Playing Dirty (Stargazer 2)

Sarah asked levelly, “Why tell me about your rules now?”

Erin said, “Because we want you to be our new manager.”

Sarah’s heart leaped, and her mind raced through the possibilities. A chance to be with Quentin almost constantly, to tour with Quentin. Who wasn’t with Erin. Who was free after all.

He’d told her so many lies in the past ten days.

But he’d told his friends he thought she was hot.

She had to pull herself together. There was more to life than this man, such as the job the band was offering. Surely they planned to top her Stargazer salary. She wondered whether they understood what a gargantuan sum Stargazer paid her to put up with shit exactly like this. She should hint to Quentin privately.

And then she saw how uneasily Erin and Owen looked at her. And when she asked, “Why didn’t you wait for Quentin to come back before you presented this to me?” Martin lit another cigarette.

Owen said, “We’re kicking Q out of the band.”

Sarah looked around at them. Owen and Erin were immeasurably sad. Martin toyed with a third cigarette on the ready.

“I can’t believe you’d do that to him,” Sarah said, unable to quash defensiveness for him. “You’re such good friends.”

“We’re doing it for him,” Owen said. At Sarah’s raised eyebrow, he added, “You don’t understand. Q’s been so driven since his mother died. He was valedictorian in high school and summa cum laude in the respiratory therapy program in college. He aced the entrance exam and got into medical school. That’s why we made the big push to get a contract when we did. He was about to leave the band so he could start medical school, research allergy and asthma, save the world, save himself, and go back and save his mother.

“I knew him before she died. He was sick a lot, but he didn’t let it get him down. He was the class clown. He compensated. After she died, he was still the class clown, but there was always this drive working underneath.

“Five years ago, we formed the band, and I saw that kid again. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen him in front of a live audience, Sarah, but he’s different. Happy. He—” Owen stopped for loss of words.

“Lights up,” Martin suggested, exhaling smoke.

“Yeah,” Owen pointed at Martin, then waved smoke away. “I think Q felt that with the band, he could forget about dying for the first time in a long time. But we knew—or at least I knew—that the drive would come back. And then, after Thailand . . . ”

Owen’s voice trailed off, and Erin took up the story. “We really thought he was going to die in Thailand.”

“I was trying to work out what I was going to say to his father,” Owen confirmed.

Erin looked at Owen in horror, as if she hadn’t heard this particular detail before. Then she went on, “Q thought he was going to die, too. We think he decided then that he needed to go to medical school after all. Only he won’t admit it. It’s like he wants both, he can’t have both, and the two halves of him are driving each other crazy. I mean, he’s always made us do nutty stuff. Did he tell you Owen didn’t really get shot in Crete?”

Sarah shook her head and Owen said, “You don’t have to offer that story, Erin.”

“On our tour stop in Greece,” Erin said anyway, “we went to the beach, and Owen fell on a rock—”

“A javelin rock,” Owen corrected her.

Erin gave a little laugh. “It was a very sharp rock, and went deep in his shoulder. We knew it would leave a big scar like a gunshot wound, and that he wouldn’t be able to play drums for days. Q decided we should use it. We bribed some locals to swear to the press that they’d seen Owen get shot in a bar fight. Then we turned around and systematically denied it. That I could handle, just barely.

“But since Thailand, it’s out of control. He fired Karen without so much as consulting the rest of us. He made us put off recording the album. He decided that he and I should stop fake-dating, and I should pretend to be with Owen.”

Watching Erin with concern, Owen added, “And he was really mean to Erin about her concert.”

“He was so mean about my concert with the orchestra,” Erin agreed. “It was something I’d wanted to do since I was a little girl, and he boycotted it. He said it was bad publicity for us. He said badass country music stars don’t play with an orchestra until they’re ready for their greatest hits album and liposuction. He only let me do it because it was a benefit for the foundation.”

Sarah saw Quentin’s point, but she also saw how much the concert had meant to Erin. Erin’s eyes went cold as she talked about it, clearly recalling the argument she and Quentin had.

“Q basically left the band in Thailand,” Erin said. “We think the best thing to do now is to kick him out and free him to do what he needs to do. Otherwise, he’ll get crazier and crazier, and he’ll bring the band down with him.”

Martin lit his fourth cigarette.

Sarah sipped her beer to buy a few seconds while she tried and failed to reconcile this information. She couldn’t do it. The ignorant, fun-loving lover who had lied to her was simply a different person from the would-be med student who had lied to her twice as much. Did the new Quentin love her like the old Quentin seemed to, or was that an act, too?

It didn’t matter, she decided. She couldn’t solve the Quentin conundrum right now, and she had to take care of herself. She needed to protect her job by keeping the band together.

“I appreciate the offer,” she said, “and I’m flattered that you think I could handle this mess. But I can’t be your manager, for a couple of reasons. First, you say you’re coming clean with me, but you’re lying to me even now. I’m not Karen. I can’t work this way.”

“What do you—” Erin began innocently.

“Oh, come off it, Erin,” Sarah interrupted. “I would love to believe that kicking Quentin out of the band is purely altruistic on your part. But you and Owen”—she waved her fingers between the two of them—“are ha**g s*x with each other, and you both want to kick Quentin out before he kicks you out.” She turned to Martin. “And you’re so far gone on heroin that you’re backstabbing your best friend. You’re kicking him out of the band so you can do drugs without him hounding you.”

Erin gaped at Martin, her eyes filling with tears. Owen slumped over with his elbow on the table and his chin in his hand. Martin flicked ash, too high to be particularly concerned.

Sarah didn’t pause to let it sink in. While she had them off balance, she went on. “The other reason I won’t be your manager is that the Cheatin’ Hearts will never make it without Quentin. You could get a new lead singer, but you’d never recapture what you have now. I doubt Manhattan Music would even re-sign you without him.

“You could break up, and each of you could make it on your own. You could have long, successful careers in Nashville. Write songs. Join other bands. Produce albums for other people. But you can’t go on as the Cheatin’ Hearts. Each of you is integral to the group, but Quentin is—”

As she paused to find the words, Martin offered, “The life.”

Sarah took a big swig of beer and banged the bottle down on the table with finality. “I have a flight to New York soon. Tell me how we’re leaving this so I don’t have to come down here again.”

Erin said quietly, “You need the group to stay together to keep your job, right? So don’t tell Q we had this conversation. Maybe he won’t self-destruct, and we’ll go back on tour like we always planned.”

“Girlfriend.” Sarah felt tough athlete Sarah rise up to subdue crafty Natsuko. “You are not hearing me. You’re in denial. You can’t go on tour and pretend nothing’s happened. Martin is addicted to heroin, and you’re pregnant with Owen’s baby.”

Erin watched Sarah for one, two, three beats, unmoving, expressionless, so long that Sarah thought she’d guessed wrong.

Erin burst, “You bitch!” at the same time that Owen exclaimed, “What?”

“Ouch,” Sarah said, “and you haven’t told Owen.”

Owen and Erin jumped up from the table simultaneously. Erin screamed at Sarah, but Owen blocked her with his big body.

Sarah stood up and clacked across the flagstones. It was a relief to close the kitchen door on the screaming. She slid her bag from the counter.

When she turned around, Martin stood in the kitchen with his lit cigarette. “I’ve enjoyed having you spy on us, kid.” Swaying a little on his feet, he took her hand.

“Me, too.” She looked into his beautiful dark eyes behind the crooked glasses. She asked him, “Are you going to kick it now? You’re the link between Erin and Owen on one side, and Quentin on the other. You’re going to have to take some positive action to keep the band together. You’ll lose everything you love if you don’t.”

Martin squeezed her hand. “Ask me again when I’m sober.”

They stood in exactly the spot where Quentin customarily kissed her good-bye and banged his head on the door. Martin kissed her on the forehead. And then she walked through the garage to her car.

For the first few minutes of the drive to the airport, she felt numb, thought nothing. Then pieces of the puzzle began to fall out of the sky, littering the highway in front of her.

She was devastated. Last night, Quentin had tried to tell her. He’d basically asked whether she could take him as she thought he was, and she’d basically told him no. Having him turn out to be a brilliant college grad on a mission to save the children should have been a bonus. It was no good trying to explain to him now that she would have jumped at the chance if it hadn’t been for Erin.

She was outraged. He’d lied to her over and over and over. He had pretended to her that he didn’t know the word renegotiate.

But above all, she was hopeful. There would have been no reason for Quentin to pursue her last night after sex when he knew she was leaving for New York soon, unless he meant it. He loved her.

It was just a matter of finding him.

For the first time in nine months, she didn’t have a plan.

Well, the plan definitely should not include a trip to the airport. She turned the BMW around at the next exit and headed back the way she’d come. And quickly ground to a halt in a traffic jam. She heard on the radio there was a collision up ahead between a busload of fans headed to the Nationally Televised Holiday Concert Event and a limousine.

She might as well make use of this downtime. Maybe Quentin had left her a message. She reached into her bag and switched her phone back on. As she drew it out, her eyes fell on Quentin’s asthma inhaler, which she’d forgotten to leave at the mansion.

She flinched as the phone rang in her hand.

Quentin jumped down from his big-ass truck. He ran through the garage and into the kitchen.

And hit a wall of cigarette smoke.

“Q!” Martin exclaimed. He let out a stream of epithets, this time directed at himself, because he’d smoked in Quentin’s path. “Man, I am so sorry!”

Quentin stumbled, coughing, out the back door to the patio. Erin and Owen’s argument echoed against the house. He told them desperately, “Sarah checked out of her hotel last night, and she’s not answering her cell.”

Erin and Owen didn’t even slow down. Quentin glanced over at Martin, who had sat down at the patio table, cigarette butts and ash around his chair. Quentin fleetingly wondered what could have stressed Martin out so badly that he needed to smoke even when he was high. In the name of self-preservation, when they roomed together in college, Quentin had convinced Martin to stop smoking. Or so Quentin had thought. But that could wait.

“Hey!” he said.

Erin paused in yelling at Owen just long enough to tell Quentin, “She came here and now she’s gone.”

Quentin stepped between Erin and Owen to stop the stream of vitriol. He took Erin by the shoulders and looked down into her big blue eyes. “When was she here?”

“She just left,” Erin said, her eyes meeting his gaze for the first time. “Q, we’re all aware that you need to use your inhaler. So go do it. You can’t always be the center of attention.” She laid into Owen again. Incredible.

“I need to be the center of attention right now,” Quentin said, leading her by the hand to the chair beside Martin. Next he shoved Owen toward a chair, and Owen was so engrossed in his conflict with Erin that he didn’t even shove Quentin back. Now they were all sitting down, with Quentin standing in front of them, about to make the smartest or the stupidest move of his life, and Erin and Owen were still going at it. Finally Quentin shouted, “Shut up!”

Erin and Owen shut up, shocked at being yelled at by someone other than each other.

“I slept with Sarah,” Quentin said.

Owen’s eyes narrowed. Erin’s shoulders sagged. Martin let his head loll back on his chair to gaze at the treetops.

“I slept with Sarah,” Quentin repeated in a rush, “and I love her, and I’m going to ask her to marry me. I have a ring and everything.” He felt in his pocket to make sure the ring box was still there. “Well?” he asked impatiently when Erin and Owen continued to stare at him and Martin continued to be high. “Are you going to kick me out of the band?”

“We already tried that,” Owen said, “but Sarah wouldn’t let us.”

It was Quentin’s turn to stare in disbelief. “Sarah told you I broke Rule Three?”

“No, but—” Owen held his head in his hand now. “Martin broke Rule One.”