Playing Dirty (Stargazer #2)(11)
Author: Jennifer Echols

And a nasty scar following the line just under her chin, as if the soft girl playing hard had gotten in over her head at least once.

He was sure the punk Amazon attitude was an act. Despite the fact that most of her was showing, he didn’t see a tattoo on her anywhere. If she were who she’d seemed at first, there would have been a heart in flames on her lower back. He didn’t feel annoyed or threatened by her deception. He was thrilled that she’d attempted to play a player.

And he was eternally thankful that he had the good luck to be single. He was the logical one to pair off with Sarah, whereas two weeks ago, when he was still pretending to be with Erin, it would have been Owen who was unengaged. As he thought this, Quentin balled his fists—then realized what he was doing and tried to relax. He needed to stand down. Neither he nor Owen could be with Sarah, ever, because that was against Rule Three. But still.

He’d had the idea to hand Erin off to Owen last year, reasoning that a love triangle among the band members would be terrific tabloid fodder. But he hadn’t insisted on it until he’d decided to fire their manager, Karen, so she wouldn’t find out about Martin’s drug use and spill the beans. They’d never let her in on the band rules. She’d believed Quentin and Erin were (mostly) together. This had kept her at arm’s length, expecting nothing but a good time with him.

Karen had been beautiful. Karen had been smart. Karen had even been a pretty good manager. She’d been able to steer the band through all the crises they’d made up, and some they hadn’t. Karen had been an excellent lay. But Karen didn’t have that—

As he sat down beside Sarah at the table, she looked up at him with those dark-fringed brown eyes and smiled.

—spark. “I swear you’re just as sober as you were when you got here,” he told her, making sure she could hear his disappointment.

“Tequila doesn’t make me stupid, I’ll give you that.” She touched his knee. “It does make me loose. How about a shot?”

Quentin raked back his chair again and ran inside. He brought out one of the bottles of tequila and two shot glasses and poured for each of them, ignoring the looks he was getting from Erin and, you know, whomever. Who cared?

“To loose,” he toasted Sarah.

She clinked his glass with hers and said, “Lautrec.”

Toulouse-Lautrec, 1864 to 1901, he remembered from a college art history class twelve years before as he downed the shot. He had to be careful or something like that would come out, and then they’d be forced to build an even more elaborate facade to explain to Sarah that he was some kind of idiot savant.

She picked up the bottle of tequila and examined the label curiously, but she didn’t seem drunk. She was beating everyone at poker. Of course, he was drunk, and during the next hand he lost to her again and had to throw his shirt into the pool, yet he was still coming in second. But that was because Martin sucked at poker, try as he might to keep his long-sleeved shirt on. Erin was pretending to suck at poker. And Owen, on top of sucking at poker, was pretending—at least he’d better be just pretending—to give all his attention to Erin.

After a few more hands, Quentin told Sarah, “I hope you’re still getting loose, because you ain’t getting stupid, far as I can tell.”

She winked at him over her cards. “Tolerance. I spent the past nine months in Rio with Nine Lives.”

“Oh boy,” Quentin said. He wished she’d mentioned this when he first brought out the shot glasses.

“The rock star?” Martin asked. “I thought I read in the paper that he’s in jail down there.”

Owen gave Sarah a thumbs-up. “Good job.” Erin hit him.

“He went to jail on day two hundred seventy-five.” Sarah sounded irritated. “I kept him out of jail for the first two hundred seventy-four. You try it.”

“I feel better,” Quentin said.

Sarah poured two more shots, downed hers, and pointed at Quentin’s. “Are you going to drink that?”

“What do you call him?” he asked her. “Nine, or Mr. Lives?” He knocked back his shot.

“Either, if you’re having sex with him.”

Quentin spit out his shot, just managing to hit the patio rather than Erin’s bare leg.

Erin squealed, “Gross!”

Unfazed, Sarah refilled Quentin’s glass. “If you’re not, Bill.”

Quentin knocked back the shot again and said, “You ain’t answered the question. What do you call him?”

She grinned at Quentin. “Bill.”

He let his eyes travel lazily from her crazy hair down her curves to her high heels. “That’s a little hard to swallow.”

Erin stood up. “Q, I’m on empty. Come help me make more margaritas.”

Quentin sighed. Usually he didn’t mind cooking, but these people acted like they couldn’t even make themselves a ham sandwich. And he was busy getting in Sarah’s pants. “Step one,” he said, “take lime juice from freezer—Ow!” Erin was pulling his hair. “Don’t move,” he called to Sarah as he followed his hair into the kitchen.

Erin pushed him against the oven and stood with her hands on her hips. “What are you doing? Are you trying to break Rule Three and get kicked out of the band and leave me with these two nutcases?”

“Y’all have got to let me break Rule Three,” he pleaded. “Just this once. You have to admit this is special.”

“You made the rules,” Erin said. “If the rest of us can’t break them, you sure as hell can’t.”

Quentin sighed. “But she’s so pretty.”

“I know.” Erin patted his chest sympathetically. “And it’s so cute to see you happy. You’re staring at her like you can’t believe it.”

He laughed at the accuracy of that statement. And kept laughing.

“Lay off the shots,” Erin said. “We shouldn’t have made you get drunk.”

“It’s too late now.” He laughed.

The door opened. Sarah walked in behind Erin and leaned against the refrigerator. Quentin stepped toward her.

Erin scowled at both of them, then went back out to the pool, wiggling three fingers above her head.

Sarah touched the side of her nose and asked him, “What happened right here?”

He touched his own nose, feeling the fresh scab from earlier that evening. “Erin slapped me. What happened right here?” He traced a line under his chin equivalent to her jagged scar.