I’d just have to pull myselftogether. No more staring at the tiny, adorable boy who needed a cuddle andsomeone to stroke his hair.
Not even if he was mytype,and becoming more and more that way on an hourly basis.
Even the way he’d grinned at meearlier set off a little swarm of butterflies when I remembered it. Christ. Iwas toooldfor crushes.
Which absolutely wasn’t what this was.No, I just appreciated Quinn as a person and wanted to solve his problem forhim. That was good customer service. We’d built a rapport.
More than I could say forthe way Quinn’scoworkers treated me. Calling it cold would have been like saying the Saharawas a bit dry.
They adored Quinn, though,so they couldn’tbe all bad. I knew I was here as an outsider—here to investigate them—so I hadn’treally expected otherwise.
I sipped my tea when itcame, listening in on conversations and learning nothing useful. Dave waschatty with Quinn, but he seemed to be in charge of the actual recording, sothat made sense. Lucy—the producer—was a firm guiding hand, serious when sheneeded to be but not unpleasant. Noah was practically silent, answering inmonosyllables and grunts, but I’d gathered his job was technical and he didn’treally need to communicate much anyway.
None of them seemed likethey’dhurt Quinn for the sake of it. There was no resentment here unless it wasdirected toward me.
Quinn worked with quietdetermination, recording take after take of the same song until it met hisapproval.
My phone vibrated in mypocket about an hour and a half after the coffee—and tea—had arrived. Lucy gaveme a filthy look, as though the sound might disturb something important.
Miles:you should knowabout this.
And then a link.
I tapped on it gingerly,dread welling up in my gut. I had no realreasonto be worried, butsomething in the back of my mind was buzzing with alarm.
My stomach lurched as theTwitter link loaded.
Everyone was talking aboutQuinn.
Specifically, everyone wastalking about how beautiful his new lyrics were.
With the hashtag#QuinnLyrics.
But I’d been in theroom the whole time, watching everyone work. Had I missed one of them nippingto the loo and uploading something they shouldn’t have to the internet? Couldthey have been that quick about it? Was there even a finished songtoleak, yet?
Scrolling further downanswered my question. Not a song leak.
Photos of a handwrittennotebook page started showing up as I went back. I picked one to open, saving itin case the tweet got deleted.
I hadn’t seen Quinn’shandwriting, and I had no idea whether he used a notebook or not, but I didn’tlike the look of this at all.
Quinn emerged what felt likehours later, checking something with headphones on at the sound station andchatting to Dave and Lucy about it. Most of the conversation went over my head,more pressing matters—to me, at least—taking up the brain space I needed tolisten.
The moment Quinn made eyecontact with me, I nodded to the door. He raised an eyebrow but pushed it openand beckoned for me to follow.
How was I going to breakthis to him?
This was the last thing heneeded, and I had to be the bearer of bad news.
The thought alone was enoughto make my stomach clench.
“Uh, there’s been, umm. Adevelopment,” I said as soon as we were alone, unlocking my phone and openingthe picture I’d saved. “Do you recognize this?”
Quinn’s eyes widenedas I passed him the phone. He pinched the screen to zoom in, what little colorhe had in his face draining. Except for his cheeks, flushed crimson.
“I… where did you…?” heasked, passing the phone back by the very corner, as though he didn’t want totouch it. “Those are my notes!”
He looked as though he’d taken a blowto the back of the head.
