Playing Dirty (Stargazer #2)(39)
Author: Jennifer Echols

He came out brandishing a four-foot-long wooden beam.

Sarah gasped at the same moment that Martin called, “Time!”

Owen was still coming for Quentin, and Quentin braced himself.

“Owen, time!” Martin said, stepping into Owen’s path. “That’s egregious.”

Owen dropped the board.

The Cheatin’ Hearts wouldn’t know the word egregious, Quentin was thinking, so he wouldn’t have to contemplate just yet that his best friend since kindergarten had been ready to kill him. Then he saw the blood. “Owen.”

Owen pulled off his T-shirt and held it to his gushing forehead. Martin reached up, peeled the T-shirt back, and examined the wound. “Stitches,” he proclaimed.

“I’m not going back to the hospital right now!” Owen yelled at Quentin. “I’m sick of the hospital!”

“Me, too,” Quentin said. “I’ll sew it up.”

Sarah called from the hood of the BMW, “You’re not really going to give Owen stitches, are you? Come on.”

Quentin shrugged. “I’ve done it before.”

“In that case, I’m leaving.” She slid down from the hood.

“Oh, please don’t leave,” he said, going to her. He hesitated to hug her because he was soaked with sweat. “You keep leaving.” Sensing Owen behind him, he whirled and socked him with another left hook to the jaw. This time Owen went down in a heap on the driveway. Quentin turned back to Sarah, shaking out his sore hand. “You can stay over at Erin’s house until the bloodcurdling screams die down.”

Sarah waved toward the woods at the edge of the driveway, where cameras flashed from behind the fence. “I have to get to the office to take care of this new PR fiasco.”

He stepped closer to her, despite his sweat. He took her hand and stroked down one slender finger to her perfect smooth nail. “If you were my girlfriend, you’d stay and take care of me because I got my ass kicked.”

Sarah looked down at Owen on the driveway, who might have been unconscious. Martin was slapping him to revive him. She looked back at Quentin pointedly. Then she leaned to his ear and hissed, “If I were your girlfriend, the more I thought about how you came on to Erin, the angrier I’d be.” She slammed the door of her BMW and sped down the driveway in a huff for the second time that night.

Owen was six foot four, but Quentin and Martin managed to drag him into the house and dump him over the back of the couch and onto the cushions. Of course he snapped wide awake when Quentin gave him a shot of anesthetic at the edge of his scalp. He started cussing.

“This needle is nothing compared to that chunk of wood you were about to whack me with,” Quentin grumbled. He adjusted the lampshade so he could see better, and Martin handed him the needle carrier with the needle and suture material.

“I wasn’t going to whack you with it.”

Quentin pulled the first suture taut before he said, “Owen, you suck at poker. I saw the look on your face. You were going to take me out with that two-by-four!”

“Didn’t you want me to pretend to be doing Erin?” Owen protested. “If you ask her to flash you her tits, shouldn’t I act pissed?”

“Owen, you dumbass. No one knew about that except Erin and me, and maybe Martin. You don’t have to fake being pissed at me for something no one knows I did.” Of course, Sarah knew, but Owen didn’t know she knew.

“Well, there’s no reason for you to fake being an ass**le,” Owen griped. “It’s so much easier for us to publicize how you’re an ass**le in real life. Ow! How many drinks have you had?”

“Two.”

Owen groaned, and Martin asked, “Do you want me to sew it up?”

“How many drinks have you had?” Quentin asked Martin.

“More than two.”

“Then, no.” Quentin pulled several more sutures taut, and Owen calmed.

Finally Owen asked quietly, “Are you in love with Erin?”

“Of course not,” Quentin said. “I mean, I love her like you love a friend. A friend with a really nice rack.”

Martin asked Owen, “Are you in love with Erin?”

“No,” Owen said emphatically. “She’s beautiful, but she’s high-maintenance.”

Quentin felt some relief at the verisimilitude of this statement. He’d come to the same conclusion when he and Erin had broken up two years before.

But he would have felt better if Owen had been able to look Martin and him in the eye when he said it.

8

I’m having contractions, but apparently my discomfort is not sufficient for me to be admitted to the hospital just yet. Sarah, we did both agree to get pregnant. I went into this with my eyes open. I know it’s not your fault that things didn’t work out on your end. I’m not blaming you. But when the contractions come, I like you less than before. I can’t help it. If I happen to text you some curse words in the next few days, please consider it my way of including my best friend in this joyful experience.

Much love,

Wendy Mann

Senior Consultant

Stargazer Public Relations

Sarah arrived at the mansion in the morning and peeked into the kitchen. Mouthwatering smells hung in the air, but the counters were clean. Breakfast was over. Listening for a moment at the door down to the studio, she heard Erin’s fiddle, but not Quentin’s bass guitar.

On a hunch, she stepped as quietly as she could out the back door and across the patio, past the pool, to stop under the crepe myrtles buzzing loudly with bees. She looked down the slope toward the screened porch off the lower story. Sure enough, Quentin sat in the lounge chair, intent on a magazine open on his knees, occasionally sipping coffee.

His hair was still damp and wavy from his shower. He wore his glasses, but no shirt, and the sight of his tanned muscles made her fight down a wave of heat. He looked like a commercial for outdoor furniture, or glasses frames, or exercise equipment. He could have sold her just about anything.

She reentered the house and explored the depths, unexpectedly discovering Martin’s bedroom, a small movie theater, and a sauna on the bottom story before she walked through an unfurnished, blank white room to the screened porch.

She jerked the door open and asked, “Where’s my album?”

Immediately she was sorry, because Quentin jumped a foot off the lounge chair and the magazine went flying. They were both lucky he hadn’t been holding his coffee.

“Didn’t anybody ever tell you it’s rude to walk in on people without knocking?” he asked angrily with his hand over his heart.