Sarah nodded knowingly.
“And he couldn’t tell you about Rule Three because he didn’t want you to find out about Rule Two”—Erin touched her index finger—“no sex between band members. Our relationship with the record company has been so difficult, and our badass image is so important to our success, that we didn’t want to let on to you what straightlaced nerds we are. In reality, Owen and I have never done it, and Q and I never did it.”
“Yes you did,” Owen protested angrily, as if this were an old and rehashed argument.
“Okay, we did,” Erin said to Owen, “two years ago. But not since we made the rules and got the contract. Do you mind ?” She turned back to Sarah. “That’s why Q made the rule. Q and I fought like cats and dogs when we dated, and he didn’t think the band could survive another relationship like that.
“And Rule One”—she touched her thumb—“no drugs. That’s because Martin had a problem a long time ago.” She glanced at Martin, who smoked his cigarette, seemingly oblivious, clearly high.
Sarah asked levelly, “Why tell me about your rules now?”
Erin said, “Because we want you to be our new manager.”
Sarah’s heart leaped, and her mind raced through the possibilities. A chance to be with Quentin almost constantly, to tour with Quentin. Who wasn’t with Erin. Who was free after all.
He’d told her so many lies in the past ten days.
But he’d told his friends he thought she was hot.
She had to pull herself together. There was more to life than this man, such as the job the band was offering. Surely they planned to top her Stargazer salary. She wondered whether they understood what a gargantuan sum Stargazer paid her to put up with shit exactly like this. She should hint to Quentin privately.
And then she saw how uneasily Erin and Owen looked at her. And when she asked, “Why didn’t you wait for Quentin to come back before you presented this to me?” Martin lit another cigarette.
Owen said, “We’re kicking Q out of the band.”
Sarah looked around at them. Owen and Erin were immeasurably sad. Martin toyed with a third cigarette on the ready.
“I can’t believe you’d do that to him,” Sarah said, unable to quash defensiveness for him. “You’re such good friends.”
“We’re doing it for him,” Owen said. At Sarah’s raised eyebrow, he added, “You don’t understand. Q’s been so driven since his mother died. He was valedictorian in high school and summa cum laude in the respiratory therapy program in college. He aced the entrance exam and got into medical school. That’s why we made the big push to get a contract when we did. He was about to leave the band so he could start medical school, research allergy and asthma, save the world, save himself, and go back and save his mother.
“I knew him before she died. He was sick a lot, but he didn’t let it get him down. He was the class clown. He compensated. After she died, he was still the class clown, but there was always this drive working underneath.
“Five years ago, we formed the band, and I saw that kid again. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen him in front of a live audience, Sarah, but he’s different. Happy. He—” Owen stopped for loss of words.
“Lights up,” Martin suggested, exhaling smoke.
“Yeah,” Owen pointed at Martin, then waved smoke away. “I think Q felt that with the band, he could forget about dying for the first time in a long time. But we knew—or at least I knew—that the drive would come back. And then, after Thailand . . . ”
Owen’s voice trailed off, and Erin took up the story. “We really thought he was going to die in Thailand.”
“I was trying to work out what I was going to say to his father,” Owen confirmed.
Erin looked at Owen in horror, as if she hadn’t heard this particular detail before. Then she went on, “Q thought he was going to die, too. We think he decided then that he needed to go to medical school after all. Only he won’t admit it. It’s like he wants both, he can’t have both, and the two halves of him are driving each other crazy. I mean, he’s always made us do nutty stuff. Did he tell you Owen didn’t really get shot in Crete?”
Sarah shook her head and Owen said, “You don’t have to offer that story, Erin.”
“On our tour stop in Greece,” Erin said anyway, “we went to the beach, and Owen fell on a rock—”
“A javelin rock,” Owen corrected her.
Erin gave a little laugh. “It was a very sharp rock, and went deep in his shoulder. We knew it would leave a big scar like a gunshot wound, and that he wouldn’t be able to play drums for days. Q decided we should use it. We bribed some locals to swear to the press that they’d seen Owen get shot in a bar fight. Then we turned around and systematically denied it. That I could handle, just barely.
“But since Thailand, it’s out of control. He fired Karen without so much as consulting the rest of us. He made us put off recording the album. He decided that he and I should stop fake-dating, and I should pretend to be with Owen.”
Watching Erin with concern, Owen added, “And he was really mean to Erin about her concert.”
“He was so mean about my concert with the orchestra,” Erin agreed. “It was something I’d wanted to do since I was a little girl, and he boycotted it. He said it was bad publicity for us. He said badass country music stars don’t play with an orchestra until they’re ready for their greatest hits album and liposuction. He only let me do it because it was a benefit for the foundation.”
Sarah saw Quentin’s point, but she also saw how much the concert had meant to Erin. Erin’s eyes went cold as she talked about it, clearly recalling the argument she and Quentin had.
“Q basically left the band in Thailand,” Erin said. “We think the best thing to do now is to kick him out and free him to do what he needs to do. Otherwise, he’ll get crazier and crazier, and he’ll bring the band down with him.”
Martin lit his fourth cigarette.
Sarah sipped her beer to buy a few seconds while she tried and failed to reconcile this information. She couldn’t do it. The ignorant, fun-loving lover who had lied to her was simply a different person from the would-be med student who had lied to her twice as much. Did the new Quentin love her like the old Quentin seemed to, or was that an act, too?
It didn’t matter, she decided. She couldn’t solve the Quentin conundrum right now, and she had to take care of herself. She needed to protect her job by keeping the band together.