Playing Dirty (Stargazer #2)(49)
Author: Jennifer Echols

And as she watched him, her whole perspective on him shifted. He definitely wasn’t on drugs. Everyone and everything told her this. She knew all the signs of drug abuse. He displayed none.

And he wasn’t stupid, either. He was oddly eloquent through the colloquialisms. He was smart enough not only to make up hit songs off the top of his head but also to impress her mother at bridge and converse in Hindi. And to manipulate his band’s public relations campaign masterfully. He might even be cultured. He and Owen had both seemed awfully absorbed in Dostoyevsky the day she walked in on them.

He was putting on an act with her. Playing a game. Which meant he was a lot closer to being the man of her dreams than she wanted to admit.

But to him, she was still the enemy, the public relations rescue worker for the record company. He was only passing the time with her while they fixed his relationship with Erin.

Just like Sarah had promised him.

“Uh-oh,” he said. The lines around his eyes deepened as he squinted at her.

“What’s the matter?”

“You’ve changed your mind about something.”

She stroked his fingers as if she weren’t alarmed. She must have dropped her poker face for a moment. “Like what?” she asked.

“You tell me.”

That would do neither of them any good. She changed the subject by sitting up and shading her eyes with one hand. “Let’s swim out to that island across the lake.”

“I can’t make it that far.” He turned his head away from her on the towel. “Have you been lying still too long? You go run around the house a thousand times and come back.”

“You’re a big, strong man. What do you mean, you can’t make it that far?”

“I have asthma,” he said without opening his eyes.

She supposed he really did.

“I’m not saving you, Q,” Erin called. “I’m officially off 911 duty for today.”

“I’m drunk,” Owen said. “I’m ready for Chimney Rock.” He and Erin began to gather towels from the pier and put them in the motorboat floating at the end. Quentin stood with a groan and pulled Sarah up.

“What’s Chimney Rock?” she asked.

“A tradition whenever Owen’s drunk,” Quentin said. “Good publicity. Candid shots by onlookers make it into the Cheatin’ Hearts Death Watch.” He glanced uneasily toward the house.

She reached up and smoothed her hand over Quentin’s hot shoulder. “I’ll go get Martin.”

Quentin said quietly, “I’ll go. You shouldn’t have to deal with him when he’s like this.”

“It’s part of my job,” she said. “You deserve a break.” She walked up the pier and across the lawn, toward the house. She turned around once. Quentin was watching her. Even though she knew he wasn’t playing for keeps, she felt a hot flush of pleasure at seeing his gaze on her. She rode that warm wave into the house freezing with air-conditioning.

Martin lay on the sofa, just as he had when Erin and Sarah passed him earlier. But he was awake now, staring at the vaulted ceiling.

Sarah knelt beside him on the carpet and took his hand. She said gently, “Martin, if you OD before you finish my album, I may lose my job.”

“What do you mean—” Then their eyes met. “Okay,” he said, defeated. “Don’t tell Erin or Owen. They’ll kick me out of the band.”

“So I’ve heard,” Sarah said. “You’re making things very difficult for Quentin.”

“I know,” Martin said. “Q doesn’t understand evil like you and I do.”

Sarah went still. She heard her own heart beating. Yes, she’d seen evil in Rio. Somehow Martin sensed this. And he was in a similar evil place now, battling his drug cravings.

He drew her hand onto his chest and held it open with both his hands, rubbing his thumbs over the lines as if reading her palm. “I have a birthday present for you,” he said gravely. “There’s a gun. In my room. In the top left-hand drawer of my dresser. It’s unregistered. It can’t be traced back to me. Or to you.”

They watched each other for a few long moments. Martin was not Nine Lives, yet he’d guessed at another man’s drug-fueled obsession with Sarah.

And he was afraid for her.

“The gun’s there for you if you ever need it.” He smoothed his thumb across her palm one last time, erasing the dark future he saw there.

She squeezed his hand, trying to give him a lot more comfort than she felt herself. “Come on, let’s go get some sunshine.” She pulled him until he reluctantly got up from the sofa and followed her down to the motorboat, where the others waited. And she tried to leave that feeling of foreboding behind.

But now Erin caught Sarah’s eye and patted the empty seat beside her in the bow. Sarah smiled and climbed into the boat, over Owen, toward the inevitable. Quentin backed the craft away from the pier and sped across the glinting water. Crouched below the lip of the boat, Sarah and Erin could hear each other perfectly, while the men couldn’t hear them at all above the roar. Here it came.

Sarah went first. “I’m sorry about what I said to you yesterday. It was a gut reaction. I didn’t know why Quentin wasn’t driving, but I thought it was important for him to get over it. And I thought his friends would be happy for him,” she added, hoping to induce a guilt trip.

Erin wasn’t falling for it. “I know it’s not my place to say, because Q and I aren’t together anymore. But it pisses me off that you come in here and try to fix everything and act like you know what’s going on, because you don’t.”

“He clearly had a problem. I helped him solve it. How can that possibly get under your skin?” Sarah asked, knowing exactly how.

“You have no idea,” Erin said. “He gets mad at us for mothering him, especially me, but I can’t help it. I’ve known him five years, and I’ve sat with him in the ICU twice this year, thinking he was a goner. I’ve sat with him in the hospital a bunch more times. I don’t know how many times I’ve been with him to the emergency room and they let him go the same day. We do that so often, it doesn’t even register.”

“You feel protective of each other.” Sarah nodded. “But there’s a point at which protectiveness becomes codependence.”

“I don’t think that’s bad,” Erin said. “Q provides the master plan, and comic relief, and food. Owen manages the money.”