Chapter Four
Dermamania was sometimes Grand Central fucking Station. People liked to come by with their friends just to hang out. At any given moment, customers were browsing the flash, the T-shirts Candace had designed, shooting the shit with each other and the artists, even when they had no intention of going under the needle. It was a good, laid-back, easy atmosphere. Most nights. It also sometimes attracted drunk assholes, and more than a few times, t hey had to point out the sign on the wall: If you are drunk, stoned, stupid, stinky, dirty, sunburned, sick, pregnant, rude, broke, looking for a deal or otherwise just plain loud or obnoxious…please come back when you are not.
Of course, as Ghost so often jokingly pointed out, with few exceptions, stupid, rude, broke, loud, and obnoxious described a lot of their clients and even the people who worked there. Usually, it was all good. Until it wasn’t.
Highly Suspect’s “Claudeland” bounced enthusiastically from the speakers while the clock ticked ever closer to closing time. The group that sauntered in then consisted of three guys and a couple of girls, and the signs were readily apparent: flushed cheeks, loud, the invincible swagger of the inebriated. Ghost shot Brian a glance as one of the guys approached Janelle, who was just cleaning up after a session. Right away he saw that the boss man had his eye on the situation, too.
So much shit had gone down here. Candace’s brother trashing the place. Brian getting stabbed and damn near dying in the parking lot. After all the hits they’d taken, they’d built something worth fighting for, and none of them were prepared to put up with any bullshit. As soon as it was obvious Janelle was refusing service and the drunk dude started to raise his voice, Brian was abandoning his work to take the lead, with Ghost right by his side.
“What’s the problem?” Brian asked, that authoritative steel in his voice that only came from years of dealing with this type of prick.
“Get within six feet of him and you’ll know,” Janelle said.
“I don’t have to.” Brian shifted his gaze to the guy. “You were swaying on your feet when you walked in the door, man. Sober up, come back in a night or two, and we’ll fix you up.”
“Dude, fuck that, I’m fine. I only had a couple.”
“A couple forties, maybe,” Ghost said. He could never really be counted on to de-escalate a situation; he knew this about himself. Brian probably preferred him to hang back and keep his mouth shut. Impossible expectation when someone was being a dick to his friends. Unfortunately, Macy took that moment to walk in the door, stopping short and raising her eyebrows when she took in the unfolding conflict.
“Come on, Rich,” one of the girls said. “Their work isn’t all that great anyway.”
Macy sent the girl a death stare, her mouth lengthening into a thin line, but she didn’t say anything. Thank God, because he didn’t need to be pulling his wife out of a brawl…which she would undoubtedly win.
“I wanna talk to the owner,” Rich insisted, bleary eyes barely focusing on either Ghost or Brian.
“Oh, all right, hang on, I’ll get him,” Ghost said, then shoved Brian in the arm. “They need you, dude.”
Brian shot Ghost a look as Rich gaped a little, but he continued trying to defuse the situation and get them out the door as peacefully as possible while Ghost watched Macy walk through to the back to wait on him. Actually, he watched her because he was waiting for one of the drunk douchebags to even look at her the wrong way, or God forbid, speak to her. Every one of his bodily systems was on high alert, waiting for go time. Lucky for the group, they were occupied with trying to drag their friend out the door, insisting there were better places to go.
For them, yeah, there was any number of scratchers out there who would be more than happy to carve some abomination into their sweaty, alcohol-secreting skin. It wasn’t here, and it damn sure wasn’t tonight.
“Thanks,” Janelle said dully to Brian, shaking her head as the crowd finally staggered out. “Fucking asshats.”
“No problem.” Brian went over to turn off the Open sign and lock the door behind them. “Think that’s enough for the night,” he remarked, even though there were twenty minutes still on the clock.
Macy was perched on Ghost’s chair, watching him a little wide-eyed as he headed toward her.
“You okay?” he asked. He hadn’t expected to see her here tonight.
“Oh, yeah, fine,” she said and gestured toward the door as Brian and Jan headed toward the back, still talking about the incident. “Does that happen here very often?”
“Not too often,” he said, idly straightening some of his ink bottles.
“Hmm.” Her hazel eyes watched his hands for a moment, then she smiled and looked at him. “I thought I’d stop by. I got lonely and I didn’t know how late you’d be.”
That wasn’t like her…the whole lonely thing. She was pretty damn independent, and besides that, she had a dozen people she could call or hang out with. He raised an eyebrow. “Is everything okay, babe?”
“Let’s go home,” she said, glancing around. “I’m fine, though.”
He grabbed his keys and gave them a twirl around his finger, not buying her assurances for a minute. “You eat anything?” he asked. She was bad about skipping meals when she was stressed out for any reason. At this hour, though, they didn’t have many options that didn’t involve a drive-thru window.
“No.”
“Damn, baby. Let’s get you fed.” He shrugged into his hoodie and grabbed her hand. “I’m out,” he called to Brian and Janelle, then led his wife out the side door.
“I’m really not hungry,” she protested.
“Then tell me what’s wrong,” he said, stopping by his car to open the passenger door for her. She slid inside, and he had to marvel, as always, at how fucking good she looked sitting there. Hell, how could he ever sell his car and abandon this sight? It had all started right here. This car, this parking lot. Her smooth legs around his hips. Her warmth gripping him. Her cries in his ear.
“What are you doing?” she asked, looking up at him, and he realized he’d been staring.
“Nothing.” Blowing out a breath, he shut her door and jogged around to the driver’s side. Once settled inside, he turned to face her. “Look. Let’s cut through the shit. The part where I ask you what’s wrong ten times and you say ‘nothing’ every time even though I can clearly see something is bothering you. Let’s skip that, because it’s useless, and get to what’s eating at you. Is it the gig, still?”
She giggled. “I don’t do that.”
“Yes, you do.”
“Well…you do, too.”
“Touché. But I’m not doing it right now, you are. And you’re deflecting.”
“I love you.”
He burst out laughing. “Stop . God.”
“I don’t know. I’m just in a funk. No, the gig isn’t helping. But we’ll get through it and it’ll be all right.” Macy waved a dismissive hand. “So feed me or whatever.”
Clicking his tongue as he turned away to crank the car, he couldn’t let that one pass him by. “I got somethin’ to feed you, baby.”
Of course, his music was so earsplittingly loud she jumped when it screamed from the speakers, and he quickly reached to turn it down. “You’re gonna be deaf by the time you’re forty,” she scolded.
“Then I won’t have to listen to your cowboy bullshit.”
“You won’t listen to your cow-decapitating, blood-sacrificing bullshit, either.”
He laughed at that, loving how she could flip his shit back at him without batting an eye. But it wasn’t until later, after they’d stuffed themselves with tacos and were lying in bed with every inch of her warm, naked body spooned against his, that she finally opened up.
“Your job is starting to make me nervous,” she admitted, her thumb stroking his hand.
Ghost felt himself stiffen, and not in a good way. “Why?”
“It just seems like a lot of bad stuff happens there.”
“Come on, Mace. That’s ridiculous.”
“How? First it got vandalized—”
“We had your very best friend’s brother to thank for that. Let’s not forget.”
“I know. But then Brian almost got killed there. Completely separate incident. If something had happened to you—”
“That asshole would have struck out at Brian no matter where he was. He was just an easy target, leaving work by himself late at night.” Even thinking about Max and what he’d tried to do made renewed fury seep through his veins. Very little in Ghost’s life had been more satisfying than helping to bring that fuckstain down.
“I walked in tonight and I was afraid you guys were about to go off,” she admitted. “It was scary.”
“Maybe we’re a little on edge after what we’ve been through, yeah. There are people we dread seeing walk in the door. I won’t lie. But ninety-eight percent of our clientele is cool.”
“It’s not getting worse or anything?”
“No. Not at all. Shit like that happens. I’m sorry you happened to see it.” He trailed his hand up her smooth arm, over the roundness of her shoulder to trace her delicate collarbone, and then moved her long dark hair from around her neck.
Just as she shivered, as he’d known she would, he dropped a kiss on the side of her neck. He began to stiffen in the good way, and she chuckled when she felt it. The throaty sound only exacerbated the situation. “Again?” she asked.
“The fuck you mean, again ? Like it’s weird or something. Have you even met me? Do I need to reintroduce you?” When he nibbled where he’d kissed a moment ago, she laughed, her body squirming back against him. And when he let his roaming hand slip between her legs, he found her wet. Hot. Her breath quickened as he pushed in. “You drive me fucking crazy, you know that?” he rasped in her ear.
“You show me…fairly often,” she said, the words broken with a sigh as he dragged his fingers out and in again. Then she turned her head, her mouth seeking his in the darkness, and there wasn’t any more need for words.
…
“All right, man. I’m in.” Ghost made the announcement over the phone to Mark the next day, but quickly cut off the singer’s outburst of joy. “Hold up. I swear to Christ, dude, if I get just one bad vibe about this thing, I’m out. You got me? Because I’m fucking serious. I don’t care if we’re plugging in, about to go onstage. One cross word, hell, one cross look , and I’m out of there before you can even call me a fucking asshole.”
“Understood.”
“You sure about that?”
“I hear you. I know there’ve been some bad feeli ngs in the past, I get it. We’re not about that anymore.”
“Good. When do we practice? It’ll have to be late. We’re busier than we’ve ever been at work so I’m not about to abandon Brian.”
“We can work with it. Whenever you can make it is when we’ll do it.”
Yeah, but Macy wouldn’t like it, and Ghost didn’t like anything that cut into Macy time. But like she said, it was only for a few weeks.
He left the bedroom five minutes later, after setting a tentative practice schedule and hanging up as soon as he could get away. Macy waited in the kitchen, fingers wrapped around a mug of coffee, eyebrows raised expectantly. “Looks like we’re all set,” he told her.
To his surprise, she only gave a strange little smile and sipped from her cup before nodding. “Okay.”
“We’ll practice on Sundays and Mondays when I’m off. Maybe after I get off some nights if we need to. I think we ought to still be pretty tight, though. It’ll be mostly familiar stuff.”
“That’s good,” she said nonchalantly.
Her demeanor gave him pause, and he studied her for a few seconds. She was being way more accommodating than he’d anticipated. Which could very well spell disaster. “Annnd…you’re okay?”
“I’m okay.”
“No, you aren’t.”
Something about that made her laugh, the laugh that did him in more often than not, pretty hazel eyes sparkling, her perfect lips the perfect frame for her perfect teeth, and she was just too fucking perfect . “I’m fine. It’s fine. Do what you have to do, baby.”
“You’re up to something.”
And that made her laugh harder. Jesus Christ, for all her perfection, the woman was evil. But just as quickly as her laugh had come, she suppressed it, though the remnants still brightened her eyes. She twirled a long swath of dark hair around her finger. “I’m not up to anything. Go do your practices whenever you need to. We’ll have fun on our trip. Lots of fun. I’m sorry I was such a bitch about everything.”
“Babe, you’re never a bitch.”
“Well, thanks?” She downed the rest of her coffee, rinsed the cup, and set it in the sink. “It’ll be fun to watch you onstage. I can admit it.”
That’s what he’d wanted to hear all along. He grinned, walking up behind her to wrap his arms around her waist, inhaling the vanilla scent of her freshly washed hair. “I’ll put on a good show for you, babe.”
Macy turned within the circle of his arms and slid her hands around the back of his neck, standing on tiptoe to kiss him. She swept her thumb across his lips. “Oh, I know you will.”