Free No Regrets by Sean Michael

Prologue
     
    Drake sat on the leather couch in his office, going through the piles of mail on the coffee table in front of him.
    There was the to-be-signed pile, which contained the original letter, a brief synopsis of the letter and an eight by ten headshot. All he had to do was read the synopsis, sign the headshot, maybe include a bit of a personal message and move on to the next one. That was the biggest pile, maybe sixty in it, and he was nearly done. Thank God Molly, his personal assistant extraordinaire, signed his name on the headshots that went out in response to the majority of his fan mail or he'd never be done.
    The next pile was smaller, maybe a dozen letters that Molly thought he'd want to read himself. There was a headshot and a blank sheet of paper with each of those, just in case he wanted to write a letter back or give her instructions on it. There'd be stuff from the Make a Wish Foundation and crap like that in there, folks who wanted his personal attention that Molly thought he'd maybe want to participate in.
    The third and smallest pile was the real mail, as best as Molly could figure.
    He made his way through the first pile, trying not to look at the picture--the blond fly-away hair and his own blue, blue eyes staring back up at him was a little freaky. It looked like him, but not, just like the huge picture from his second album cover that hung behind his desk. He groaned, throwing a pillow at the radio when his latest single came on. He was so fucking sick of the whole thing.
    Drake loved the singing. There was nothing better than writing the perfect lyric, or being in the studio laying down tracks, or up on stage, connecting with fifty thousand people.
    But he hadn't written in months, and his last two albums had been ninety percent material by other people. The passion of it, the fun, was slipping through his fingers like so much dust and he just...
    He needed to get away from it all. From the media and the label and the fans and all the things that pulled him from a hundred different directions.
    He finally finished the first and second piles of letters, leaving them on the side of the coffee table for Molly, and started to look through the three letters in the last pile. Two were from his label and the third was from a Scott Dean.
    Scott Dean.
    Damn, why did that sound so familiar?
    He flashed back suddenly to middle school and a skinny kid with a shock of hair, in creative arts class, seventh grade.
    Damn, he hadn't seen Scotty since two weeks before their final exams when he'd quit school in order to go out on the road as the opening act for Van Halen.
    Curious, he read the letter.
    The scribble was dark and hard to read, but familiar as hell. "Hey, man. Saw you on the TV. You look tired as hell. You ought to come see me and chill some, take a rest. You always did work too fucking hard. Grins. Scott Dean."
    God, Scotty Dean. Drake leaned back and let his eyes close, let some of the memories flow over him. He could remember the poster Scotty'd made for the concert he and his band had given in Perkin's barn back in the ninth grade. And they'd both played on the baseball team a couple years, though not all the way through--coach hadn't been impressed when he'd found out baseball wasn't number one for them.
    He wondered if Scotty was still painting.
    Drake must have dozed off because the next thing he knew, Molly was buzzing him.
    He staggered over to the desk, feeling half-drunk from the interrupted nap and hit the intercom button. "What?"
    "Oh, that's nice."
    He rolled his eyes. "Hi, Molly, what can I do for you?"
    She chuckled. "Better. I've got Bob Andrews on the line for you."
    "Tell him I can't take the call."
    "And why not?"
    "I don't care what excuse you give him--tell him I'm not here, tell him I died, I don't care."
    Bob wanted him to confirm a dozen appearances between now and Christmas and to set up another world tour starting in the spring, and he didn't want to do it. Oh, he likely