. Suzanne made the formal introductions
without letting her gaze linger too long on Dylan. She wondered how much he had
overheard. Could she
never
be around this guy without being completely
embarrassed?

Things smoothed out quickly,
however, as Dylan asked polite, open questions about Marci and Jake and their
jobs, the area they lived in, the house, and so on. He was interested in
Marci’s copywriting and her side project, “The Temp Girl’s Guide to Life.” But
he connected more with Jake’s work, as he was a sports fan and had spent so
much time around cameras himself.

At
a lull in the conversation, Dylan asked Jake and Marci how they’d met, and all
three of the old friends laughed. They told the story in rounds, interrupting
one another and disputing details. They argued about the name of their harsh TA
in English 101. Marci said Jake had hit on her after a Frisbee game, but Jake
said she’d been flirting with him first. They all three vehemently disagreed
about whose idea it had been for the two of them to promise to get married when
they turned thirty. Dylan laughed at the story in appropriate places, and
whether he was laughing at the story itself or the hilarity of watching the
friends try to tell it, the response seemed genuine.

They
enjoyed a feast of burgers, delicious—not burnt—chicken, grilled veggie kabobs,
and microwave brown rice. Marci seemed to recover from her fascination with
Dylan and was able to make relatively normal conversation with him. Only once
or twice did she sound a little like someone doing an article on a movie star
for the high school paper, and Suzanne was able to nip those instances in the
bud with a series of tactful, distracting interventions. As the other three
polished off a few beers, the evening became more relaxed and they found
themselves playing spades around the kitchen table.

By
midnight, Marci could barely keep her head off the table. Because she refused
to let pregnancy push her into bed early, Jake was forced to claim that
he
was too tired to stay up any longer, even though he nearly had to carry her up
the stairs. They said goodnight, and Suzanne promised to make sure the
downstairs was locked before going home.

Dylan
shuffled the cards expertly. “Another game?” he asked. “Gin rummy?”

“Sure,”
Suzanne said. She knew she should go home. It was a long drive back to Buckhead
and at some point she, too, would have trouble staying awake.

“Let’s
just hope you don’t kick my ass at this like you did at poker a couple of weeks
ago.”

“I
didn’t kick your ass,” she objected.

“Yes,
you did. You kicked all our asses. And then you folded with a winning hand. I
looked at your cards when you went to the kitchen.”

Suzanne
was silent. What could she say?

“Why
would you do that?” he asked. His tone was curious, not accusatory.