Playing Dirty

by C. L. Parker

  “What?” Now I was panicking.

  Like I’d said, Quinn had a flair for drama, and though he had threatened self-harm before, he’d never followed through on it. Regardless, we couldn’t and wouldn’t ignore it. “Why didn’t you go over there?”

  “We did!” Demi said. “We went over to his place to check on him, but the door is locked and he won’t open it. He’s also not answering his phone anymore. We thought you might have a key.”

  “Shit, I don’t.” Quinn and I had discussed it, but we’d never done the exchange. “We have to get over there.”

  Sasha pulled her cellphone out of her purse. “I’m calling Landon now so he can pick us up.”

  “Good idea,” I told her, and then I realized I was forgetting about one very important person in the room. “Um, I’m so sorry, Denver. Can we finish this later?”

  He stood, genuine concern written all over his face. “For fuck’s sake, don’t apologize, Cassidy. Your friend needs you. In fact, I’ll go with you, if that’s okay?”

  “Sure, sure.” I grabbed my purse and hurried to the door, hot on the heels of Demi, who already had Chaz on the phone as well. Ally looked up from her desk when we passed, worried. “I’ve got to leave,” I told her. “Cancel the rest of my appointments for the day, and if Wade asks, tell him something urgent came up.”

  “I’ll take care of everything,” she said with an encouraging smile, and I knew she would.

  I was still looking back at her when I stepped out into the hallway, which caused me to almost rearrange my own face during a near collision with Shaw’s chest. My knees threatened to buckle under the weight of seeing him again, but thankfully, he’d been paying attention and caught me by the shoulders before I fell on my ass.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Where’s the emergency, gang?” he asked, taking note of the brigade.

  There were things Shaw and I needed to discuss, but right now my thoughts were solely on Quinn. I had to leave.

  “I can’t do this right now,” I said, pushing him aside as I started toward the elevator.

  “Ouch! What’d I do?” The ouch was nothing more than the blow to his stupid ego.

  Demi repeated the situation since—surprise, surprise—we had to wait for the elevator anyway. I guess maybe we did have the time, but I certainly didn’t have the patience.

  “I’m going with you,” Shaw said, stepping into the lift with us.

  Thank God for Landon and his testosterone-driven need to own a big truck. His Armada was a party bus capable of holding our whole crew. By the time we’d reached the building that held the penthouse suite Quinn shared with Daddy, Chaz was pulling up next to us on his motorcycle. We didn’t waste any time with pleasantries because only one concern was on all of our minds. Quinn.

  The elevator rode up at a snail’s pace, or so it seemed, though I was sure it was faster than taking the eighteen flights of stairs. Quinn’s number had been on constant redial on my phone, but he hadn’t answered for me, either. The last time, I could tell he’d sent me directly to voice mail, so I’d left a message for him.

  “Quinn, I swear to God, if you’ve done something incredibly stupid like die, I’m going to kill you.” No, what I’d said hadn’t made any sense, unless you counted that I’d jump in front of a train so I could track his ghostly butt down and commit spectral homicide, thereby sending him to purgatory. That would teach him to ignore me.

  Finally at his door, I knocked once, twice, three times. A chorus of his name being called by almost everyone present echoed through the corridor, but he didn’t answer. So I started pounding. “Quinn! Open this door right now!”

  Sasha put her hand on my shoulder, silently asking me to back up and give her a shot. “Quinn, sweetheart,” she said, using the sugary approach, “we love you and we’re here for you. Open the door, sweetie. Please?”

  Still nothing.

  Demi shoved her way through the crowd and got down to it: “Stop being dramatic and open this door before I call the fire department to break it down!”

  “You don’t have to call them,” Shaw said, shocking the hell out of me. “Step aside.”

  And because I’d been struck stupid, I did. There was a door standing between my best friend and me, and I had no idea what condition I might find him in. My emotions were in the driver’s seat, and everything else could be dealt with later.

  Shaw centered himself before hurling his full weight toward the barrier at an angle that turned him into a human battering ram, with his shoulder in the lead. It took him a couple of runs, but finally, the wood on the frame splintered and gave way.

  I’d been to Quinn’s lavish digs right after he’d moved in. We all had. This didn’t look anything like the same place. The plush alpine-white carpet was there, and so were the crimson walls, but the furniture and decor that had given the space its European hoity-toity appeal were gone. It was bare, empty. Nothing on the walls, no drapes at the windows. All that was left were remnants of packing tape, boxes, and bubble wrap, scattered about the floors and counters like someone had moved in a hurry.

  “Quinn?” I called out. Damn the rest of the place. My best friend was the most valuable asset those walls had ever or would ever see, anyway.

  “I’m in here,” came his tearful voice from the bedroom.

  I’d never been so relieved. Nor, in an effort to get to him, had I ever moved so quickly. I didn’t know if it was to ensure that he was okay or to kick his ass for making me worry. Definitely to ensure that he was okay, and then I’d kick his ass. If Demi didn’t beat me to it. Or any of the rest of our friends, since they’d all managed to push their way past me to get at him.

  “Oh, my God! You scared us to death!”

  “Why didn’t you answer the door?”

  “Why didn’t you answer your phone?”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Did you take anything? Quinn! Did you take anything?”

  Wow, so I wasn’t going to have to say anything at all. Quinn was sitting against the far wall, with his clothes and shoes scattered about the room. No way had he done that. Quinn was much too meticulous about his attire to do such a thing, even in a fit of rage.

  Overcome by all the questions flying at him, Quinn put the heels of his palms to his temples as he closed his eyes and rested his head against the wall with a huff. “I’m sorry I scared you. I didn’t answer the door because I didn’t want to see anyone, and I didn’t answer the phone because I didn’t want to talk to anyone. No, I am not okay, but no, I didn’t take anything. Though if any of you have a magic pill that will just make it all go away, I’d sure appreciate it.”

  I got down on the floor with him—awkwardly, thanks to the stupid pencil skirt I’d put on for the office this morning—and snuggled into my distraught friend’s side. “Make what go away, Quinn? What’s wrong?”

  “What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” He threw up his hands. “All you have to do is look around you to see what’s wrong.”

  “Let me guess,” Demi said, flanking his other side, and Sasha took the seat before him. “Jennifer Aniston’s decorator didn’t get paid, so she came and repo’ed everything?”

  Chaz snickered, but I did my best not to smile, while giving our inappropriate friend a disapproving scowl.

  Sasha had done a better job of it than I. “Seriously. What happened?” She opened her purse and took out a pack of tissues, handing them across the way.

  Quinn took one and wiped at his nose. “Turns out … Daddy doesn’t like ultimatums. And neither do I.”

  “What ultimatum?” The level of concern I heard in Shaw’s voice, along with his recent display of heroism, had me questioning everything I thought I knew about him. Was this a new development or something that had been there all along and I had refused to see?

  “I did it, okay? I told him I was tired of being kept hidden, that it had taken me too long to come out of the closet only to be shoved back into it. I tried to make him see how much happier we could be if we didn
’t have to keep our love from the rest of the world.” Quinn’s diatribe interrupted my silent musings, and I placed my attention back where it should be, on my best friend.

  “And what did he say?” The cracking sound of Chaz’s knuckles was every bit as intimidating as his voice.

  Quinn rolled his eyes, his annoyance at the answer preceding the actual words. “He kept going on and on about his children, about his wife, saying he wasn’t ready and probably never would be. And then he said if I couldn’t be happy with him the way things are without ever expecting more, there was no need for us to stay together.” Quinn shook his head. “I should’ve just kept my mouth shut.”

  Demi put her arm around him. “But, sweetie, you weren’t happy like that.”

  “Does it look like I’m happy now? Take a look around. I lost everything. And now I’m homeless,” he said as he leaned his head on Demi’s shoulder and sobbed into her hair.

  “Good God,” Demi said, holding her nose and edging away. “When was the last time you showered?”

  Quinn pulled back to look at her. “Seriously? My life is over and you’re insulting me?”

  “Oh, stop being so dramatic. Your life is far from over. He was just a man, and there are plenty more where he came from.”

  “But I love him, and he doesn’t want me.”

  Demi shrugged, matter-of-factly. “Rejection sucks. But it doesn’t mean you give up. If the one you want doesn’t want you back, it’s not a big deal. Someone who does will come along. I promise you that.”

  I couldn’t help but notice the way Chaz’s body flared up, his energy sending waves of “over my dead body” through the air. Good. Maybe that was the incentive he needed to finally get off his ass and do something about it.

  “Maybe, but until then, I’m all alone.”

  “All alone?” Denver said, stepping forward. He looked at each of us and then at Quinn. “How can you possibly be all alone when you have six friends who dropped everything to be here for you? Six! Do you have any idea what I’d do to have just one?”

  Quinn must not have noticed him before, though I wasn’t sure how a behemoth like Denver could ever be missed, crowded room or not. “Holy shit … what is Denver Rockford doing here?” He turned away and wiped at his cheeks and eyes. “Oh, God, I’m a mess. Don’t look at me.”

  Denver copped a squat right along with us. “No, you’re not. Your head’s a mess, and maybe even your heart, but none of that translates to your outward appearance.”

  “Liar,” Demi coughed. Honestly, I didn’t know what we were going to do with her, but we really wouldn’t have her any other way.

  Denver, however, really surprised me. I’d seen so much machismo from him that I never would’ve guessed he had it in him to be this person standing before me now. He was handling Quinn so well, saying just the right thing at just the right time.

  What a lousy friend I’d turned out to be. I’d been so consumed with my own crap that I hadn’t been there for Quinn the way I should have. I hadn’t even known he was considering broaching the topic with Daddy in the first place. Of course I wouldn’t have tried to talk him out of it, so we’d still be in the same situation, but that sort of thing was something a best friend should have known was about to go down.

  “Quinn, I’m so sorry you’re hurting,” I told him. “I know this really sucks, and there’s really nothing anyone can tell you that will make you feel better, but everything happens for a reason.”

  “Everything happens for a reason, he was never good enough for you anyway, you deserve so much better, and the sun will come out tomorrow, betcha bottom dollar, blah, blah, blaaaahhh,” he said. “Logically, I know all those things. The problem is that I’m not feeling very logical right now, because my heart has been blown to smithereens. And I just feel like … like ripping his fucking head off!”

  “Then do it,” Denver told him. “Not literally, of course. Figuratively.”

  “I vote we don’t take the literally part off the table just yet,” Demi said. When everyone looked at her, she shrugged. “I’m just saying … I’d like to get my hands on him.”

  Chaz groaned. “Dammit, woman! You are always trying to make me go to prison.”

  Demi drew her head back. “How is that making you go to prison?”

  “Because if you touch him, he’s going to want to touch you back, and then I’m going to have to stop him from breathing.”

  “Awww,” Demi cooed. “You’d kill someone for me?”

  Chaz shifted, looking around at his boys to see if they thought he was less of a man somehow. Then he puffed up his chest and set his shoulders high. “Yeah. Of course I would.”

  The pink hearts floating in the air around Demi were something magical only women had the power to see. Except in Demi’s case, they looked more like tattooed hearts with Cupid’s arrows piercing their centers.

  “You know what? You’re right, Denver,” Quinn said, getting to his feet and ignoring the slightly disturbing version of the “I like you, do you like me? Check yes or no” game Demi and Chaz had had going on for as long as I’d known them. He marched out of the bedroom and toward the front room, leaving the rest of us to scramble after him.

  Quinn stopped when he saw the door and turned to look at us, pointing in that direction with an expression that said, “What the fuck?”

  Shaw read him loud and clear. “Oh, yeah, about that … I, um … I sort of broke your door.”

  Quinn straightened and seemed almost pleased. “Good,” he said with conviction. “You can tear it off the hinges for all I care.

  “Just look at this place. This was supposed to be mine, and he took it all away … to give to her.” He turned, surveying every corner. “Well, she can have him. But she’s not getting this goddamn penthouse without having to do as much cosmetic surgery to it as she’s done to her own silicone-and-plastic self.”

  Quinn went over to the fireplace and picked up the decorative poker, everything about his walk screaming revenge.

  “Quinn, what are you going to do?” I asked warily. Sensing that he wasn’t going to answer my question, I made to follow so I could see for myself, but Shaw held out his arm to bring me to a gentle stop.

  “Let him go,” he said. “He needs this.”

  “Needs what?”

  Seconds after Quinn disappeared into the master suite, I found out. Quinn’s growl was infused with true anger and resolve, a battle cry one might have heard from a soldier who’d been overrun yet determined to take as many of the enemy as he could with him to the grave. The crunch of fracturing glass followed, and for a second, I got that feeling of unease superstitious people must get when they realize that seven years of bad luck is on the horizon. But all of that went away, released with each tinkling of the bathroom mirror’s shards as they hit the sink and floor.

  I understood then. Quinn did need this. In a way, I was jealous that I didn’t have an outlet of my own. Though the responsible thing for me to do would have been to stop him, for once in my life, I didn’t feel like being the sensible one. I wanted my friend to have this. I wanted him to have it for the happiness he’d been denied and for all the times he’d been taken advantage of and hurt without the satisfaction of retaliation.

  Moments later, Quinn stepped out of the bedroom with his head held high, even though his cheeks were streaked with tears.

  “Are you okay?” Sasha asked.

  “Nope, but I’m getting there,” he said. “You might want to stand back, sweetie.”

  Landon put his hands on Sasha’s shoulders and pulled her against his chest protectively just as Quinn drew the poker back like a bat and took a mighty swing. I flinched when he hit the crimson wall, leaving a gaping hole in the aftermath of his fury. The chalky plaster hanging by threads of paper from its mouth reminded me of fleshy organs spilling from a traumatic wound. If the disturbing sigh of satisfaction from Quinn as he admired his work was any indication, I’d say that was just the effect he’d been going for.
/>   But he wasn’t done yet.

  Moving to another spot on the same wall, he inflicted wound after wound. I stopped flinching after the third and smiled victoriously along with him. When he was done, Quinn stepped back to admire the work with a tilt of his head. The misfortune of the one who broke Quinn’s heart was equal to obliteration on a level that was every bit as personal as the misdeed itself. Daddy’s request that Quinn keep his secret had been denied.

  The truth would not be as easily erased as the relationship, because it was written on the wall. Well, carved into it. Giant letters spelled out, “HE’S GAY!”

  Quinn dropped the poker in dramatic fashion before dusting off his hands. “What’s done in the dark will always come to light, bitch,” he said, then turned his back on it to face us. “I’m ready to go home now.”

  Home was exactly where he belonged. I was his family. We were his family. And if being a child of Stonington, Maine, had taught me anything, it was that a family took care of its own.

  I linked arms with my best friend, and we headed for the door. “Don’t worry, Quinn … you’ll always be welcomed home, because family is the one thing you can count on.” I looked over my shoulder, shooting laser beams of guilt at Shaw with my eyes. “Or at least that’s the way it should be.”

  CHAPTER 17

  Shaw

  Cassidy Whalen was a persistent little brat. I’d lucked out well enough over the weekend when she hadn’t made an appearance at Monkey Business, though I’d planned a speedy escape if she had. But when the entire hubbub with Quinn had gone down and she’d made the comment about family, I’d known she hadn’t let go of what she’d seen in Detroit. That woman was going to be the death of me.

  I’d played nice enough in order to get Quinn’s things moved back into their place, but even then she’d kept taking jabs at me. So much so that the rest of our friends had stopped and asked what was going on between the two of us. Cassidy had laughed it off, feigning innocence, and I’d looked at her like she was crazy—because she fucking was—and even though I knew they hadn’t believed either one of us, they’d let it go.