Playing Dirty (Stargazer #2)(13)
Author: Jennifer Echols

As Owen pushed her toward the guesthouse, Erin stopped to whisper in Martin’s ear, her hair streaming water on the flagstones.

“How am I supposed to do that?” Martin asked her. They were talking about Quentin.

Erin whispered to Martin again, then let Owen direct her toward the guesthouse with his hand on her thong.

“Stay with me,” Quentin repeated to Sarah.

“Quentin,” Martin said in warning.

Quentin said in the same tone, “Martin.” Martin had a lot of nerve reminding Quentin not to break Rule Three. They both knew Martin would break Rule One sometime in the next eight hours. Quentin attempted to give Martin the evil eye, and ended up laughing instead. Oh well. “Come on, beautiful,” he said, tugging Sarah’s hand.

“I can’t,” she said. “I mean, I can’t do that. But maybe I could stay awhile longer, and we could talk.”

“Talk?” Quentin puzzled.

“Or sing,” she said. “I haven’t heard you sing in person, after I’ve come all this way to save your band.”

“My band doesn’t need saving,” he lied.

“Oh, come on.” She squeezed his hand. “Don’t you love to sing? Why else would you make a career out of it?”

“Hm.” They both took several steps back to avoid the splash as Martin dove into the pool, still wearing his boxers and long-sleeved shirt. After a few seconds, he appeared in the shallow end with the table in tow and attempted to wrestle it up the steps.

Suddenly, after all the lies the band had told to Sarah and each other tonight, Quentin felt compelled to tell her the truth. Or he was so drunk, he was afraid he’d get caught if he told another lie. “I love to sing with the band,” he admitted. “I love performing for a crowd, the bigger the better. I thrive on the energy.”

He must have been grinning like a jackass eating sawbriars, because she nodded expectantly and gave him the most beautiful smile.

“But I don’t serenade nice young ladies one-on-one,” he explained. “That would be weirdly vain of me. I’d rather find out more about you.”

“I guess I’ll go back to my hotel, then.” She reached for her bag slung over the back of her chair.

“But for you, I’ll make an exception,” he said quickly. He tugged her by the hand toward the house—more gently this time, so he wouldn’t scare her—and called over his shoulder, “Good night, Martin. Good luck with that.”

“Fuck you,” Martin called back.

Quentin led Sarah through the kitchen and down the stairs to the control room. By the time they landed on basement level, he had the first few lines and a tune in his head. He amazed himself by still remembering to flick off the control room light before he pulled her into the sound booth, so the glow around the edges of the door upstairs wouldn’t give away to Martin where they’d hidden themselves. He wanted to impress this beautiful woman. He wished he could do more, but it was enough that she wasn’t leaving yet.

It couldn’t have impressed her, though, that he didn’t have perfect pitch like Martin. He sang, “You lost your shirt / I ain’t lost nothinnnnnnnnnnn,” holding out the “nnnnnnnnnnn” and fumbling around the piano keys until he figured out the note he sang was a G. Great! He and the key of G-major were buddies. “Sit down,” he told Sarah, taking his hand off the high end of the keyboard to pat the piano bench beside him. When he felt her warmth at his elbow, he played and sang what was in his head, a simple progression of one chord, four, five, one, repeat, with pretty fills between the lines.

I lost my shirt.

You ain’t lost nothing.

I lost my shoes.

You ain’t lost a thing.

He glanced at her. She watched him with serious eyes. Serious called for replacing the major ones in the middle with minor sixes, so sad.

I want to go

Up into my bedroom.

You had to choose.

We ain’t had a fling.

Now a money note in the melody, up to the higher G.

I want to know

Why I can’t get lucky.

Need the queen of hearts

Always draw a king.

Now the end. The first line repeated the melody he’d established, but the other three lines took a detour into quiet darkness, stopping on a question mark of a major four that made audiences uncomfortable and won Grammys.

I lost my heart

To a lady from the city.

I asked you to dance.

You asked me to sing.

The vibration of the piano strings lifted, leaving him and Sarah alone together.

“I love the way it ends, down low,” she said softly, sexily, nearly a whisper. “I didn’t expect it to go there.”

“Yeah. You try not to get too repetitive. Go in the opposite direction from what your instincts tell you, to shake it up. Martin taught me that.” Martin had taught him a lot in the twelve years they’d been friends. And now that Martin really needed him, Quentin hadn’t been able to do shit.

“Is it on the new album?” Sarah asked.

“This song? I doubt I’ll remember it in the morning.” That said, Quentin started through the chord progression again. If he could commit it to his sloshed memory, maybe Martin could do something with it.

“You mean you made that up while we’ve been sitting here?”

“Sure, can’t you tell?” he asked over the chords.

“In retrospect, yes. As I was hearing it, I was just thinking it was very appropriate to the situation.”

“Very appropriate, and it sounds super drunk. ‘Strip Poker Blues’ ought to be a jaunty two-step. This is a melancholy ballad.” He looked over at her. Her brown eyes were huge, and her hair in every color fell soft around her heart-shaped face. “Because you turned me down.”

She smiled kindly. “We can’t hook up, Quentin. I get the distinct impression that would drive the band apart. I’m here to keep you together.”

“We’re not breaking up,” he said to his hands spread across a four-octave B-minor chord. He wished this were true.

“You know what?” she asked. “Let’s call it a night. You seem really tired.”

He laughed. “I seem really drunk. I’m so sorry. I’m a terrible drinker. They made me get drunk because it was my turn.”

She was standing beside him then, with one small hand on his shoulder. “I’ll help you to your room.”

He grinned up at her.

“And that’s all,” she said sternly. “Promise me, Quentin. I’ve had a client before who wouldn’t take no for an answer.”