“Well,” he answered, “I hope you don’t get mad, but Brian called a few minutes before I called you. There’s a get-together at a friend’s house, and he wanted me to go hang out with them. I shut him down, but when I was talking to you, I remembered everything you were saying last night, and…I thought this might be a good thing for you. If you don’t want to go, say the word. We’ll get sushi instead.”

Ah, sushi, the one interest they did share. But she wasn’t hungry. She shrugged. “I don’t mind going. Candace will be around, right?”

His scoff had her lifting an eyebrow. “Have you ever seen those two in the last year when they’re not attached at the hip?”

“Hmm. Do we have a certain measure of hostility about that?”

“I wouldn’t say I have hostility about it.” He straightened in his seat and zoomed out of her parking lot. “He’s in a fool’s paradise, and I hate it for him. That’s all.”

“Why do you say that? They seem pretty solid to me. She would never hurt him; that much I’d bet my life on.”

“Every relationship I’ve ever seen is like a bubble ready to burst, and most of them do.”

“Some of them don’t.”

“I guess I’m too cynical to think any of them around me are going to remain intact.”

Insanely curious now, she glanced over at him, sizing up his body language as he manhandled the gearshift. If they hadn’t passed through the yellowish wash of a street light, casting the tense lines of his face into stark relief, she might have thought these were simple observations of his.

“So who burned you?” she asked casually, smoothing her palms over her jeans.

He waved a dismissive hand. “An hour ago I was standing over the miserable, wasted heap of a good friend who would rather lose everything he’s worked for than even make an effort to get over the woman who keeps walking out on him.”

She didn’t buy it, but if it was a conversation that was going to bring down the night, she didn’t want to have it. “I’m sorry about that. But don’t let it sour you. These things work out all the time, and sometimes they don’t, but that’s life.” She shrugged and fell silent, staring out the window as the buildings gave way to skeletal trees missing their summer foliage. God, she hated winter.

The solid warmth of his fingers curled around her hand. She looked over to find Seth watching her in between glances at the road. “Didn’t mean to get heavy on you, there.”

“It’s okay.” At least she knew there wouldn’t be any weirdness on his end, if he had such a foul outlook on relationships. “Honestly…I wouldn’t know about the drama, myself. The one serious relationship I had, it was just… nice. All the time. So any speculation on my part about these things is just me talking out of my ass.”

He grinned and his thumb stroked over the back of her hand. “Well, in the interest of full disclosure, I’ve had more than my share…and I don’t recommend it.”

He had?

The two little words kept echoing in her head as their drive continued, as he parked among what must’ve been a dozen other cars at a house in the middle of nowhere, as they walked through the front door to a chorus of greetings from people who were strangers to her.

He’d had serious relationships? He’d been in love?

If ever a man existed that she would’ve pegged for never having succumbed to the lure of domesticity, it was Seth Warren. Wow. She couldn’t even imagine the guy in a relationship that lasted more than one night. Or one night at a time, at least.

“Check him out, lookin’ all GQ and shit.” Some guy laughed, giving Seth’s hat a thump.

Seth ducked the attempt. “Get off me, man. You wish you could make this look this good.”

Candace slithered through the crowd and wrapped Macy in a hug almost before she realized it. “I’m so glad you’re here,” she said into her ear. Macy clung to her friend for dear life. Save me.

This was a get-together? It was an outright party, and it was definitely Seth’s crowd. Ink and piercings everywhere. Heavy-metal riffs overlying obscenity-laced chatter. What the hell was she doing here? Whose freaking house was this?

Just relax. Go with the flow.

Candace appeared to recognize her distress. She disengaged herself and gently took Macy’s upper arms, staring into her face. “You okay?”

Macy nodded.

“It’s going to be all right. Do you need to drink?”

“Quite possibly.”

“Let’s get you fixed up.”

She planned to nurse this one carefully, not wanting to end up like she had last night. No, she would go into this fully coherent…just with a tiny bit of the edge taken off. She was a nervous wreck.

But Seth didn’t leave her side. They ended up in the spacious living room with about twelve others, Candace and Brian included. Sitting on the couch with him next to her, she slowly began to relax. It wasn’t her crowd, and she was definitely the outsider here. No one was looking at her as if wondering what the hell she was doing there, though, and plenty of them had asked her name and what she did for a living and how she’d met Seth. Or Ghost. No one she’d ever met called him by his real name.

While other conversations went on all around them, she leaned closer to him. “How did you get your nickname?”

Everything about him seemed to freeze, and she swore a flush crept up his neck. “It’s just a dumb name I got stuck with. No big deal.”

“What was that?” Brian bellowed. He was sitting in a chair to their left with Candace perched on his lap, and apparently he’d overheard her question.

“Nothing,” Seth snapped.

“No, no, not nothing. I heard. She wants to know about your name. Hey!” he shouted to the room in general. “Macy wants to know how Ghost got his name.”

Laughter broke out. Macy lifted a brow at all of them.

Seth’s eyes went round. “Oh, hell no, man.”

Brian shrugged and grinned as he lifted his beer bottle to his mouth for a quick drink. “She’ll probably find out sooner or later, right? Better to get it out of the way early. Well…let me rephrase that. If you don’t tell her, I will.”

“I still think you did it.”

Brian clapped a hand over his heart. “That you would even think that of me wounds me.”

“I’ll wound you if I ever find out you did. I mean, you’re the loud-mouthed bastard who told everyone we know about it.”

“I’m totally lost right now,” Macy admitted. But the exchange was fascinating.

“Don’t be a pu**y. Tell her,” Brian said, nodding in Macy’s direction.

Seth sighed, shaking his head and looking away. Debating, probably. What could be that bad? Macy looked to Candace for a clue, only to find her friend snickering into her boyfriend’s neck. She must be privy to the big secret, then. Apparently everyone was.

“Many years ago,” Seth began carefully. Those few words were all it took for the room to break up in riotous laughter. He waited patiently for it to settle before continuing. “I had this tattoo. And I don’t exactly know how I got it.”

“What? How can…”