"Yes, ma'am," he'd promised. But he couldn't keep that promise if Sarah wouldn't let him.

It was so frustrating. He walked through the garage to his house, closed the door behind him, and was about to bang his head when Owen bounded up the stairs from the studio, looking alarmed.

Owen saw Quentin and sighed with relief. "I thought you were Sarah."

"What if it had been Sarah?" Quentin asked, walking into the next room, where the TV was tuned to an orchestra performance. "When we're not watching TV, we need to keep it on NASCAR."

"That's not what I was worried about." Owen called across the room in a sharp tone Quentin rarely heard from him, "Erin!"

Erin started up from the couch. She'd been lying curled with her back to Martin.

"What if Sarah comes in?" Owen asked Erin. "Sarah's not going to be convinced you and I are together if you're sleeping with Martin."

This hadn't occurred to Quentin. Erin and Martin took naps together occasionally. He'd never thought much about it. They all were lonely.

Erin sleepily wandered around the coffee table and flopped onto the opposite side of the sectional. "I want a vacation," she groaned. "I want one day, just one day, when I don't have to fake anything."

Quentin was about to make an o.r.g.a.s.m joke when Owen said, "That's what the trip to Thailand was supposed to be for."

"Okay." She sighed. "I want one day when I don't have to fake anything and n.o.body ends up on a ventilator."

Owen turned to descend into the studio again, but Quentin pulled him into the kitchen and whispered, "You can't break a rule with her."

"I was going to remind you about the same thing," Owen whispered back. "You've been gone with Sarah for hours."

Quentin still wasn't one hundred percent sure that what he suspected between Owen and Erin was really going on. He said in warning, "Owen."

"Quentin," Owen said in the same tone.

"Owen." Quentin laughed, because this wouldn't get them anywhere. Owen wouldn't admit anything, if there was anything to admit. All Quentin could do was wait and see, while the world crumbled around them. He couldn't sense that vibe like Erin could. He suspected, but there wasn't any way to find out for sure.

Or was there? Owen went back down to the studio, and Martin disappeared in the direction of the bathroom. Erin was alone on the couch, elbow on the armrest and head in her hand, blond curls cascading over the leather, watching the orchestra through half-closed eyes.

Quentin jumped over the back of the sectional and sat beside her. He took her hand and rubbed her callused fingertips and her fingernails cut down to the quick for fiddle playing, so different from Sarah's careful manicure. He said honestly, "I've been meaning to tell you all week. I feel terrible. I should have gone to your concert with the orchestra."

She gazed at him coldly. "You said you had to stay home so it would look like we were in a fight, to set up the thing between Owen and me."

"I should have figured out a way to go," he said. "I really regret missing it. I know how important it was to you, and I wanted to see you do it. I'm sorry."

"Well, I'm still mad," she said stubbornly. "Check with me in another week. And I don't want to flash you, and it's not funny, so don't even ask."

He stared hard at her. Something in her eyes was different. She'd turned him down before, but she'd at least flirted back. Tonight she was aloof.

He gave her his best teasing smirk. "Let me see them."

He recognized a flash of real anger in her face before she slapped him, hard. She flounced out the door to the patio, headed for her house.

Oh no. She and Owen were lovers.

Martin stood in the bathroom doorway, laughing. "If you have ever deserved to be slapped," he said, "that was it."

Quentin rubbed his cheek, thankful Martin found it funny. Martin hadn't figured out yet that Erin and Owen were breaking Rule Two. Maybe he never would. Maybe he'd never get off heroin, either. The whole thing was hopeless.

Quentin sighed, "Want to go to Five Points?"

"I'm there."

The hip bar had an older clientele and an elegant feel. That's why Quentin liked to create a disturbance there. Martin starting a fight there made more of an impact than Martin starting a fight in a sports bar out on Highway 280. Quentin listened carefully to Martin's shouts from the kitchen over the noise of laughter in the crowded room, but the altercation hadn't escalated enough yet.

In the meantime, he wished a beautiful woman would sit next to him and make inane conversation with him to take his mind off his problems until Martin punched someone. He didn't know what to do about Owen and Erin, and he was so frustrated about Sarah.

Sarah slid onto the barstool next to Quentin. "Buy me a drink?" she asked.

Swallowing his surprise, he murmured, "I was just thinking about you," and retrieved the kiss he'd intended to have in the car. Hands on her face, he let his thumb linger at the corner of her mouth. She hesitated, but her eyes were hard on him with wanting, and a woman couldn't fake that look. As if this helped his predicament.

He liked a little intrigue in case the Cheatin' Hearts Death Watch was observing, but this kiss quickly flamed too hot for a public place, even for him. Her lips were too soft and too open, and he was getting too hard. He ordered her a drink, picked up his own, took her hand, and led her through the press of the crowd to a small booth against the wall. "How'd you find me?"

"I have a mole in all your haunts." She laughed. "Please tell me you're not getting drunk again."

"Oh, no," he a.s.sured her. "Martin and I act like we've had quite a few before we get here. Then I sit at the bar and make pa.s.ses at hot chicks. Just for show," he added when a hurt look flitted across her face. "Martin goes in the back and gets in a fight with the kitchen staff. We try to call the car to pick us up before the cops come. Sometimes our timing is off."

Sarah pressed her thumb to the corner of her mouth, where Quentin's thumb had been. This was unconscious, surely. And that was strange, because Sarah didn't do much of anything unconsciously. Then her thumb moved across her cheek to the scar on her chin, and he knew that was unconscious.

"What's the matter?" she asked uneasily. "Why'd you come down here?"

"Had a fight with Erin."

"What about?"

He took a big swig of his drink. "Flirted with her and she got mad."

Sarah raised one eyebrow. "Flirted with her, how?"

"Asked her to show me her t.i.ts."

Sarah scowled at him. He winked at her, so she'd see it was all in fun. She sat back against her high leather seat.

Uh-oh. She really liked him.

She had really liked him, and now he'd screwed himself.

He said weakly, "She slapped me. She never slaps me. I mean, not for that."

"Maybe she's serious with Owen," Sarah suggested.

Just what Quentin was afraid of.

Sarah went on, "Maybe she realizes you've reached an age where you can't use each other as inflatable dolls anymore."

"Are you saying I'm immature?"

Sarah shrugged. "Most people do want to settle down at some point, and you're still sniffing c.o.ke and asking to see women's b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Maybe Owen looks more stable to her."

"I don't do c.o.ke," Quentin said halfheartedly.

Frowning, Sarah looked deep into his eyes, like she might just believe him. But all she said was, "Maybe you should take a hint. We need to get more serious."

Suddenly the turn of events seemed less dire to Quentin.

"I'll pick you up tomorrow," Sarah said. "We'll disappear again, this time when you have plans for recording, so Erin feels really inconvenienced. In fact, let's go in the morning, so Martin is high and he jumps up and down on Erin's last nerve."

Quentin swirled the ice in his gla.s.s. This sounded to him like a terrific plan. Any plan involving disappearing with Sarah sounded terrific. But the band would be genuinely angry with him if he skipped out on a recording session. "What about the alb.u.m?"

"To help the band stay together, it's worth it. But you'll have to refrain from goofing off another day. I want my alb.u.m."

A crash in the kitchen overwhelmed even the noise of the bar. "Time to go," Quentin said, sliding his phone out of his pocket. "I'll call my driver."

"I'll drive you," Sarah offered.

Now there were shouts, and the kitchen doors burst open. Three of the cooks herded Martin in front of them, out the door of the bar.

By the time Quentin and Sarah reached the street, the Birmingham paparazzi had swooped down on them. A grizzled freelance photographer took color stills for the newspaper. Two teenage boys from the Alabama School of Fine Arts shot footage they sold to the local news stations. They were always. .h.i.tting on the two black-clad college girls working on a senior project for their photography studio. Quentin had spent a couple of hours at a bar once with the art school girls, letting them take his picture, pretending to get drunk, and pretending not to be interested in the social commentary underlying their paparazzi project.

He winked at one of the girls and then, for the benefit of the cameras as well as his own satisfaction, kissed Sarah hard on the mouth. Or started to. A police siren wailed somewhere on the dark mountain. He jerked Martin away from the irate cooks and shoved him into the backseat of Sarah's BMW amid the flash of cameras. Quentin hopped into the front pa.s.senger seat. With a squeal of tires, Sarah pulled away from the curb.

Quentin leaned over and whispered, "Erin would be so p.i.s.sed if you came in the house with me."

With a sidelong glance at him, Sarah nodded. Score!

He spent the ride home touching Sarah's hand on the gearshift and watching her perfect b.r.e.a.s.t.s heave in her plunging shirt. And, oh yeah, making small talk with a half-drunk Martin. Which didn't stop him from fantasizing about what he would do to Sarah when he got her into his bedroom again. After all the kissing and flirting they'd done, he hadn't even seen her bare b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Something had to give.

But when they pulled into the driveway, Erin's car was gone. d.a.m.n.

"Where's Erin?" Sarah asked, sounding almost disappointed.

Quentin sighed. "I'll bet she went home. Mostly she lives with her grandma in Irondale. Even if we're working on an alb.u.m, she leaves when she gets sick of us."

"This late? Will she be back tonight?"

"Probably not," Quentin said before he thought. d.a.m.n again! He should have waffled, and then maybe Sarah would have waited around to make Erin jealous, and ended up staying all night.

"Thanks for the ride, Sarah," Martin said as he slid out of the backseat and closed the door.

Sarah turned to Quentin. "I think we're still in good shape. We have tomorrow morning. And surely Martin and Owen will tell Erin they saw us together tonight."

"Owen?" Quentin asked.

Owen sat on the tailgate of his truck in the garage, glowering at Quentin.

Quentin cursed.

"What's the matter?" Sarah asked.

"I don't know," Quentin said, stepping out of the car, "but I've got a feeling I'm about to find out."

Owen didn't let Quentin stand up straight before he lunged at him. He knocked Quentin into the fence beside the driveway and held him there with an undercut, then another. The last time they'd fought this hard was before Thailand. Quentin couldn't get his breath.

Sarah and Martin were nearby, sitting on Sarah's BMW. Sarah asked, "Are you sure they've practiced this fake fighting enough? Because that looks like it really hurts."

"This isn't fake," Martin told her.

"I'll say," Quentin forced out as he finally mustered the strength to shove Owen away from him. Luckily, Owen lost his balance and smacked onto the pavement. Normally Quentin wouldn't take advantage, but Owen had taken advantage of him first. He kicked Owen in the ribs. Not as hard as he could, but pretty d.a.m.n hard.

"How do you get them to stop?" Sarah asked.

"They'll stop soon," Martin told her. "Q can't go for too long at a stretch."

"Ah, a little stamina problem," Sarah said knowingly.

"What?" Quentin exclaimed, turning toward her.

But before he could demand clarification on exactly what Sarah and Martin meant, Owen yanked his leg out from under him. He hit the concrete flat on his back and lost his breath again.

Martin was telling Sarah, "You should know best."

Quentin scrambled up. As Owen tried to stand, too, Quentin caught him with a left hook to the jaw, which usually made Owen call uncle. But this time it didn't even slow him down. Quentin wasn't sure what happened next, but he found himself upside down against the fence.

He rolled backward and slowly staggered up. "I'm thirty," he groaned.

Martin called, "You're only as old as you feel."

"Then I'm eighty," Quentin declared, looking around for Owen. Now that the headlights of Sarah's BMW were off, it took him a moment to find Owen in the darkness. He was back in the garage, reaching into the payload of his pickup.

He came out brandishing a four-foot-long wooden beam.

Sarah gasped at the same moment that Martin called, "Time!"

Owen was still coming for Quentin, and Quentin braced himself.

"Owen, time!" Martin said, stepping into Owen's path. "That's egregious."

Owen dropped the board.

The Cheatin' Hearts wouldn't know the word egregious, Quentin was thinking, so he wouldn't have to contemplate just yet that his best friend since kindergarten had been ready to kill him. Then he saw the blood. "Owen."

Owen pulled off his T-shirt and held it to his gushing forehead. Martin reached up, peeled the T-shirt back, and examined the wound. "St.i.tches," he proclaimed.

"I'm not going back to the hospital right now!" Owen yelled at Quentin. "I'm sick of the hospital!"