Next In Line: A Cake Series Novel

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Next In Line: A Cake Series Novel Page 5

by J. Bengtsson


  Remembering the exchange between him and Alan, I replied, “That’s too bad. Sounds like you were a really good singer.”

  “Great,” he moaned, as if already pegging me as a nuisance. “So you do know who I am, then?”

  His douchey response irritated me. The guy was a contestant on a shitty television show. Did he really think the world was clamoring to know him?

  “Relax, dude. Not everyone is up to date on their Next in Line trivia. I haven’t watched that show since my acne cleared up in seventh grade.”

  “Oh, I… it’s just… you said I was a good singer,” Quinn stammered, realizing his mistake too late to save himself. To his credit, he actually looked embarrassed by his narcissistic comment. “I thought…”

  I knew what he thought—that I was some groupie girl scrambling to get inside his shiny up-and-comer pants. That was far from reality. Well… okay… maybe not that far. But I wasn’t one to hold grudges, especially with a guy as attractive as this one.

  “I get how you were confused. No worries,” I said. “But let’s just assume, for the remainder of your car ride, that everything I know about you was obtained in that three-minute conversation you had with Alan Forrester.”

  “Got it.” Quinn tipped his head back on the seat. A long pause ensued, and I wondered if our conversation was over. I wasn’t ready… not yet.

  “Hey,” he said, sounding tired. “Sorry if I snapped at you. I’m on edge. I get that way when I ruin my career.”

  “I’m sure you didn’t ruin your career,” I replied in a lame attempt at solidarity.

  “Oh yeah,” he groaned. “I’m pretty sure I did.”

  Our eyes met, and in that moment, I knew he believed it. Whatever had happened was serious enough that a well-known television personality felt compelled to chase him down the street.

  “What happened, if you don’t mind me asking?” I probed, knowing I was overstepping my bounds as a complete and total stranger but hoping he wouldn’t notice.

  Quinn slid his fingers through his hair, looking pained. “I walked off the stage during my performance… in front of a live audience.”

  My eyes bugged from their sockets. Oh wow. Yeah, he was fucked.

  “That’s… not so bad.” I forced the encouraging words out of my lying mouth. “Did you walk off because of the video?”

  He lifted a brow. “You sure learned a lot about me in three minutes.”

  I nodded. “I come from a long line of eavesdroppers.”

  “I can see that. And no, not just because of the video, but that was the tipping point, for sure.” Quinn paused, and I worried that he might cut me off after realizing he was having a heart-to-heart conversation with his ride-share driver. But no, he seemed not to discriminate, and the words kept coming. “I never should have auditioned in the first place. I’m a rocker, and the show’s not really known for my type of music. But they made me feel like I belonged, you know?”

  Oh yes, I knew. In fact, I’d experienced a very similar situation myself once, wanting to belong so badly I’d allowed myself to be dragged around like an old ratty blanket by people who were cloaked in cashmere. I’d been young and dumb, lured by the promise of fitting into a world that was not my own. And like Quinn, my reckoning had been just as big and flashy. I’d thought once I would never recover, but I did, and now I was thankful for the experience because without it, I probably would have continued down that same path of destruction…just like my father did before me.

  “I don’t know what I was thinking,” he continued. “I should’ve known they’d change the rules. Everyone warned me, but I didn’t listen.”

  “Who’s everyone?”

  “My family.”

  “So, then why audition in the first place… if you’d been warned?” I asked. It was not an accusation but a real and valid question. I wanted to know why a man as talented as Quinn had apparently set himself up to fail.

  “Because I have the listening skills of a scurrying rodent.”

  I chuckled. He didn’t.

  Okay, then.

  “I don’t know.” Quinn sighed in clear frustration. “I think I just let the promise of fame cloud my better judgment.”

  “You wouldn’t be the first.”

  “No. But I might be the most pathetic. I almost sold my soul to the devil.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  He paused a moment before admitting, “But I wanted to.”

  I caught his eye and corrected him. “But you didn’t.”

  Quinn stared long and hard with an expression I couldn’t read before leaning his head back on the seat and closing his eyes. “No, thank god. I didn’t.”

  A breath caught in my throat. His regret was real, and the vulnerability he displayed damn near blew me away. It was rare indeed for a man to open himself up for all to see. I felt nothing but empathy for this lost soul who’d chosen honesty over lies. Behind his perfect façade, Quinn was lost and searching, just like the rest of us.

  “Why is fame so important to you, anyway?” I asked.

  He turned his head, opening one eye. “Why does anyone want to be famous?”

  “I don’t know.” I shrugged. “I don’t want to be famous.”

  Everybody had starlit dreams of some sort, of course, but only the very lucky ever got to live them.

  He narrowed in on me. “So, you’re saying if someone came up and offered you fame and fortune, you’d say no?”

  “I mean, maybe if I had your talent, I’d go for it. But I wouldn’t want to be famous just for the sake of being famous.”

  “I don’t want that either. I just want…”

  I waited for the rest of his sentence, but in the end, I had to coax it out of him. “What do you want, Quinn?”

  His reply was slow to come, but when it did, his sincerity nearly broke me. “To be seen.”

  Silence fell over the two of us. This guy… damn. Something in the way he said those three little words tore at my heartstrings. If a man with all his talent and beauty felt invisible in this world, what hope was there for the rest of us?

  “By who?”

  “By…” Quinn hesitated. “By everyone, but mostly by the hero of my story.”

  “Wait—you’re not the hero of your own story?”

  Quinn replied with nothing more than a tempered laugh. So the story of his life was being narrated by someone else. But who was this hero to Quinn? His father? A sibling? Whoever it was had cast a shadow so wide that my runaway rock star couldn’t seem to find his way out from under the cover.

  “Explain to me how you’re not the star of your own show,” I asked.

  “How much time do you have?”

  “Depends on how much cash you have in your pocket.”

  “Not nearly enough.” He chuckled.

  I eyed him, curious enough about my passenger to offer up freebies. “How about I throw in counseling for free?”

  “You’d do that?” he asked, his sarcasm smothering us both. “For me?”

  “For you,” I confirmed. “But just so we’re clear: the psychotherapy is free. The car ride is not.”

  “Ah.” He leaned back. “Got it. And thanks, but no thanks.”

  “Okay. Your loss.”

  He didn’t respond, and we drove in silence for a minute or so… until I could stand it no more. I had to know this guy’s story, and I’d pay him if it meant satisfying my curiosity. “Hear me out on the whole psychotherapy thing. I happen to have valuable experience when it comes to dealing with biologically related scene stealers.”

  He grinned, glancing my way. “You don’t say?”

  “I do say.”

  Quinn shifted in his seat. “Okay, then. Who?”

  “You first.”

  I didn’t think he’d actually answer but he was surprisingly quick with his reply. “My brother.”

  I followed with my own admission. “My sister.”

  He nodded, and an understanding passed between us: two castaways floating a
imlessly in a sea of greatness.

  “So, what’s your story?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “I’m the result of a desktop dalliance.”

  “A what?”

  “Exactly as it sounds, Quinn. My father did the secretary on top of his drafting table and nine months later…” I displayed jazz hands to showcase my unplanned arrival. “Hello.”

  His eyes rounded. “Oh, shit…”

  “Yep. Lucky me. Think about it. Had my father kept his moneymaker in his pants and not cheated on his wife with the pretty young secretary, I’d have been erased from history like Marty McFly.”

  Quinn laughed, keeping his curious eyes on me. “Damn, I just have abandonment issues, but you—you’re fucked up, girl.”

  I performed a little in-car curtsy as I laughed along with him. What did it say about me that I wasn’t even the slightest bit offended?

  “So, what happened to your parents?” he asked, still gripped by the cheating scandal that had created me. “Did your dad get caught?”

  “He’s a man,” I replied, as if that was enough to guide Quinn along in his quest for answers. “What do you think?”

  “I would think he paid dearly.”

  I turned away from his prying eyes and winced. “And you’d be right.”

  Obviously highly engaged in my tale of woe, Quinn asked, “Then what?”

  “Then—nothing.” I shrugged. “Everyone lived happily ever after. The end.”

  Quinn eyed me knowingly before leaning back in his seat and gripping the back headrest. With great appreciation for his manly form, I watched him stretch out his long body.

  “Yeah, no way is your story so straightforward.”

  “Oh, really?” I asked. “Why not?”

  “Because I date uncomplicated women, and you, Getaway Girl, do not strike me as one.”

  Well, he wasn’t wrong. I was complicated, but then what woman wasn’t?

  “Huh. I didn’t realize uncomplicated women even existed. Good for you, finding them under those rocks.”

  “They’re not that hard to find if you know where to look.”

  “High school?”

  Quinn puffed out a laugh. “Whoa, let me stop you right there, Buckaroo.”

  Buckaroo? I wasn’t sure if I should be impressed with his 1940’s vocabulary or irritated. Any guy who used that type of language around a woman clearly wasn’t trying to woo.

  “What I meant was, I don’t date women with a past,” he clarified. “I have what I like to refer to as a tragedy barometer. Any woman with a history more devastating than, say, flushing her pet fish down the toilet is a no go for me.”

  My eyes widened at the news of his utter shallowness. “Wait—so what you’re saying is because I flushed Ms. Bubbles down the toilet eighteen years ago, I’m not a contender for your affections? Am I hearing you correctly, dickhead?”

  “Damn, right to the insults,” he noted playfully. “No, you’re still a contender… I mean as long as Ms. Bubbles wasn’t followed down the shitter by your aunt May.”

  I blinked, shocked. “Your policy is seriously flawed, Quinn.”

  “Oh, yeah? How?”

  “Because the perfect woman doesn’t exist,” I said, raising my voice to punctuate my point.

  “I didn’t say perfect. I said uncomplicated.” He slid back up in his seat, taking in my irritated face. “Wait, are you offended?”

  I expelled some weird whooshing gust of air to show just how ridiculous his question was. “Of course not.”

  “Then why are your nostrils flaring?”

  “I’m not offended for myself,” I explained. “I’m offended for womankind.”

  “Ah.” He smirked. “Good for you. Taking one for the team. So commendable.”

  Oh, my god. What a dick. I fought the urge to reach out and smack him for no other reason than his shitty policy excluded me from the running.

  “Actually, you know what, Prince Gaston?” I raised a hand to stop him. “You’re right. You deserve a fun, bubbly, uncomplicated woman. In fact, let me be the first to congratulate you and Hannah Montana on a super happy life together.”

  Quinn gave a hearty laugh at that one, eyeing me with interest before replying, “Thank you.”

  I grumbled something incoherent—à la Vern—and silently chastised myself for being so rankled by this guy.

  Clearing my throat, I asked, “So, where do you want to go?”

  Without skipping a beat, Quinn sent his finger soaring through the skies. “To the stars and back.”

  And just like that, he was back in charge.

  “No,” I said, fighting off a smile. “I meant in this universe.”

  “Oh, sorry. I misunderstood. You’ll have to give me extra time to think.”

  “You’ve had plenty of time. How about I give you thirty seconds to decide before dumping your ass on the side of the road?”

  “Okay, well, first—I don’t do anything in thirty seconds,” he said, raising a brow and leaving me with no question as to what he meant by that suggestive statement. “And second—I can’t formulate a plan that fast, so I guess you’ll just have to drop me off on the side of the road.”

  I cast him a sidelong glance. “Seriously?”

  He shrugged.

  “This isn’t a safe area, Quinn.”

  “I hardly think it matters,” he replied. “A nice mugging might do me good.”

  “Perhaps, but you seem attached to your face… and your guitar.”

  “My face? Not so much. But my guitar? Yeah, me and Lucia, man, we go way back. Maybe you can hold onto her until after I get out of the hospital.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, but that’s against the ride-share rules. According to the regulation handbook, everything must go home with the customer. Further down in the manual is how incredibly cliché it is to name your guitar.”

  “Don’t hate.” He chuckled. “I got Lucia from my brother when I was a kid.”

  “I understand it’s sentimental and all, but naming your guitar is like naming your genitals.”

  A guilty smile spread slowly across his face.

  My eyes popped open and a laugh burst from my gut. “Oh, my god, you didn’t?”

  He shrugged. “Every guy does, and if he says he doesn’t, he’s lying.”

  “Okay, give it to me,” I said, beckoning with my fingers. “What did you name your tripod?”

  “Like I’m going to tell you.”

  “Why not me?” I asked, all innocent-like.

  “I can think of a whole lot of reasons not to tell my ride-share driver what I nicknamed my dick and balls,” he said, laughing.

  “Fine. It’s probably something totally lame, anyway.”

  “Not only is it not lame but it’s inspired,” he bragged. “Totally original.”

  Now he was just taunting me. I expelled a long, drawn-out sigh, as if his refusal bored me beyond belief, when in reality, the suspense was killing me.

  I snapped my fingers, returning to business as usual. “Location, Quinn, or I’m turning this car around and taking you back.”

  That got his attention. He shot up, looking my way. “You think I should go back?”

  “That’s not what I meant,” I said, confused by the eagerness in his tone. Quinn really was lost. Where was his support system? Why was he relying on hired help to determine his path forward? “Do you want to go back?”

  “No. The last thing I want to do is grovel to the warlords, but it’s not that simple. If I don’t go back, I’ve destroyed my future. If I do go back, I’ll live someone else’s life. No matter what, I’m screwed.”

  “Not screwed. The way I see it, if you can live with being someone you’re not for fame and fortune, then awesome. I’ll turn this car around right now and wish you a happily ever after. But if you think it’s going to eat away at your soul and spit you out somewhere down the line, then give me an address, and I’ll take you wherever you want to go.”

  “Gee.” Quinn exhaled. “If only I
could figure out which way you lean on the subject.”

  “Neither way, actually,” I said, taking my eyes temporarily off the road to give him the sincerity he deserved. “There’s no right or wrong answer here—only what you’re willing to accept.”

  “Am I a bad person if I say I’m willing to accept living a lie?”

  “People have all kinds of reasons for doing things, Quinn. That doesn’t make you bad. It makes you human.”

  He slumped back into his seat, clearly pondering my words. I couldn’t remember the last time a man had given my opinion such value.

  “What does your gut say?” I asked.

  My passenger turned his head toward me, really considering his options, before reaching into his bag and pulling out a wallet. He riffled through the contents and, chancing on a couple of bills, he shoved them in my direction. “My gut says drive me as far as thirty dollars will take me.”

  “Okay then.” I smiled, taking the cash. “Right on.”

  “Right on,” he repeated, his smile meeting mine in the middle. “You’re all right, Getaway Girl.”

  “You’re not too bad yourself, Hollywood.”

  He leaned back, appearing way more relaxed now that the decision was made. “Who needs fame anyway?”

  “Exactly,” I agreed, matching his mischievous tone. “It’s totally overrated.”

  “And the paparazzi suck,” he added.

  “Sure as shit they do. And don’t forget about the stalkers.”

  His eyes popped open wide. “Oh, my god, I forgot about the fucking stalkers.”

  His smartass comment brought a smile to my face. Attractive and sardonic. I soaked in his edgy disposition, fascinated by the way he engaged with me. It felt like I’d known him forever even though I still had everything about him to discover.

  “Although”—he flashed me his killer grin—“can we agree the money is nice? And the adoration? And the first-class flights?”

  “Yes, I will agree with you on those points. However”—I raised a finger—“not worth the loss of your dignity, right?”

  “I thought you didn’t have an opinion on that.”

  “Well, now that you made the right decision, I do.”

  Quinn groaned, but it was more playful than pained. “So now what, guru?”

 

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