Free Regrets Only by M. J. Pullen Page A

and she realized she’d been staring at him. “What?”
    “Your
cast,” he said, nodding at her arm. She’d almost forgotten it. “What happened?
Some other poor bastard question your encyclopedic knowledge of baseball?”
    “Accident,”
she said. “Weird, though, because I’m not the accident-prone one. Marci,
though, Marci is a klutz.”
    “And
Marci is…?”
    “My
best friend,” Suzanne said, sounding annoyed that he didn’t already have this
information. “Do try to keep up.”
    “Yes,
ma’am,” he said. His smile broadened, but Suzanne got the feeling he was
smiling at her rather than with her. “Listen, can I walk you back
down?”
    “For
the last time, I don’t need anyone to walk with me. I’m fine!”
    “It’s
not for you,” he said. “It’s for me. If I walk down there by myself, I’ll be
drawn into a hundred different conversations and requests for autographs and
I’ll never make it to my table. I’m hungry. You’re my event planner. Walk with
me.”
    She
stood, still rather wobbly, and he extended his arm. Suzanne took it, feeling
ridiculous. “Thanks,” he said benignly.
    Walking
seemed to help her confused state a little. “I can’t figure you out,” she said
to the young country star as they descended, slowly, down the curving ramps to
the main floor.
    “What’s
to figure out?” he said. Then, with a wry smile, he added, “I’m just your
average Tennessee boy with a crazy family and a private jet.”
    “I
don’t know,” she said, ignoring the joke. Somewhere in the deep recesses of the
medication fog, a tiny but reasonable voice screamed at her to be quiet. Be
professional. Shut the hell up before you say something stupid. “Honestly,
I don’t want to like you.”
    “Thanks,”
he said drily.
    “I
mean, I don’t love country music in general, especially that oversimplified hokey
stuff about farms and tractors. No offense.”
    “None
taken,” he said with a surprised laugh.
    “And
you seem so obnoxious in the press. And in person.”
    “Again,
thanks,” he said. “Do I have to pay you extra for all this honesty?”
    “You’re
a womanizer, too,” she said accusingly.
    “Ah,”
he said. They had reached the bottom of the last ramp and he stood back to let
her enter the lobby first.
    “But
you know what’s weird?” she asked over her shoulder.
    “I
bet you’re about to tell me,” he said.
    “I
like you anyway.” She turned to face him momentarily. She couldn’t tell whether
he was amused or annoyed. “I don’t want to, but I do.”
    He
opened his mouth to speak, and then closed it again. He seemed to be trying to
decide something. After a moment, his puzzled look changed to concern. Only
when he grasped her elbow did she realize she’d been teetering dangerously to
one side. “Don’t take this the wrong way,” he said, “but you don’t look so
good. I really think you should sit down.”
    Suzanne
was searching for an appropriate response, and thinking that Dylan was probably
right, when the tiny bleached-blonde from the baseball game, now in a
skin-tight fuchsia cocktail dress, came from nowhere and flung her arms around
him. She leaned close and cooed in Dylan’s ear. “Come on, baby. You promised
you’d buy me something from the auction before you go on stage.” Suzanne must
have made an involuntary noise, because the girl wrinkled her nose. “What’s the
matter with her ?”
    Focusing
on the girl’s face was difficult, swimming as it was in Suzanne’s vision, with
the stark white walls of the main lobby behind her. But she tried to smile
anyway. “Oh, nothing,” she heard herself say. “I’m fine. You guys enjoy the
auction. Have a great time.”
    Dylan
looked unconvinced. “You need to sit down, Miss Scarlett,” he said. “I’m going
to get you some water. Misty, stay with her.”
    They
sat on a bench, and Suzanne tried to apologize to the girl in fuchsia for the
disruption of their evening. “I’m so sorry. I don’t