Playing Dirty (10 page)

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 Japan. The Japanese 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.

“Owen has co-written all his songs with Erin,” Sarah was saying, “which would give the band a stronger leg to stand on if you had to sue him for the right to perform them.”

This all would make such perfect sense if it were true that Quentin, head throbbing, was almost starting to believe it. “What if I promised that we’ll finish the album on time? Not that I’m trying to get rid of you. But we really don’t like being watched. What if I gave you my word that everything’s okay?”

“Your word?” she repeated. “Your
word
? Quentin, everything is
not
okay. Martin’s addicted to heroin. You overdosed on cocaine, you fired your manager, and Erin cheated on you with Owen, all in the space of a month. And your album is due in six days, Quentin,
six days
, and the Nationally Televised Holiday Concert Event in support of said nonexistent album is three days after that.”

“The tele—What?”

“Your Fourth of July concert at the statue of Vulcan.”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” he said, stretching again. “We’ve recorded albums before. We play concerts all the time.”

“That’s not good enough.” She tucked her pink
locks behind her ears and leaned toward him. “Let me explain something to you. Nine months ago, I volunteered for a job overseas. I thought that if I threw myself into it, I might finally get a promotion out of it. Instead, I botched it. Manhattan Music got Nine Lives’ album, but I lost Nine Lives for them. He’s in prison.

“My supervisor at Stargazer told me there was talk of firing me over this. She thought if I took another job for Manhattan Music and did well this time, it might salvage my rep and save my job. You give me my album, you have a nice Fourth of July concert, you make it look like you and Erin are on the mend, and I’ll get my job security back. And then I’ll be out of your hair.”

Quentin closed his eyes. His head hurt.

“You
do
want Erin back, don’t you?” she asked.

“Of course I do!” He was alarmed at the thought that she might suspect the deceit. He sure hoped his alarm sounded more like desperation. “I’m just not sure it’s possible.”

“The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior,” Sarah said. “You and Erin belong together. You’ve shown that over the years. Naturally you’ll make up. The only reason things are different this time is that the balance of power has changed. You always had your manager to run to when you and Erin broke up. Erin didn’t have anybody. Now that you’ve fired your manager,
you
don’t have anybody, and Erin has Owen. I know that makes your blood boil.”

The thought of Erin and Owen together
did
make his blood boil, but not because he was jealous. He didn’t want Owen taking advantage of Erin, and he didn’t want a breakup fight between the two of them tearing the band apart. That’s what Rule Two was for. He hoped again their playacting was as innocent as they claimed.

He had half a mind to tell Sarah all of this, to get rid of her. But he understood now she wouldn’t go. Not until she got her album and they played the concert. And he was terrified she would drive Martin to rehab before he was willing, breaking up the band in the process. For good.

If her price for staying quiet was getting him back together with Erin, he would pay it.

“Right.” He sat up despite his headache. “What’s the plan?”

“We should let Erin think that we slept together last night, and that we’re continuing to sleep together while I’m here. You’ll feel like you’ve gotten some of your usual power back. She’ll get more jealous as time goes on. I’ll bet once you’ve gotten through this rough patch, you’ll make up and your relationship will be better than ever. But my concern is that the band is stabilized long enough to record your album and play your concert. Stick with me until then. Can you do that?”

“I can do that.”

He exchanged a long look with Sarah. After all that had transpired in the last hour, not to mention last
night, she was as cool as ever, and as beautiful. Her hair was different now, glowing in the morning light and tousled in new directions. More blond than pink. With her face scrubbed clean of makeup, she looked younger, innocent, despite the crazy hair. Her soft brown eyes were the same.

He went to his dresser to pull out some clothes, then looked over his shoulder at her. She lay on her stomach on the bed with her elbows propped up and her chin in her hands, watching the show, one foot kicked up and swaying lazily in the air behind her.

“You had this planned all along,” he said casually as he got dressed.

“Pretty much,” he heard her say.

“Were you going to do me?” He hated to put it to her the way he put it to his friends, but he had to stay in character. He looked over his shoulder again for her reaction.

Even without his glasses, he could see well enough to tell that she didn’t flinch. “I had a good idea you’d pass out,” she said. “I have some experience with this.”

“You wanted me to pass out,” he accused her. “You suggested the shots.”

She shrugged, refusing to deny it.

“What if I hadn’t passed out, and we’d been awake, locked in the sound booth together, all night long?”

“Look, I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to sleep together,” she said sagely. “We agree on this now that we’re sober, right? We
are
trying to get you back with Erin.”

“Fair enough,” he said, glad for this excuse not to have sex with her. He couldn’t explain Rule Three to her, that he couldn’t have sex with record company spies, because that might give away Rule Two, that band members didn’t sleep together. And he couldn’t give her that. Then all his leverage to protect Martin would be gone.

“But you like to sidestep my questions.” He crossed the room, knelt in front of her, and looked into her soft brown eyes. “Were you going to do me?”

Her eyes turned hard. He saw strong desire there, and frustration.

She looked down and away as she said, “Don’t be cute, Quentin. You can tell how I feel about you.”

He wanted more than anything to lean in and kiss those soft lips, kiss them into a smile again. But if he started, he wouldn’t be able to stop. He stood, pulled his glasses off the bedside table, and left the room in a hurry.

As he was closing the door behind him, she called, “Quentin, one more thing.”

He looked around the door at her.

“About the coke.”

He said without emotion, “I don’t do coke.”

“Seriously. You stay clean until after the concert.”

“I will.”

“Great.” She smiled at him, friendly, nonjudgmental.

He paused in the hall to collect himself before going downstairs, running both hands back through his hair. Besides the intense headache, he felt off balance,
with every atom of his world turned upside down. Like when he got out of the ICU last month. But he also felt lucky that he hadn’t made love to her, so he wouldn’t get kicked out of the band.

And so he didn’t know what he was missing.

Yes, if you’d had gambling losses, you could have expensed them, but only if the gambling had led to consummation. See the employee handbook, section 2, paragraph 6, “Copulation with the Stars of New Country.”

And no, you should not have hinted to that nice coke addict that you might be pregnant. I don’t care what he did to deserve it or how it advanced your position in your battle of wits with him. You’re going to hell.

Wendy Mann

Senior Consultant

Stargazer Public Relations

It was difficult to close the e-mail on a cell phone
really hard
, but Sarah tried her best, giving the screen a jab with one long fingernail. Wendy was always funny and supportive right up until she wasn’t anymore. And somewhere under the sarcasm, she was almost always right.

What irked Sarah most, besides the haunting tingle when Quentin took her in his strong arms and comforted his supposed one-night stand, was the idea that she’d turned him off to her. He’d been content enough to toy with her on the bed. But by the time they’d finished with each other, he was more agreeable with the plan not to have sex than she would have liked.

There was no way she would get involved with a coke addict. It was for the best. But she didn’t want
him
to think so.

That was her job, though. She’d suspected before that he’d been the one who made the call for help to Manhattan Music. Her suspicion was stronger now. He’d been right to do it, too. She could definitely keep the players in this band playing. She might get herself heartbroken in the process, but not if she had no heart left.

To distract herself from her desire for Quentin and from Wendy’s opinion of her destination in the afterlife—with which she heartily agreed—she checked Quentin’s story by googling
banjo
and
Cox
on her phone. Several articles popped up on Ernest and Velma Cox, honky-tonk musicians during the 1950s who later became studio artists and joined the regular band
at the Grand Ole Opry. From the black-and-white photos posted of the couple, playing their instruments with their mouths wide open, singing their hearts out, it was clear to Sarah that part of their “showmanship,” as Quentin called it, was dressing Velma up in a sequined leotard and fishnet stockings.

“Grandma!” she exclaimed.

There was also a story, with sketchy details because all the eyewitnesses remembered it differently, about Ernest and Velma shooting off a Civil War cannon to draw a crowd to their opening night at a bar in Eclectic, Alabama, and accidentally burning down the church next door.

Some of what Quentin had told her was true, then. The only question was, which part? In her eight years working for Stargazer Public Relations, she’d never had a celebrity tell her the truth when he promised her, “I’m not on cocaine.” If the subject of cocaine came up, the star was on it.

She studied Quentin’s bedroom in the daylight. What she was looking for besides dope, she wasn’t sure. She would know it when she saw it. She’d felt last night that something was off about the band. She’d persuaded Quentin to tell her some secrets, but there were more. He’d told her what he’d told her
very carefully
. This was disconcerting. She’d been able to read Nine Lives like a book. Right up until the last few weeks in Rio, which she hadn’t seen coming.

But there wasn’t much to find in Quentin’s room. As with the rest of the house, it looked like a rich bachelor
had called an interior designer and said, “Furnish my house,” with no further instructions. Each piece of furniture was expensive and elegant and modern and black or brown or tan.

Feeling guilty, and assuring herself that she was just gathering information as part of her job, she opened every drawer in his room. Most of them were empty. A few contained clothes. She slid a hand down the sides and into the corners, searching for small vials or plastic bags of coke. Nothing.