Trying to appear unconcerned, he wove a blond section of her hair into a pink section as he asked her, “Is Nine Lives out of jail?”
Sounding utterly exhausted, she said into his chest, “Would you please go with me to buy a gun?”
“Sarah—” he started.
“I don’t want another of your lectures on gun safety. I won’t shoot it. Just go with me to pick one.”
“Sarah, hear me out, now. You are the poorest shot I’ve ever seen. Owen is a better shot than you, and Owen once shot his own hound dog.”
“Oh no! Was he okay?”
“Well, he was upset—”
“I meant the dog.”
“Oh. Sure. It just grazed him. But since you’re this poor a shot, and you want a gun this badly, I’d say you need to go to the police. Or tell me what happened in Rio, at the very least.”
“You’re right.” She sat up with a forced smile. “It’s not that bad. He’s probably still in jail. He could have had one of his employees send the flowers.”
This made sense to Quentin. But whether or not Nine Lives was out of jail, he wasn’t going away. He’d remembered Sarah’s birthday, and he’d bothered to send her flowers. Sooner or later, Sarah would be forced to deal with him again.
Quentin knew he’d tried too hard to get her to confess, and that she’d drawn way back, when she asked, “Why aren’t you working on my album?”
“We’re taking the day off,” he told her. “We’re going down to the lake, and you’re going with us.”
“The hell you’re taking the day off!” she said. “My album is due in two days. I’ve got a courier coming!”
“We’re almost done with it.” He reached out to play with her hair again, lacing a brown section into a pink section, despite the look she gave him. “You don’t want the last two cuts to stink, do you? We need to take a break and blow off steam today. We’ll work late tomorrow and be done with it in the afternoon of July first, easy, in plenty of time.” He shrugged. “The others have already left. Nothing we can do about it now. And it’s your birthday.”
She said grudgingly, “I don’t have a bathing suit.”
He gazed at her skeptically. “You just spent nine months in Rio and you don’t have a bathing suit?”
“Nine Lives got up when the sun went down.” She licked her lips as if she had a bad taste in her mouth. Then she brightened. “I know where I can get a bathing suit on our way out. Erin shops there for all her evening wear.”
“Great.” He rubbed his hands together. “Now I just need a place where I can get you a birthday present. You messed up this time, because if you were my girlfriend, you would’ve told me it was your birthday.”
“No I wouldn’t.”
He gave her a look.
“Okay, maybe I would.”
“Mmmm-hmmm,” he said knowingly. “Get your stuff together.” He fished his cell phone out of his pocket and headed into the hallway, dialing Mr. Timberlane, who would know the right jewelry store.
She followed him to the doorway. “Where are you going? What are you doing?”
“I’m ordering you a birthday present,” he said patiently. “What do you like? Diamonds? You seem like an emerald kind of girl.”
She blinked at him, taken aback. It almost made him sick to think that this Harold Fawn jackass never bought her anything.
She said, “Quentin, seriously, I can’t let you do that.”
“You would if you were my girlfriend.”
“No I wouldn’t.”
He gave her the look again.
“Okay, maybe I would.” She grinned.
He rolled his eyes. “Don’t fasten the dead bolt. I’ll let myself back in.”
9
En route to hospital. So far this is not the magical experience promised by all the books we read on childbirth, but I’m sure any second now I will have sunshine and rainbows streaming out of my vagina.
Wendy Mann
Senior Consultant
Stargazer Public Relations
“No working today,” Quentin demanded, reaching for Sarah’s phone.
“Keep your eyes on the road.” She exited her e-mail. “I’m not working. Just checking on my pregnant friend. Hey . . . ” She squinted at the truck pulling onto the highway in front of them. “Is that Owen? They must have been in Target, too.”
“They were. I wasn’t really interested in the Taylor Swift posters. I distracted you while they bought you some birthday presents.”
“Aren’t you busy.” This was one of her mother’s favorite derogatory phrases. She patted the big bench seat of his truck cab. “Looks like you were busy yesterday, too.”
“I was. We finished the big bad recording session in two takes, after all that hullabaloo, because I am so freaking good. And then I went to get my driver’s license. Do you want to see it?”
“I’d love to.” He handed her his wallet, and she examined his laughing photo. “This is the happiest driver’s license I’ve ever seen.” She handed it back to him. “And then you bought this . . . truck.”
“You don’t like my big-ass truck?” he asked in mock disappointment.
She turned to the rear window. “Why does it have a gun rack? You don’t carry rifles around.”
“It’s for effect.”
“And why’d you buy a used truck? Surely you can afford a new one.”
“Effect,” he said again, and started laughing, and laughed and laughed. “If you plan to show reporters my big-ass truck for an article, let me know so I can spill some beer in it.”
Sarah looked in the glove compartment. “I notice you have an economy pack of condoms.”
“Came with the big-ass truck.”
“I’ve seen condoms in your bathroom. These are your brand.”
“They’re for effect!”
She laughed along with him. She had decided to cut him a break, and cut herself a break, and make this her best birthday ever. It wouldn’t be difficult. Her mother had a habit of giving her frilly dresses for her birthday, as if rubbing in what Sarah wasn’t. And Harold had always managed to turn the day around and make it about him.
Earlier that morning, before the parade of bouquets, she’d thought it was damned depressing to be divorced at age thirty. After the note from Nine Lives and the visit from Quentin, she’d changed her mind. How delightful to spend one last day on earth at a sunny lake with her fake boyfriend.