Playing Dirty (Stargazer #2)(81)
Author: Jennifer Echols

“It’s heroin, Erin,” Martin grumbled, “not cooties.”

Quentin smacked his fist into his hand. “Y’all focus! Did you screw me over or didn’t you?”

Owen had both his arms around Erin now. From the depths of the bear hug, Erin said, “She knew everything, Q. She knew I was pregnant. In fact, the bitch told Owen I was pregnant.”

Quentin struggled to stay upright as a wave of dizziness swept over him. “Oh no!” he said. “No wonder she was so pissed at me last night! She thought it was my baby!”

“Well, now she knows it isn’t,” Erin said simply. “What’s the problem?”

“The problem is that she went to the airport anyway!”

“What are you so stoked about, Q?” Owen protested. “Don’t you think she’d rather date—”

“Marry,” Quentin said. “Don’t you get it? I want to keep this one!”

“Don’t you think she’d rather marry a college graduate than a hospital orderly?” Owen asked. “You’d have been able to hide that from her for about two more days. Too many people know.”

“I realize that,” Quentin said. “Things weren’t going well last night, and I didn’t want to piss her off any more than I already had. But I wanted to be the one to tell her. Otherwise, she’ll think I’ve been trying to fool her the whole time.”

“But you have been trying to fool her,” Erin pointed out.

“I realize that!” Quentin said again before yielding to a fit of coughing, having traveled the full circle of emotion and returned to desperation.

“Outsmarted yourself,” Owen muttered.

“Q, you’re wheezing,” Martin said again. “Go get your inhaler.”

It really was becoming hard to breathe. Quentin stomped across the patio and up the steps. The cigarette smoke had aired out of the kitchen, but he’d let the attack go on too long. He tripped and almost fell on the step on the way in, then fumbled in the drawer for the inhaler.

No inhaler. He’d used it up the day they’d used the adrenaline shot on Sarah.

He had another inhaler in the big-ass truck.

No, he didn’t have another inhaler in the truck. He’d put it in Sarah’s bag at the airport before they flew to New York. Sarah had it.

The kitchen began to close in with his throat. He could get breaths in, but he couldn’t get them back out, so he couldn’t take more in. He felt in his pocket again, took out the ring box, and held it like a talisman.

A phone would be more helpful. His phone was in the truck. He looked around the kitchen for Martin’s, and then somehow he was lying on the cold marble tile.

Owen’s silhouette filled the doorway to the patio. He called back over his shoulder, “Q’s on the floor.”

“The inhaler’s in the drawer,” Martin yelled from outside.

Quentin heard Owen rummage in the drawer. By now, Erin and Martin were in the doorway. Martin said, “No, he used the last of it the day Sarah went to the hospital.”

“Where’s another?” Erin asked Quentin over the wheezing.

Quentin made a scribbling motion with one hand. When someone handed him a pad and pen, he wrote Sarah has it and tore off the sheet for them.

“Why does Sarah have it?” Erin shrieked. “You mean to tell me you’re a respiratory therapist with asthma and you only have one rescue inhaler to your name and, duh, your girlfriend has it?”

Quentin scribbled Help, dumbass, and tore the paper off for Owen.

Owen read it and said, “No shit, Sherlock.”

Quentin wrote 911, handed it to Martin, and waited until he actually saw Martin punching buttons on the phone before he started scribbling a message to Sarah. He noticed with passing interest that his fingernails were turning blue.

16

Liar, schmiar! Who cares? He’s a hot med student country star! And he goes down on you! And he can’t breathe and he needs you! I don’t see a problem.

Wendy Mann

Senior Consultant

Stargazer Public Relations

The agony Sarah endured while stuck in traffic and e-mailing with a horny and irate Wendy was a complete waste, because when she finally arrived at the emergency room, the large receptionists wouldn’t let her back to see Quentin. “We know who you are,” they said, eyeing her hair. “Martin said no.”

“But Martin called me!” Sarah exclaimed.

“He told you Quentin had an asthma attack,” one of the receptionists said. “He asked you not to get on your plane, because Quentin insisted. But did Martin tell you to come down here?”

“He was getting in the ambulance,” Sarah said. “He hung up on me.”

As if that should serve as the answer, the receptionists turned back to their computer screens.

Sarah paced close to them in her high heels and shot them dirty looks. They were unfazed. She thought she heard Quentin’s voice, hoarse, down the hallway. Then Owen’s voice, angry. A series of crashes and women’s screams.

“You let me back there,” Sarah told the receptionists, beating the flat of her hand on the counter.

“Martin said no,” one of them repeated.

“I’m going!” Sarah yelled at the woman, who was about a hundred pounds heavier than her. She moved toward the hallway.

The schlop, schlop, schlop of flip-flops sounded double-time ahead of her, and Erin appeared in the waiting room with an armload of crumpled plastic bags.

“Do you realize they won’t let me back there?” Sarah asked as she passed Erin.

“Stop her,” Erin said to a receptionist, who stepped into Sarah’s path. When Sarah turned to give Erin a piece of her mind, Erin lasered her with blue eyes. “Shut up for just a minute,” she said, dumping her armload on the counter.

She picked up Sarah’s bag from a nearby chair, slid it onto the counter, unzipped it, and began stuffing it with the plastic bags: inhalers, adrenaline shots. It was full to bursting and still she was poking in more shots. Finally satisfied, she zipped it, pressing the edges together so it would close. She took the handle in one hand, grabbed Sarah with the other, and led her to a bank of chairs on the far side of the waiting room.

She leaned close to Sarah and said, “Don’t ever, ever, ever let him be without an adrenaline shot and an inhaler. He’s usually pretty good, but you have to be better.” She told the empty air in front of her, “Q, you are the stupidest genius I know!”