Regrets Only (Sequel to The Marriage Pact)

by Pullen, M. J.

  Suzanne shrugged. The nail tech turned to the woman working on Suzanne’s feet and said something rapid in Vietnamese. The latter shook her head, obviously not a Dylan Burke fan. She turned back to Marci for help. “Come on, you know, the little boy, his parents are splitting up…Ugh! Makes me cry just talking about it.”

  “Duct Tape Fixes Everything!” Marci squealed.

  Then she began to sing, “…and when I sat him down to tell him, I’d be moving out for good, he brought that silver roll to me and said he’d do all that he could…”

  Now the little pedicurist and the customer in the chair on the other side of Marci joined in. “He said, ‘Daddy don’t you worry, Daddy don’t you cry, I’ll tape you back together, It’s gonna be alright…’”

  Other people at the salon were watching now, as big tears rolled down Marci’s cheeks. So that’s pregnancy, Suzanne thought. Then she noticed that the other women looked misty-eyed, too. Jeez.

  “Okay,” she said quietly, once the singing and resulting female bonding had died down and the other women moved on to a different conversation. “You see? This is exactly my point. Look at the effect that stupid song has on you, and all these other women. Can you imagine dating the guy who sings it? How would you feel if women were crying and swooning at Jake’s football videos?”

  “I’ve cried several times at his work,” Marci said defensively.

  “Of course,” said Suzanne. “Me, too. But that’s not the point.”

  Marci looked ready to argue this, so Suzanne added quickly, “Anyway, I’ve been trying to track down William.”

  “William who?” Then Marci gasped. “William? Why on earth would you do that?” As always, Marci did not bother beating around the bush.

  “Well, I’ve been thinking about what you said about how I’ve dumped all these men for stupid reasons and then I complain about being alone…”

  “I never said that!” Marci snapped.

  “Yeah, Marce, you did. Though I think you might have said ‘idiotic’ reasons. And you know what? You were right. I looked at the list of all the guys in my past and I realized that I did have ridiculous reasons for breaking up with some of them.”

  “Now, wait, you can’t take that seriously. I’m hormonal; I was upset…”

  “You were right,” Suzanne repeated. “I can’t keep going along, waiting for true love, thinking the next guy might be perfect. Maybe not everyone is meant to have the fairy tale romance like you and Jake.”

  “Our romance was not exactly a fairy tale either,” Marci corrected. Their relationship had definitely been rocky, including—at one point—a broken engagement.

  “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.

  “I don’t know,” she lied. “I guess it seemed rude to beat everyone on my first visit.”

  She had tried to sound light and flirty, but he eyed her suspiciously under one raised eyebrow. “You don’t strike me as the type to pull punches,” he said. “I don’t know. I’ve got my eye on you, Scarlett.”

  “Seems to me you’d be better served with your eyes on your cards,” she said, trying to mimic his homespun accent.

  He laughed. They played two hands, which she won, and agreed it was time to call it quits around 1:00 a.m. She was debating hanging out to sleep on Jake and Marci’s couch, but he held the door open on his way out and she followed him without thinking. The night wa
s cool and humid. Suzanne realized it was the second time in two nights she had walked out to her car with Dylan Burke by her side. She shivered involuntarily, and he put his arm around her.

  “I guess this is ending better than the last time we played cards,” she said awkwardly. He looked at her without speaking, and she felt suddenly exposed. “I mean, at least you’re not pissing off some busty blonde just by talking to me.”

  “You realize, don’t you, that you yourself are a busty blonde?” he said. “You’re always mentioning it so I thought I would point out that it applies to you as well.”

  “Yeah, but it’s different. I don’t wear those astonishingly tiny, revealing outfits.”

  “Hmm…” he said. “I seem to have vivid memories of a silky lace thing that wasn’t exactly modest.”

  “But that wasn’t in public—”

  “Calm down, Scarlett. I’m just giving you a hard time.”

  She smiled noncommittally. He remembers my pajamas.

  “There is something else, about Misty,” he said cautiously, pausing at the driver’s door of her car and leaning against it. His truck was directly behind her car in Jake and Marci’s driveway.

  Here it comes, Suzanne thought. They’re engaged. She’s pregnant. She’s his cousin or something.

  “One reason she was so pissed, and so rude to you, was that I slept in a hammock on the deck that night. After the poker game.”

  “Ah,” Suzanne said. She felt silly that she had no idea how those things were connected.

  “Shit,” he said, to no one in particular, confusing her even more.

  Dylan leaned his head back against the roof of her car, looking up at the few stars visible with all the lights around. He looked brooding and dramatic, like one of his videos. He seemed to be gathering himself for something. “Yes. She was in my bed, waiting for me, and I couldn’t…I couldn’t be with another woman with you on my mind. Couldn’t even sleep next to her. I know how ridiculous that sounds. It’s why she was completely pissed at me. And why the guys made fun of me the whole next day.”