When Quentin turned around, Raine was smiling at him, her eyebrows raised. As the door closed behind Mal, Raine and Quentin walked close to each other. She said, “I think I know why you said that to him.”
“And you’d be right. He has that coming and more.”
Raine waved him toward a chair near the dressing table. “Have a seat.”
Looking around at the spacious room, he said, “Nice digs. I don’t think I ever got a dressing room like this.”
“You played guitar in a metal band. Aren’t they known for destroying stuff?”
“Not—well, yeah. Maybe.” Quentin sat down as Raine grabbed two bottles of water off a table, handing one to Quentin while she lowered herself into a chair. “You…have put on a hell of a show, Raine. You should be proud of yourself.”
“Thanks. Yeah, I am.” As she twisted the cap off the bottle, she said, “But there’s an elephant in the room. Can I be completely honest with you?”
“Of course. That’s what I pushed for, if you’ll recall.”
“Yeah, I know.” Letting out a breath, she paused for a few seconds. “But that was in the studio, and it was about my life and what I wanted to share. This…what I want to say, is about you.”
Quentin simply nodded, his face stoic.
“I told you about my mom…how she wasn’t around as much as I would have liked—and the dad I never knew. And then, when I really needed my mom to be there, she practically fed me to the wolves.”
“Yeah.”
“Well…whether I wanted to or not, I came to trust you completely. I respected your opinion and your expertise. And I thought we had something. Something real. So then when you pulled away…”
“You felt like I was abandoning you like your mom.”
Raine nodded. “Yeah, I guess so. And, still, I trusted you. And even after you and—after we got together and then you backed off, we made it work anyway, even though I knew something had changed between us. But you were hardly talking, so I…” Pausing, she eyed the rim of the water bottle and took a long drink, trying to wrangle in her stray thoughts. “Leaving me at the awards show by myself, though. I could understand some of what happened before that—but the awards show was public. We’d planned and agreed upon it.”
He didn’t say anything but nodded and his brow seemed to furrow in regret.
“Quentin, that killed me. I put my trust in you and you broke it.”
He nodded, a crease in his brow. Then he drew in a long breath before speaking. “Yeah, I did. I was a complete and total chickenshit. What I did was thoughtless and—no, it was more than thoughtless. It was selfish and cruel. I made you a promise and I let you down.”
He stopped speaking and Raine let it all settle. Quentin’s ownership of the moment, while much appreciated, was something Raine wasn’t used to. In the past when she and Mal were in their sick relationship, anything that went wrong was blamed on Raine—or circumstances or someone else. She couldn’t remember any time when Mal had admitted wrongdoing or took responsibility for his actions.
This was new…and, regardless of how Quentin had hurt her, she appreciated the way he admitted what he’d done. So she slowly nodded her head up and down as her eyes connected with his again.
Then he looked down at his hands. He was leaning forward, his forearms resting on his thighs, the water bottle on the floor next to his foot, while he looked as if he was trying to find the right words. Finally, he looked up. “I know you know part of my past. You’d…have to be living under a rock to not know some of it.”
“Mm-hmm.”
Breathing in a long inhale through his nostrils, he let it out again and looked straight at her, the intensity of his dark eyes nearly knocking her over. “When I was in Elijah’s band, I had a chip on my shoulder, and I was nothing but trouble.”
“I know.” There was no judgment in her voice. “I can relate.”
“Even today, I can’t tell you if leaving Jokers Wilder was a bad idea, and I don’t care. I don’t regret that. What I do regret is what came after. My failed album. It was like a hot air balloon and, as soon as you turned off the fire, it dropped to the ground.
“And maybe I could have made it past that, even though it hurt. When I left Jokers, the whole idea was to show up Elijah…to show that I was the reason why that band was so good, but I couldn’t. And then the tour to support my solo album…I couldn’t handle the criticism, even though it was all legitimate. So I started drinking and using and it got out of control. And Natalie, my back-up guitarist, was a recovering addict. We had a relationship, but it was centered around using.”
When he grew quiet again, Raine said softly, “She died?”
“Yes. So…when you were at my place and we were working on your album, I saw how the world had hurt you but you refused to be beaten down. I respected and admired that, even though you were rough around the edges and difficult to deal with at times. And I pushed you to be honest in your music, because I hadn’t been—and I’ve been paying the price ever since.
“But, as we worked together and you did tell your truth through your music, I felt this overwhelming need to protect you, to keep you safe—something you never asked me to do. And when we made love, I knew I’d crossed the line. It didn’t matter that you’d wanted to. When I woke up and found you in my bed, I thought I could protect you by shutting myself off. Instead, I hurt you. And too late, I realized after I’d let you down that my fear of destroying everything in you that’s precious and good—giving in to my fear, that was what had hurt you, not the things I’d imagined.” Quentin looked down at the floor again for a few seconds before meeting her eyes again. “I know I can’t take it back, but I want you to know I’m sorry…and I get it if you don’t want me. I’ll walk away knowing that, at least once, I was there for you.”
Quentin had bared his soul to her far more than she’d expected—and she knew he’d been one-hundred percent completely honest. There was no way to stop her heart from responding. “I…forgive you. It turns out me being by myself on that stage worked out well. But I did feel betrayed.”
