Jess pulled her phone out, tucking strands of hair behind her ear. Her shapely tanned legs crossed at the ankles as she stood there looking like my every teenage dream in a rock tee that barely covered her mound. I stiffened, ready for more.
“I just got a call from this number,” she spoke into the phone, her brows furrowing. “Yes, this is her.”
I watched her expression change from one of triviality to horror. “Is he okay? What happened exactly? Oh, god. Where are they taking him? Okay. Okay. I’m coming.”
She hung up in a panic. “I have to go.”
“What happened?” I asked, springing to my feet. “Is everything all right?”
Fear flooded her eyes. “I don’t know. I have to…”
“Here—let me come with you.”
“No,” she blurted out, her eyes widening. “You can’t.”
“I can’t? Why?”
Jess sprinted into the hall and grabbed her clothes out of the dryer, but she didn’t even take the time to put them on. Instead, she sprinted toward the door in my t-shirt and boxers.
“Wait, Jess!”
“I’m sorry, Quinn. It’s an emergency. I have to go.”
“Give me your number. I’ll text you in the morning.”
Jess called it out to me as she opened the door. And before she disappeared, my perfect, complicated woman swung around and said, “You’re a star, Quinn. And now everybody knows it.”
8
Jess: What if…?
It was the call no one wanted to get. The kind that turned the blood cold and sent shivers down the spine. It was an accident, I’d been told. Hit his head. I heardblood. I heardbroken bones. I heardconcussion. And then I heard nothing because the person who’d called to report the news was no longer answering his phone.
Scenes of revenge played out through my head. Someone was going to pay for this. I’d trusted them with his life, and they had failed—miserably. I tried the number again, and it rang and rang. Panic began to creep up on me inch by inch, wrapping itself around my neck and squeezing tightly.
What if…
I sped up, daring a cop to pull me over so I could explain my dire situation. Surely, instead of a ticket, they’d give this woman in need a police escort. Yes, I was in need. Ineededhim to be all right, because if he didn’t make it…
No! Stop with the negativity!The man who’d called hadn’t mentionedwhat-ifs. He’d said everything would be okay. And I had to believe that. I had to get into a positive mindset. Quinn. Yes—I could focus on my rock star golden boy. If anyone could keep my mind from wandering too far down a dangerous path, it would be him and his magic hand.
So much for keeping things friendly. I didn’t know what had come over me. I heard him sing and knew what was sitting next to me. A bright and shining star. Quinn wasn’t just going to be something someday; he was going to bethething. The man I’d spent the day with was on the cusp of greatness, and I couldn’t, in good conscience,notget a taste of his splendor. But immediately following our encounter on the couch, I understood Quinn McKallister was not a sampler at Costco. No, he was that nummy tester you gobbled up then circled back around seconds later, making some excuse for why you were such a needy little piglet.
Wait, what was I even thinking? What if I washissampler? Maybe Quinn was just dipping his toes into the shark-infested groupie waters and I was his very first horny nibble. No doubt after that song hit the airwaves—he’d be swimming in the deep end.
I couldn’t get Quinn’s lyrics out of my mind. Or his voice with its soft, forgiving lilts shifting into something so wrought with emotion and power you thought you might not survive his pain. He’d suffered. There was no mistaking that. And after that performance, he’d be hard-pressed to find anyone not moved by his perseverance.
I was sold. But then, I had been ever since I’d rolled my window down back there on Hollywood Boulevard. My exit had been so abrupt. I wished I’d had time to say goodbye, to make him see how special he was. Because somehow he didn’t know. How was that even possible? How had someone with his talent matured into a man who didn’t think he had any? It wasn’t right and it wasn’t fair. Quinn deserved every good thing that was coming his way. And I had no doubt it was coming—in crashing waves.
Quinn would be a star—like his brother. Oh god. I’d almost forgotten about the brother. How did you wrap your brain around that one? I mean, Quinn wasn’t just the gallant hero who’d carried me through the rain or the sweet man who’d written his initials into my spray-painted heart. Quinn was also the younger brother of a superstar.
I knew the story. Everyone did. Jake had lived a nightmare. But I’d never really given much thought to what the other family members had lived through until I saw the look on young Quinn’s face in that video. He’d been visibly traumatized, making me wonder what impact an experience like that might have had on the development of one so young. Certainly if the song he’d sung up on that stage had been autobiographical, which I suspected it was, then Quinn had lived a heartbreaking tale of loss and fear—and had struggled mightily to put his fractured life back together.
It explained the conflicted man in my car. And it explained his empathy toward me when I’d laid my past out on the line for him. Okay, well, maybe I hadn’t laid out everything. I had left out one glaring truth. Which if revealed, it would explain to Quinn who I was over all else.
Pulling into the hospital parking garage, my tires squealed for the second time that day as I banked into an open spot. I was almost out of the car when I realized that I was still wearing Quinn’s clothes. The t-shirt would work, but the boxers would not get me through the emergency room doors. I struggled into my damp jeans before dashing from my vehicle and taking the stairs two at a time.
This is what you get, a nasty voice popped into my head.He was injured because you put yourself first.No, it was just an accident! That’s what they’d said. An accident with blood and broken bones. I fought the tears threatening to fall because, deep down, I feared that voice was right. Anytime I focused on my own happiness, I put his at risk.
