Stargazer: Playing Dirty Part 5

He kissed the top of her hair and said soothingly, "I'm sorry. I have a headache. Let's start over. Tell me how you feel about the morning-after pill. I can call my car service for us, and we can go to the pharmacy right now. Actually, no, the paparazzi will follow us. We'll figure it out, though. You tell me what you want to do." He hugged her hard. "I'm so sorry. I'm a really bad drunk."

She felt horribly guilty for lying to him. It was the only way she knew to shove him off balance. And she needed him off balance for the talk they were about to have. But oh, it was even worse to deceive a playboy who turned out to be a decent guy, or at least talked the talk. She didn't like this side of Natsuko.

She looked him in the eye. "Quentin."

He gazed back at her, green eyes sorrowful now through his gla.s.ses.

She couldn't bring herself to say it.

"I know this is an important moment and all," he whispered finally, "but if we're just going to stare at each other, do you mind if I lie down?" He flopped back onto the bed and pressed the palm of his hand to his temple.

"Quentin," she started again.

"Ma'am."

"We didn't do it. You were asleep in five seconds."

After a few moments of silence, he said calmly, "That's a cold game of gotcha you've got going." He sat up and said, "Excuse me while I go sc.r.a.pe my heart off the bathroom floor!" His hand was still pressed to his temple, s.h.i.+elding one eye. His other green eye pierced her.

Then he started to laugh, because he felt relieved, or because he could laugh at just about anything, it seemed. "What is the matter with you?" he asked.

"I was just trying to wake you up-"

"It worked!"

"-and give you back some of what you've been dis.h.i.+ng out. You served me a big margarita gla.s.s full of bulls.h.i.+t last night." She tried not to cringe at her own metaphor. Her mother would be horrified at the imagery.

Now he put down his hand and watched her with both green eyes wary. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, if you're a regular heavy drinker, I'm a horse's a.s.s. And I'm not a horse's a.s.s."

"So you drank me under the table," he said defensively. "But like you said, you've been drinking with Nine Lives, who eats brimstone for lunch and brushes his teeth with Drano."

She raised one eyebrow at him. "I'm going to give you thirty seconds to come clean with me. And then I'm going to call Manhattan Music and tell them there's no way you can have this alb.u.m completed by July first. I'm going to tell them that they should look around for a more dependable country act that can deliver as per contract."

"Okay," he said quickly. He grabbed her hand and stroked his thumb across her palm as he spoke. This was strange. Usually when she had the inevitable adversarial conversation with a rogue musician, the musician backed away from her emotionally, even physically. Quentin came after her, drawing her closer.

It was also strange because she usually felt revulsion at these spoiled stars and their chemical dependencies. This one definitely wasn't revolting. She tingled at the touch of his callused thumb.

"Normally we drink some," he said. "Not a lot. We take turns drinking at big events."

"I'm flattered that I qualify as a big event." She considered grilling him about Erin not drinking at all. But she was reasonably sure he didn't know this. She asked, "Why all the subterfuge?"

He looked confused. "Subter-"

"Why the big production of pretending to be an alcoholic and acting like a dumb hick who can't tie his own shoes? You may not be a rocket scientist, Quentin, but that song you wrote in two minutes last night while you were plastered is going to earn you several million dollars. Why put on this elaborate show for me?"

Now, finally, he drew away from her, dropping her hand and folding his big arms across his pecs. "Because the record company sent you."

"You want Manhattan Music to think you're redneck drunks?"

"Of course." He lay slowly back down on the bed with the muscle control gained from a million sit-ups. Then he patted the bed. Obediently she lay on her side. Now that her surprise attack was over, she ought to move to the leather chair across the room while they had this discussion. But if he felt comfortable with her this close, she supposed she could stand it.

Finding her hand again, he used his thumb to rub and gently tug the sensitive skin between her thumb and forefinger as he explained, "The band got together about five years ago. We worked at our day jobs all week and played gigs on the weekends. We scored festivals where we knew the record company scouts would be, and we sent in demo tapes, and it wasn't enough. We had this terrific, s.e.xy fiddle player-"

Sarah's stomach turned over with jealousy. But this is what she wanted: for Quentin to be in love with Erin. This was good. It was part of the plan. Let go, said Natsuko.

"-and good songs," he continued, "and a great sound, and we still couldn't break down the door.

"Now, let me back up and say that my granddad was a banjo player, and my grandma played guitar. They toured all the honky-tonks in the South in the 1950s. Granddad always told me playing music wasn't enough to bring people in. He and Grandma did some grandstanding. They might never have made it big, but because of their showmans.h.i.+p, they got on as studio musicians in Nashville.

"Course, that still wasn't much of a living, and my dad resented getting dragged around the country and growing up poor. He always told me since my mom died from allergic asthma and I have the same problem, I didn't have any business trying to make it with a band. I needed to hold down a steady job, get health insurance, and take care of myself. A little over two years ago, I was so frustrated with trying to get a recording contract I was about ready to agree with what my dad had always told me and quit the band. Then somebody in the front row at a show smoked a cigarette, and I had an asthma attack."

"Oh no," Sarah said gamely. She wasn't for a second buying this asthma story the band had been feeding the press. Downstairs, Owen had mentioned Quentin's inhaler. Probably more preplanned subterfuge. But she didn't stop Quentin from telling her this tale. To protect the one lie, he might just reveal everything else.

"I had to go to the hospital," he said. "A rumor started that I was on c.o.ke. All of a sudden, we got attention. More people came out to see us play. The newspaper wanted to interview us. I kept telling the truth, but of course the louder I said I have asthma and allergies, the surer everybody was that I was on c.o.ke."

"b.a.s.t.a.r.ds," she said sympathetically.

"Well, that's what I would have thought if I was still listening to my dad," he admitted. "But my granddad had just died a few months before. I could see his whole career, this long span where he almost made it big. I could hear him in my head, talking me into it, telling me a little showmans.h.i.+p never hurt n.o.body."

"Uh-oh," Sarah said.

Quentin nodded. "We decided if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. If people wanted a hot mess with their country music, that's what we'd be. We started getting drunk and staging a fight at every concert."

"Staging a fight?" she repeated. "You mean the table in the pool?"

He took a deep breath, watching her, realizing he'd given something else away, and calculating how to back out of the admission.

She raised one eyebrow.

He sighed, giving in. "Have you ever heard of Mad 'Red' Mud?"

"The professional wrestler?"

"Yeah. He used to work at the steel mill over in Fairfield with Martin's uncle. He taught us some moves. We just try to keep Erin from getting hurt." Quentin shrugged. "Usually it goes more smoothly than last night. I told them I shouldn't get drunk while you were here. I tend to start laughing and lose my threatening scowl. Watch."

He showed her such a ridiculous scowl that she laughed herself.

"When we started setting up fights," he said, "our local fan base increased, because we weren't just getting the country music fans anymore. We were getting the monster truck fans, too, the kind of folks who pay cash money to watch s.h.i.+t crash. That's when the local paper started a column called the Cheatin' Hearts Death Watch. Have you seen it?"

"Yes, I've seen it. You act like you're proud of it."

"I am," he insisted. "That was a big break, because it got Nashville's attention, and then Manhattan Music came calling. Don't look at me like that. Put your eyebrow down." He reached out to touch her brow.

His other hand already held her hand captive in a tingling dance. But something happened when he reached toward her face and touched her gently. His own expression changed. His green eyes turned serious and dark.

Then he was kissing her. Astonis.h.i.+ngly, she was kissing him back. She couldn't resist. His mouth took her mouth. His tongue tangled with her tongue and slicked across her teeth. She was embarra.s.sed that she gasped a little. Natsuko most likely had made out with someone else this year and was used to this sort of thing.

He rolled on top of her, pinning her beneath him with his weight. She started to push him off, remembering that she hardly knew him and he could be dangerous, despite how he'd rea.s.sured her last night-and then his gla.s.ses fell onto her forehead. He laughed, sounding embarra.s.sed for the first time. He seemed so young and vulnerable at that moment that she laughed, too, to make him feel better.

He moved her wrists close together above her head so he could hold them with one hand while he tossed his gla.s.ses onto the bedside table with the other.

"So we got the contract with the record company," he said, and pressed his lips hard on hers again.

"But it was a tough fight," he whispered, biting at the corner of her mouth.

"And then we had to reneg-What's the word?" Through his cotton boxers and her silk s.h.i.+rt, his c.o.c.k moved against her belly.

"Renegotiate," she breathed. "Stop the act. You know the word renegotiate."

He grinned like the devil. "We had to reneg-what you said-between the first and the second alb.u.m." His tongue was inside her mouth again. Between this insistent pleasure and the pressure of the bulge s.h.i.+fting against her down below, Sarah had a hard time following what he was telling her.

He stopped kissing her to say, "And we're d.a.m.n tired of giving the lawyers all the crumbs Manhattan Music throws us. We want to seem crazy enough that the record company is scared to mess with us. But not crazy enough that the record company sends you down here to spy on us."

His kisses deepened. Her body had never enjoyed a man's body more, but her mind spun with realization. He'd just called her a spy. He seemed to take perverse pleasure in keeping her wrists captive above her head while he tortured her. He thought he had her right where he wanted her when the reverse was true. Her job, her whole life as she knew it, was riding on what she did next.

She whispered against his lips, "What about Martin?"

He stopped stock-still on top of her for several seconds, then kissed her cheek, close to her ear. "I'm calling your bluff," he murmured. "What about Martin?"

"What is he doing? Heroin?"

Quentin rolled off Sarah and pressed his hand to his temple so his eyeball didn't fall out. He had one mother of a headache, which had gotten worse each of the many times in the past half hour that Sarah had threatened to ruin his life. It had gotten better each time he put his hands on her.

He'd almost kicked her out of the house after she told him they did it, and then told him they didn't. That was coldhearted of her. But it was hard to stay too mad at her when he had been laying the hick act on thick. And he didn't feel the least bit guilty about getting as close to doing her as she'd let him without actually doing her.

Funny to think he'd gone into the bathroom to take out his sticky contacts and put on his gla.s.ses so he could see the woman he might be having a child with. He'd been terrified that she was an ugly chick he'd just laid because he was drunk. He'd never had a one-night stand before, but he'd heard stories.

Well, as far as he was concerned, the one-night stand with an ugly chick might be an urban myth. The night before, she'd seemed unreal, like an impossibly s.e.xy comic book villainess from another universe. This morning, she was still a gorgeous pink-haired girl, only real, and warm, and barefoot in his bed.

And with superhuman powers of perception. He wondered what could have given Martin away. Maybe the long-sleeved s.h.i.+rt-it had been eighty-five degrees last night. He should talk Martin into linen. No, that would be enabling. But wasn't that better than- "Do you want me to get you some painkillers?" Sarah whispered. She sounded genuinely concerned.

"I already had some." He looked sideways at her. "Please don't tell Erin and Owen about Martin. They'll kick him out of the band. We have a rule about that. No drugs."

"Really. Then why don't they kick you out?"

"Because I'm not a c.o.kehead." Ironic that having asthma had lost them a potential contract two years ago, whereas his fake drug use had made them famous. And now that the band was established, he was willing to admit he had asthma, yet he was in trouble with her for using drugs.

She clearly didn't believe him, but that wasn't what concerned her now. Her dark eyes stared off. He could tell she was doing the algebra in her head. Cheatin' Hearts with Martin on heroin? Or Cheatin' Hearts without Martin? Which would make the record company more money?

She said, "Maybe getting kicked out would help Martin."

Like you care, Quentin thought, but it was important not to let her see how much he hated her. Or the record company that had sent her, at least. He rolled on his side and propped his head on one hand so he could look at her and hold his eyeball in his skull at the same time. With his other hand, he reached over and traced around her belly b.u.t.ton where her s.h.i.+rt had fallen away. She jumped at first, then relaxed against his fingers.

"I've threatened Martin," he told her. "He promised me he'd clean up while we're in Birmingham, before the next tour. It's gotten worse instead. He has a steady dealer in town. But if I told Erin and Owen and we kicked him out, that wouldn't help him. He'd get depressed and use more. Believe me, I've given this a lot of thought. Martin had a girlfriend-"

"Rachel," Sarah said.

"Yeah," Quentin acknowledged, "but he lost her because of the drugs. There are only three things left he cares about in life." He tapped his thumb. "Music." He tapped his pointer finger. "The band." He tapped his middle finger. "Heroin. This isn't the first time Martin's gone off the deep end. I made drug use against band rules for a reason. At first it was the only way I would stay in the band with him. Now it's the only way Erin and Owen will stay. If they find out he's been using, they will s.h.i.+t. We'll have to kick him out of the band, and what's he got left?" Quentin put his thumb and pointer finger down.

Sarah stared at his extended middle finger, which represented heroin. Suddenly he realized he was shooting her the bird. He drew his hand back, but she caught it and held it in both her hands. Her brows knitted as she watched him. "I can tell Martin means a lot to you."

"Well, we've been friends since-"

He stopped himself before he said that they'd been a.s.signed as dorm roommates when Quentin was a freshman in college and Martin was a soph.o.m.ore. Or that they'd shared a tiny apartment on Birmingham's Southside when Martin was earning his master's in nursing and Quentin was starting work as a respiratory therapist. The record company thought Quentin was an uneducated hick. He sure wasn't going to show her his hand now.

"-since before the band got together," he finished. He smoothed his hand under her s.h.i.+rt. She didn't back away, so he cupped her breast and flicked his thumb back and forth across her nipple. She only parted her lips and breathed more deeply.

"Listen," he whispered, "I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell the record company about any of this. But I guess that's too much to ask. And I don't suppose there's anything I could do to persuade you." If she took him up on this proposition, he was going to be in trouble, since he had no intention of breaking Rule Three now that he was sober. But he was pretty sure she was playing him, after that pregnancy threat.

"It's sweet of you to offer." She s.h.i.+fted so that her breast edged away from his hand.

"I wouldn't take it as a hards.h.i.+p. I'm feeling real close to you right now. Five minutes ago, I thought you might be having my baby." He slid his hand back down to her flat belly to drive home his point.

Her face fell. "I'm truly sorry. Like I said, I was just trying to give you a wake-up call. As you woke up."

"Well, t.i.t for tat. Except that your t.i.t was a d.a.m.n sight bigger than my tat." He chuckled. "I'm sorry, Susan. That sounds vulgar, doesn't it?"

If her face had fallen before, now it was utterly flattened. Her brown eyes wouldn't meet his eyes. He could see only her long, dark lashes. She pushed his hand off her belly and corrected him. "Sarah."

"Right, sorry again. Sarah." He hadn't expected her to react quite this way. He'd wanted to put her in her place, not crush her. He reached out to the scar under her chin.

Before he could touch her, she sat up in the bed. "Quentin," she said, all business now, "there is something you can do to persuade me not to tell on you."

"I'm listening." He expected the worst.

"Let me help you get back together with Erin."

He laughed. He stopped laughing when he saw that she was serious. He said, "That may be harder than it looks."

"I don't think so," she said. "You should have seen the look on Erin's face this morning when she discovered us in the sound booth with your hand down my pants."

He didn't need to see the look. He was going to have some explaining to do to the band about that. But he wasn't sure why that was any of Sarah's concern. "What do you care?"

"I don't care so much about you," she said. He wondered whether this was true, or whether she was getting revenge on him for apparently forgetting her name.

She went on, "I care about millions of dollars for Manhattan Music. The Cheatin' Hearts are about to hit the height of popularity. If Erin and Owen remain a couple and you quit the group, which you will, you'll say at first there are no hard feelings. You'll allow the group to continue to play your songs in concert. But eventually you'll refuse, and they'll fight it, and you'll drag them into court. Suddenly the Cheatin' Hearts are number one on a TV special about the biggest band fights ever, and a group of has-beens."

"I can't picture us suing each other."

"Band members never can at first. You're still together. When it sinks in that you're watching your childhood friend screw your girlfriend, you'll think differently."

He reasoned, "Then won't you be worried that Owen will quit the band?"

"No, he hasn't been with Erin nearly as long. Also, frankly, we're not as worried about him quitting as we are about the band breaking up completely, or about you quitting. You're the front man. And you wrote 'Come to Find Out.' Can you imagine a Cheatin' Hearts concert without 'Come to Find Out'?"

Actually, Quentin could. In j.a.pan. The j.a.panese preferred Erin and Owen's ballads of unrequited love. But he saw where Sarah was coming from. And he understood now that the rest of the band had been right. The record company was terrified. He'd pushed too far.