Free Not Second Best by Christa Maurice Page B

front door and kicked his carry-on down the hall. From the minute Jason had said he wasn’t needed for the next week, all he had thought about was coming home, grabbing Tessa, and stealing her away to the hotel for the weekend. She’d been working hard since before he left town. He could give her a nice break and a nice surprise at the same time.
    Instead of pining away for him, he’d found her behind closed doors with Brian, and almost as soon as she’d laid eyes on him, she’d told him to get lost.
    He’d thought things were getting better. Sure, she sounded distracted when he called, but she was a busy person. That’s what he’d convinced himself of, anyway.
    Tessa didn’t want him? Fine. There were a thousand women in LA who did. He fished through the mess in the hall table drawer until he found his little black book. A nameless body or three would be good, but this ache required special treatment. Leafing through the book, he searched for just the right name and found page after page of too hot, too cold, too soft, and too hard.
    Until he got to the S s. In the middle of the second page, Suzi. Suzi who was married to Brian now. The one who’d never been. He smiled, remembering meeting her on that last tour. All of them drunk with success, surrounded by women. She’d shown up backstage in jeans and a T-shirt, smiling and laughing, and had been the hottest woman for miles. Logan had been a total asshole about her, snarling at anybody he thought looked at her too long. That approach had worked out beautifully when she’d dumped him for Brian.
    Seeing her name didn’t make him ache the way it used to. Brian was a good guy. Whatever he’d been talking about with Tessa, it hadn’t been about cheating on Suzi. Sleeping with Tessa to get over Suzi hadn’t turned out great, but maybe talking to Suzi would help him get over Tessa. Dialing her number, he hoped she had the phone on her. It rang a couple of times before voicemail picked it up.
    “Hey, Suzi, it’s Brett,” he said. “I heard you were back in town, and I’m around, too. I wondered if you wanted to get together for lunch or something. If you have time.” Brett winced. Because he wanted to sound stupid and pathetic. “Anyway, give me a call. Bye.”
    He tossed the phone and the book on the table. Idiot. Next week, when she finally found her phone and listened to the message, she’d call and feel terrible she hadn’t gotten back to him in time. Maybe he should email. That would catch her attention faster. If he had any other friends to hang out with, he’d try them, but they all thought he’d lost his mind when he’d abruptly lost interest in horndogging around.
    The phone rang before he got motivated enough to walk to the computer, so he grabbed it. “Yeah.”
    “Brett! Hi, you just called, and by the time I found the phone, it had sent you to voicemail. Then it started playing that awful you-have-voicemail song. Bleh. So, you wanted to get together for lunch?”
    He smiled. Being friend-zoned by Suzi was not the hardship it should have been. “If you have time. I just happened to be in town.”
    “Brian said he bumped into you at the Touchstone offices.”
    Oh, great. Brian had run right home to spread the word, and Suzi was right now putting the pieces together. On the other hand, Tessa had mentioned something about Suzi trying to fix Brian’s first marriage. She was pretty smart and knew Tessa better than him. Maybe, just maybe… “Yeah, I kinda wanted to talk to you about that. On the QT.”
    “Anything for you. I’m expecting a ton of work to hit me in about three days, so it’s got to be before then.”
    “Tomorrow.”
    “Hang on. Let me make sure Brian doesn’t have plans for us.” The phone was muffled for a second, and he could hear her talking to Brian. They sounded so comfortable together. “Not a problem. I’m yours for the day, but Brian says you have to bring me back in the condition in which you borrowed