Regrets Only (26 page)

The
place was small, but it had all he needed: kitchen, comfortable couches, a
bedroom closet big enough to keep an old guitar handy. A couple of excellent
bars and barbecue restaurants were within walking distance and it was only a
few minutes to Turner Field. He had a decent view of downtown, and busy
neighbors who either didn’t recognize him or were polite enough to pretend. It
was one of the few places in the world he could come and go unnoticed. It was
as close as Dylan could come to a normal life, and it felt as much like home as
anywhere else.

Right
now, however, he wanted to tear down the walls.

It
was nearly two o’clock on Sunday afternoon. He had been doing laps around the
coffee table all morning. He was mad at himself, mad at Suzanne, mad at the damn
phone for not ringing.

He
had regretted what happened with Suzanne almost immediately after pulling out
of Jake and Marci’s driveway. His logical brain knew he had been right, that
getting into a real relationship with someone like Suzanne—and there was no way
he could settle for less than that,
not with her
—was a recipe for
disaster. Yet a less logical part of him had wanted, more than anything, to
keep kissing her and walk straight into that disaster with his eyes and heart
wide open.

He
had been about to turn onto the entrance ramp for GA 400 on his way back to the
studio apartment when the tide turned in the battle going on inside his brain,
and he decided to go back. He wanted to call, but he’d forgotten to charge his
phone the night before, and it lay useless in the ancient truck’s passenger
seat. He guessed she’d probably still be at Marci’s house, though, because she
had not yet gotten in her car when he’d pulled out of the driveway.

So,
he’d go to her, knock gently on a window, and tell her…what? That he thought he
might love her? After one kiss? Impossible. But there was something about her.
He needed her to know. The words would come, he reasoned, just as they did when
he’d been stuck on a lyric for weeks and they had only hours of studio time
left. He’d think of something. He always did.

Maybe
she’d reject him right back, as she seemed inclined to do, and reiterate the
reasons she’d already stated that things wouldn’t work out between them. Maybe
friendship would be all they’d ever have. Or maybe, if she’d been telling the
truth, she would not offer him friendship, even. But he was sure he had seen
something behind those eyes. And she was the first new friend, real friend, he
had made in ages. Whatever was going to happen, he had to try.

Exuberant
with the idea of seeing her again, and for the first time in years telling a
woman the exact truth about how he felt, Dylan sang along loudly with Willie
Nelson on the radio. He was heading down a long two-lane road that he thought
should lead back to Marci’s house, not caring at all that it was nearly two in
the morning. The directions to the house were on his lifeless phone, but he
thought he remembered the basics and that he would know it when he saw it.

After
a while, he thought the scenery looked less familiar and that perhaps he’d gone
too far. Alpharetta seemed to be a sea of subdivisions with lots of similar, oversized
houses on small lots, broken up by upscale strip malls, chain restaurants, and
pharmacies. It was difficult to tell, especially at night, whether he was
covering familiar ground or not. He came to a cross street with a familiar
name, and followed it for a while, feeling increasingly confused and
frustrated. He passed several subdivisions that looked similar to Marci’s, and
struggled to remember the name on the stone wall he’d seen on the way in a few
hours ago.
It was something ‘ford’,
he thought.
Kingsford? No, that
was charcoal. Stratford? Wafford? Wexford?

He
passed a gas station that did not look at all familiar and found himself at
another intersection: Kimball Bridge and Medlock Bridge. He was suddenly unsure
that he had been on the right road at all. Everything seemed to be named Bridge
or Ferry in this part of the world. Now he had absolutely no idea where he’d
come from or how to get back. He thought about going into the gas station for
help, but what would he say? He didn’t know Marci’s last name or phone number, or
even Suzanne’s number. And if he had known, they were all probably asleep by
now.

There
was nothing to do but go home and charge his phone and call Suzanne tomorrow.
He went into the gas station to get directions back to the highway, vowing to
himself that he would memorize Suzanne’s number the next day and buy a car
charger for his phone.

Today
he had memorized the number as he dialed it, but so far Suzanne had not
answered his calls. He’d tried her cell phone a couple of times before lunch and
even managed to get her home number from an irritated Yvette. He knew she was
angry, from the frosty way she’d pulled away from him last night, but this kind
of avoidance didn’t seem like her style. In his experience, Suzanne had always
been classy, even under duress. So he paced around the tiny living room,
alternating between dismissive anger and an absurd impulse to simply drive to
her apartment and confront her in person.

He
was in the middle of this very debate when there was a knock on the door. He
froze.
Who the hell could that be?
Not Suzanne. She didn’t know where
this apartment was, and he was not even sure he’d mentioned that it existed.
Had she called Yvette looking for him? It wasn’t like Yvette to give out his
private information, but because he’d called her looking for Suzanne this
morning, maybe…

The
knock came again, more insistent. He crossed to the peephole.
Shit.

Misty’s
face had a natural frown to it, which seemed emphasized by her tanned skin—unusually
dark for the beginning of the summer. Her white-blonde hair was pulled back in
a sporty pony tail, and she wore a tight t-shirt and running shorts, which
showed off her best features: extra-large, silicone enhanced breasts and
sturdy, athletic legs. He marveled at how he could appreciate these things
through the peephole and feel no desire whatsoever to open the door.

Misty,
however, had other ideas. A duffel bag was slung over her shoulder. “Dylan. I
know you’re in there. Open up.”

He
thought about ignoring her, waiting to see if she would just go away, but she
persisted more loudly. “I saw your truck downstairs. I’m
not
leaving.”

He
knew she meant this. Before they’d started dating—somewhat accidentally—a few
months before, he had known Misty most of his life. His sister Amber used to
babysit Misty as a kid and sometimes brought her home to play with Dylan and
Kate while Amber talked on the phone. As adults, Amber and Misty had stayed in
touch and become friends.

So
Misty had known him since long before fame and fortune had struck. For this
reason Dylan had found that she was more comfortable—refreshingly so at first—than
most girls speaking her mind with him. He’d also found that it was harder than
he expected to extract himself from the relationship once it had begun. They
had hooked up after a night of drunken revelry at the mountain house, and she
had more or less set up camp at his side ever since.

At
first he hadn’t minded this: Misty was obviously attractive. He’d noted with
pride how other men’s mouths watered when they walked past. The press loved her,
too—especially the rose tattoo on her cleavage that she showed to advantage in
everything from bikinis to formal wear. She was bold and refreshingly fearless,
unlike the hordes of groupies who acted as though everything he said or did was
solid gold.

But
lately Dylan had been feeling that Misty’s demands for attention were becoming
more frequent, more expensive, and less polite in their delivery. Amber and
Sherrie had also begun hinting in front of the family, to his utter dismay,
that Dylan and Misty might be moving toward marriage. He’d pleaded with them to
stop adding fuel to that fire, but Amber in particular could apparently imagine
no better sister-in-law than her old friend.

Seeing
her now in the hallway, arms folded across her chest in impatience, Dylan knew
there was no getting around letting her in. He owed her that much, he supposed.
They hadn’t spoken since he dismissed her from the mountain house the week
before, and he’d been avoiding both Misty and his sisters ever since. That
couldn’t last forever.
Might as well take your medicine, Burke
.
This day
isn’t going well anyway.

“Hi,
Mis,” he sighed as he opened the door and she sauntered in, tossing her bag on
the couch.

“Where
have you been?” she asked without preface.

“What
do you mean?” he asked. He knew it was an insulting question, even for Misty,
but he couldn’t think what else to say.

“Dylan.
I’m worried about you. I’ve been talking to your sisters. We’re
all
worried about you.”

“Why?”
he asked, leaning against the back of the leather love seat for support. He was
actually curious. Were his sisters really worried about him?

“You’ve
been acting weird lately. Distant. And then, at the cabin, it’s like you were a
different person. I mean, you were all fidgety, like you couldn’t sit still. I
couldn’t even keep you in the hot tub with me. Or our bed.”
Our
bed. The
significance did not escape him. She made a pouting face and stepped closer to
him, running her fingers along his arm. “That’s not like you at all, baby.”

“Sorry,”
he said softly. He looked down at his bare feet. Misty wore a pair of baby blue
running shoes with rounded bottoms that were supposed to tone her leg muscles
while she walked. Dylan had mentioned once that they looked ridiculous and
incurred her wrath for days. She followed his gaze and slid one foot between
his, her tanned leg grazing his rolled up jeans.

“You’re
not attracted to me anymore?” she asked.

“That’s
not it,” he said. It really wasn’t.

She
took his hands from the back of the couch and put them on her hips. “Then what
is it, baby? You don’t have a new girlfriend, do you?”

“No,
I don’t,” he said. That much was certainly true. He left out the part, however,
where he had kissed Suzanne and then gotten hopelessly lost in Alpharetta
trying to get back to her. And the part where he’d been on edge all day, the
bottom of his stomach churning, trying to get her to call him back.

But
other than that, what was there to tell, really? She wasn’t returning his calls;
they had both agreed their relationship was a no-go. Was there any reason to rub
it in Misty’s face?

He
should just end it with Misty and get it over with. Maybe be alone for a while
and try to sort things out between now and Kate’s wedding. He knew it was the
right thing to do, and the words he needed were available to him:
I’m sorry,
but this isn’t going to work.
Walk her to the door, hand her the duffel
bag, and spend the next two weeks defending himself from his sisters and hoping
to talk to Suzanne.

But
he didn’t. His feet felt stuck to the hardwood floor. His hands on her hips
felt as though they were holding the only solid matter for miles. He did manage
to turn his head slightly when Misty leaned in to kiss him, but she seemed
perfectly content to kiss his neck instead. Her lips were thin and a little
dry, and he wondered how Suzanne’s softer, fuller lips would feel against his
skin. The familiar warm feeling stirred in his belly and he sucked in air as
Misty sharply bit a small area of skin on his collarbone.

Tell
her to leave. Push her away.
“No,”
he said softly to the ceiling. “This is not a good idea.” Exactly what he had
said to Suzanne the night before. And she had agreed.

“Why
not?” Misty whined. “I’m so hot for you.” In demonstration of this, she grasped
his hand and pushed it down the front of her shorts, where he could feel the
truth of her statement, warm and wet on his hand. She held his hand there and
began to move her hips in little circles, pressing herself against him. She was
familiar and inviting beneath his hands; he felt his body respond to her
arousal. He remembered the pain of unlinking himself from Suzanne the night
before, how his body had ached for hours afterward while he drove around lost
in suburbia. It seemed as if he had used all his willpower to do that, and now
he had none left to resist Misty.

No,
he thought.
It’s not right.

But
why?
a familiar
voice intoned. It was the voice that had led him all his life toward pleasure
and abandon, toward warm touches and good feelings and the impressed laughter
of his friends. It had earned him his wild reputation and hosted countless
parties that bordered on orgies.
Who is it hurting? Misty and I have been
dating. This is nothing new. Suzanne and I are not dating. She doesn’t even want
to be friends. Hell, she’s ignoring my phone calls.
No one
ignores my
calls.

Something
burned in him—a combination of lust and anger, wounded heart and wounded pride.
And Misty, grinding against his hips and hand and kissing his throat, seemed to
sense the change and pounced. “Oh, baby, I’ve missed you,” she groaned into his
ear. “Please, please let me show you how much.”

Without
waiting for an answer, she peeled herself out of her t-shirt and shorts,
revealing a lacy bra that was incongruous with her running gear, and a tiny
white thong that barely covered anything.
She planned this,
Dylan
realized somewhere beneath the fog. But did it matter? Did any of it really
matter?