“I know you want a family though. You’ve said it.”
“I do, very much. Someday. Nothing wrong with enjoying my singlehood while I have it, is there?”
“You know, I never worried much about finding someone either. I always had a crush on Brian, but even when I went to him to get my tattoo, I never once expected all this. It just happened.” She shook her head. “I miss him so much. We didn’t have enough time together.”
Oh, God. It wasn’t like he’d died. “Well, you know…you imposed this separation on the two of you, not him. If it’s eating you up that bad, go back.” It wasn’t what she wanted to see happen, simply because avoiding more days like this in her best friend’s future was high on her list of priorities, but in the end Candace was going to do what she wanted anyway.
“I think it’s inevitable. The thought of not being with him makes me literally sick to my stomach. I sure can’t imagine being with anyone else.”
Macy nodded, lost in her own thoughts. Candace had said ‘it just happened.’ That’s how things usually went—that person you insisted you weren’t looking for and thought you didn’t need ambushed you and turned your world upside down. She damn sure hadn’t been looking for Ghost…who hadn’t repeated his invitation of a few days ago, she’d noticed. But he did still text her pretty often, so maybe she hadn’t put him off pursuing her completely.
Pursuing her. It had been a long time since she hadn’t been the pursuer. Since Jared, really. He’d been pretty relentless. But after that catastrophe, she’d put up walls, and very few men had been brave enough to try to scale them. She could shut them down with a single look. She’d perfected that look.
Not that she’d been celibate. She loved seeing something she wanted and going after it. As such, there had been a couple of forays into exclusivity that seemed promising at first but fizzled before the six-month mark. There had been a fling—hot and fleeting, the way she’d wanted it. But nothing that made her too eager to give the whole relationship thing another try.
Then why in the hell was she so interested now?
“Oh, God. There’s Jameson. He’s probably f**kin’ spying on me.”
Candace’s words jerked Macy out of her reverie just as memories of Ghost’s smile began to creep in. She looked in the direction of Candace’s gaze…and froze. The black Navigator cruising by in the parking lot was the same one she remembered Jameson owning, and sure enough, as it passed them, the white Baylor University sticker across the back windshield identified it. Without a doubt, it was the same one Macy had seen drive by Dermamania the night she and Ghost hung out there. The night it had been vandalized.
She had to tell Candace. She had to…but God, the last thing she wanted was to get caught up in all this. For one, she would have to explain what she was doing at Dermamania in the middle of the night. Candace would probably hate Macy for meeting Ghost behind her back when Macy had been telling her all along not to see Brian anymore. How could she defend herself? How could she even try?
When the hell had this become such a freaking cluster?
Maybe she could say nothing. Jameson was already the prime suspect…but there was nothing pinning him to the scene. Macy’s mother was best friends with Candace’s mother. How would it affect everyone’s relationships if Macy was the voice who brought shame to the entire Andrews family? How would it affect Candace to know she’d been keeping this from her? Even though they’d cleared the air a bit, it would probably take very little to set Candace off again.
A hand waved in Macy’s face and she jolted out of her funk. “Huh?”
“I said, are you all right? You’re pale. You could’ve seen a ghost.”
She had. That was the damn problem.
“I’m fine.” Jameson’s SUV crept on by and finally, mercifully disappeared from sight.
“We can go home, if you want. I’ve done enough damage for today, I think.”
“Whenever you’re ready.”
As they headed for Macy’s car, she tried to pretend everything was okay, but she couldn’t. Everything crashed down on her as she slid into the driver’s seat, and she had to sit and catch her breath while Candace got in on the passenger side. “Hey… Are you sure you’re all right?”
Not now. She wasn’t ready to tell her right now. Soon. She would do it soon.
Clearing her throat and releasing her iron grip on the steering wheel—which she hadn’t even noticed until she let go—she gave her friend a reassuring smile. “I’m fine.”
“Hello?”
Macy’s heart dropped for a moment when Ghost answered his phone. From the sleepy gruffness of his voice, it was obvious she’d woken him, though it was well after noon.
“Oh— Hey. I’m sorry. Thought you’d be up by now.”
She heard rustling on the other end of the line—as if he was turning over, or maybe throwing back the covers to get up. Macy cringed as her inquiring mind wanted to know if he slept naked. Of course, along with that speculation came a variety of possible images. “That’s okay,” he said. “I should be.”
“Working late again?” The parlor had only recently reopened.
“Yeah, but I usually stay up for a while after, too.”
“I can let you go.”
“Naw. I’m good. What’s up with you?”
She chewed her bottom lip. What was she doing? They’d settled into a texting pattern, but neither had actually called the other. There almost seemed to be an unspoken competition between them…who would break down and call the other first.
Obviously, she’d lost.
She’d dialed him on impulse—part from boredom and part from wondering if he could give her some advice and part from simply wanting to hear his voice again. “I don’t know. I have a dilemma.”
He chuckled. “Lay it on me.”
“What would you do if there was something you needed to tell someone, but to do so could…really mess some things up for you? And possibly for a lot of other people who consider you their friend?”
“Hmm. You’re throwing deep shit at me first thing in the…well, afternoon.”
Macy laughed. “Yeah, I guess. Sorry.”
“You sound down.”
“I am, a little.”
“So you call me.” She could practically hear him grinning, and it was impossible not to answer with one of her own.
“Yeah, why is that?”
“Why do you call me when you need cheering up? Because I’m f**king funny.”
“There is that. But you’re not the one to go to when I have a moral dilemma, I see.”
“You’re probably right about that. I don’t know, Macy. As far as your dilemma, I guess it would depend.”
“On what?”
“Who’s getting the shittier deal here?”
It was all pretty much equally shitty. A bad deal any way you looked at it, and she told him so.
“Well,” he said, “without knowing the details, if someone’s being wronged in some way then you—or I imagine I would need to come clean about it.”
He’d only affirmed what she already knew, of course. Jameson Andrews needed to pay for what he’d done. Bottom line. End of.