Playing Dirty (Stargazer #2)(40)
Author: Jennifer Echols

She called up anger to match his. “You owe me an album. Until I get my album, you shouldn’t do anything over here that you don’t want me to know about.”

He cracked a smile then. “Anything?” he asked suggestively.

She bent to pick up the magazine, making sure that he got the full view of her back end. “Anything,” she said emphatically. She held up the magazine and waited for an explanation.

He shrugged. “I lifted it from the waiting room the last time I saw the allergist.”

She raised one eyebrow. “You stole a copy of Clinical Immunology and Allergy Today?”

“They were out of Fish and Field.” He ran his hands through his hair as he did when flustered—she was finally able to read him a little. He said, “I didn’t expect you. Clearly.”

“I thought we had a date.”

“You left so late, and you acted all mad,” he accused her.

“You may be mad at me by the time our date is over. Tit for tat, as we like to say.”

“That’s vulgar.” He smiled.

While waiting for him to put in his contacts and find a shirt and the dilapidated deck shoes, she got into her BMW and put the top up. The ordeal promised to be traumatic enough for him. She didn’t want to make it worse by keeping the top down. Then she waited on the hood for him.

“Where are we headed?” he asked, rounding automatically to the passenger side.

“You tell me.” She tossed him the keys.

Instead of catching the keys, he watched them fly through the air and land in the bushes.

She’d expected this might be difficult. Patiently she walked around the car and retrieved the keys—again bending over with his view of her in mind. Then she straightened and dangled the key ring from one finger. “Take me for a ride, and I’ll take you for one.”

He didn’t smile, just leaned back against the hood of the BMW with his arms crossed. “That’s a nice package you’re offering. But there is nothing you or anybody could give me that would make me drive a car.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t drive.”

She didn’t want to have this conversation again. “It isn’t just about driving,” she said. “It’s for the good of the band. Driving will help you in the long run, because it will start to detangle some of the disabling codependence you have with your bandmates.”

“The dis—What?”

“Disabling codependence,” she repeated slowly. “You act like a dysfunctional family. You all make Erin feel sexy so she doesn’t need to seek a stable relationship outside the band. You think for Owen and allow him to be a dumbass. You function for Martin so he can do heroin.”

Quentin glanced toward the house. “Erin and Owen don’t even know about Martin,” he whispered.

“But they’ve unwittingly created an environment where it’s safe for him to be an addict,” Sarah said. “And you know. You’re the primary enabler.”

Now Quentin looked angry again, so she finished quickly, “And they drive you around, or allow you to hire a car without questioning you. Not to mention your diabolical leadership style. You play the rest of them like pawns in your chess game.

“None of you has a mental problem, except Martin’s addiction, which he might get over with help. Potentially, you could function very well together. But you’d have to learn to come together as a band, as a job, and then go home to your separate lives.”

Quentin glared at her. “I thought you wanted me to get back with Erin.”

“Yes, we want to keep that part,” Sarah said despite the knot in her stomach, “but the rest has to go.”

“We got this way because we’re always together. We’re always on tour.”

She shrugged. “Then maybe you shouldn’t tour so much.”

He gave her a look of disbelief. “The record company wants us to tour, to promote our albums.”

“The record company wants the band to stay together and put out more albums,” she corrected him. “So get in the driver’s seat.”

He shifted against the hood of the car and recrossed his arms, as if he planned to stay put.

She’d been afraid of this. It was time she put her Southern heritage to use. She knew how to phrase the proposal in terms a Southern male couldn’t refuse. “Be a man, Quentin.”

He gaped at her. “Oh, Sarah,” he finally said, “don’t play that card. Only my sick old granddaddy was allowed to play that card.”

“Be a man.”

He cursed, slid into the driver’s seat, and slammed the door. Quickly she got in with him. He snatched the keys she held in front of his face, shoved them into the ignition, turned the engine over, and burst into reverse. He stomped the brakes.

She instructed him, “You need to gently—”

“I know how to drive,” he snapped, jerking the car backward again. Finally he’d reversed and stomped the brakes enough times that he had room to pull forward down the driveway. He stomped the brakes again while the gate opened, then jerked the car onto the avenue.

Sarah was alarmed, but she didn’t want to alarm him in turn. After all, she had asked for this. “Where are we going?”

Although the morning was still cool and the avenue was shady, beads of sweat stood out on his forehead. “We’re going . . . to die.”

He looked like death. It occurred to Sarah that he might not have recovered fully from his illness in Thailand. Maybe people looked like this during a heart attack, face pale. She hadn’t been there when her dad died.

“Quentin,” she said. “You’re going to die of a cocaine overdose. Or an allergic reaction, right? And I’m going to die at the hands of a crazed rock star.” The words were harsh, she knew, but her tone was soothing. “We’re perfectly safe in this car.”

She expressed more confidence than she felt, especially when she saw that he was merging onto the crowded highway. She watched for oncoming traffic so she could scream out in panic for him to hit the brakes if necessary. But he looked out for cars in the proper direction. If he could keep from screeching to a halt in another car’s path, she thought they would stay alive. As he’d said, he really did know how to drive. He just didn’t do it.

She settled back in the passenger seat, hoping she appeared relaxed, and pressed buttons on her phone to view her e-mail messages.

He protested, “If I can cut out on the band for this bullshit, you can cut out on People magazine.” Sweat wet his hair and forced it into curls at his nape.