When I’d been trying toweasel a tenner out of Miles for having already figured that out that he wascloseted, it’d been an abstract concept. But now Quinn was standing right nextto me, tiny and adorable and with the most effective puppy eyes I’d ever seen,and it hurt to think of him being afraid of people knowing he was gay.
To some people, he wouldhave seemed like he had everything. A life others would do allkindsofthings for.
And yet he couldn’t be himself inwhat was, I thought, one of the most fundamental ways. He had to hide hisheart, or at least hefelthe had to.
“That sounds nice,” he said,ducking his head and then pushing the door open.
Maybe hearing that hadhelped a bit. I hoped so.
The room inside was likenothing I’dever seen before. It’d never occurred to me to imagine a recording studio, butI supposed this was more or less what I would have come up with if I’d beenpressed. About a quarter of the space was taken up by a gray booth with awindow along the long side, and then half of it with computer equipment,speakers, monitors, all manner of things.
The remaining quarter wasreserved for people to stand in.
Crampedwas about thenicest way to put it.
As soon as Quinn entered theroom, everyone turned to smile at him. That was nice. He deserved to be smiledat.
One of these people was likelya traitor, though.
Well. Perhaps traitor washarsh, but atleastone of them didn’t have his best interestsat heart. Probably. There were only a few people who had access to Quinn’s lastalbum pre-release.
Sound engineers and theproducer, along with Quinn’s uncle. Then just a small handful of people at hisrecord label.
I couldn’t rule anyoneout yet. Other than Quinn himself, I hadn’t had a chance to eventhinkabout whether ornot any of them might be guilty. Orwhy.
Whywas the easiestpath towho, but I couldn’t figure out what anyone had to gain from any ofthis. Unless the point was to hurt Quinn?
But what kind of monstercould want to do that?
“Hey guys,” Quinn saidcheerfully, his whole posture changing. Shoulders back, head held high, and asmile playing around his lips.
“I guess first of all Ishould introduce you to Fox. He’s a private investigator, here at the requestof Harmony Records to look into the last album leak, so if you could cooperatewith him, that’d be awesome. Secondly, I can’t tell you how excited I am towork with all of you again! Leak aside, we made a great album last time and Ican’t wait to make another one with your help. You guys make me look great. Orsoundgreat, I guess.”
A round of laughter andnodding suggested they believed that, too. I’d looked up a cursorysummary of how music production was done last night, but I didn’t feelqualified to pass judgment one way or another.
I tried to make myself asinconspicuous as possible in the corner as setup happened, and took one lastglance at Quinn before he disappeared into the sound booth.
This was Quinn as aprofessional. Kind and enthusiastic and much more confident than I’d expected tosee him. But music was his element, and as soon as he was in it, everythingabout him changed.
He glowed.
I watched everyone elseworking for a while, though I doubted any of them were going to make a move onday one of production. Perhaps they wouldn’t make a move at all, withme here.
I was starting to think thatwas why I was really here. To scare them into behaving.
At some point, I looked overto the booth to see Quinn inside, eyes closed and mouth moving. I assumed hewas singing, but the soundproof booth meant I couldn’t hear it.
He was beautiful.
Shit.
Shit.
I couldn’t afford to bethinking like that.Especiallynot after all the hell I’d given Gray. I’dnever live it down.
Quinn might not have been myclient, but as far as I was concerned, I was here to be on his side.
Besides, what he neededright now was aprofessional. Not a lonely private investigator with acrush.
