Regrets Only by M. J. Pullen Page A

course, but the phone on the table between them
might as well have been on fire, for all he could ignore it. As if reading his
thoughts, the phone dinged again with the voicemail notification. Chad tried to
go back to the crossword puzzle he’d been doing, but he could only stare at the
same two clues. He wondered what Suzanne wanted.
    Fifteen
minutes went by and the phone rang again. David rolled his eyes and looked
accusingly at Chad, as though somehow he had made it happen. Chad knew it was difficult
for David to understand what working for a high-profile event planner really
meant. David had gone for his paralegal certificate within months after they
left college, and had found the job in the wills and estates division of an
enormous firm less than a year later. He walked or biked seven blocks to work
from their Midtown apartment every morning at eight, was free to do whatever he
liked at lunch, and was generally home cooking dinner or out having cocktails
with coworkers by six.
    Chad’s
schedule, on the other hand, came in waves. At times it seemed he worked around
the clock, especially if he and Suzanne were doing several events in the same
week or for something major like this gala. Then there were slower times,
particularly the hottest parts of the summer, when he would work less than twenty
hours a week, half of which were spent cleaning out storage closets or being
dragged around on tangentially related errands with Suzanne.
    In
July or August, it was not unusual for Chad to find himself halfway through a pitcher
of margaritas by three in the afternoon after touring a new conference venue or
golf course. Or he would start his day poring tediously over their client
files, only to be unceremoniously dismissed by Suzanne midafternoon if the
weather was nice out. These were the days he would wander to the farmers’
market to get fresh ingredients for dinner, or surprise David by cleaning the
apartment before he got home.
    David,
however, did not seem to agree that those days balanced out moments like this
one. He had a strict dividing line between his work and personal life, and
seemed to view it as an affront when one intruded on the other. But as systematized
and efficient as Chad and Suzanne had become, the big events never seemed to
lend themselves to automation. Chad often felt that he was on call for Suzanne
the way a surgeon might be for a hospital. David had scoffed at this
comparison.
    Still,
there was the phone on the table between them, singing defiantly into their
unspoken conversation. Chad’s fingers itched to answer it. “It is the
biggest event we’ve ever done,” he offered gently. “Maybe I should at least see
what she wants.”
    “I’ll
do it,” David snapped, snatching the phone off the table. Now it was Chad’s
turn to glare. On the one hand, David’s protectiveness of their time together
was sweet. On the other, his partner’s tendency toward the dramatic was
sometimes misguided.
    “Come
on, we’ve talked about this. You knew when I took this job—”
    But
his protests were futile. David answered in a huff, standing to move out of
Chad’s reach as he did. “Suzanne, it’s David. Do you see what time it is? Do
the clocks at your house say noon for some reason? Because you have some nerve
calling Chad three hours early—”
    Anger
and embarrassment rose in Chad’s throat as the rant continued. When the
occasion presented itself for the three of them to be together, Suzanne and
David normally got along fine. In fact, they had matching temperaments. Today,
however, was not a good day. Dylan Burke’s event was the biggest thing they had
done so far, and if it went well, it could mean more high-profile jobs for her
and maybe a raise for Chad. He was planning to get an MBA in a couple of years
and some extra savings would come in handy during graduate school. David just
didn’t seem to understand that.
    “Mmm-hmm,”
David said following a short silence, and stepped outside on the