Even through all the grief over his grandmother, there had been no clearing his head of that girl. She was fully entrenched, and he’d come to terms with that.

Gus was in the middle of a cuss-binge about his ex-girlfriend when the unmistakable sound of Raina’s warm-up growls reached Ghost from some indeterminable point up ahead, stopping him in his tracks. Gus looked at him, cocking an eyebrow.

“What is it, man?”

“What the hell is she doing here?”

The other guy shrugged. “Mark told her to come.”

He was going to knock the son of a bitch out.

“Come on, dude. What’s the big deal? She’s just going to do a few songs with us.”

“It’s the fact that she’s here at all. I don’t want to be dodging her crazy ass all night.”

Gus scoffed. “So don’t. Maybe if you hit that a couple times for old times’ sake, you’d feel better. Hell, I would.”

“Shit, no.” On top of everything else, he didn’t need Raina in his face. He looked longingly back at the exit, sighed and ran a hand over his head. There was only one thing that would make this night tolerable. Oblivion. And knocking Mark out. “I changed my mind. Point me to the Jäger. And what else have you got?”

A grin lit up his so-called friend’s face. It wasn’t a pretty sight, more like the way the serpent might have smiled when Eve bit the apple. “Follow me.”

Hauling ass toward Austin for a heavy metal gig with her best friend’s boyfriend. While this was a place Macy could honestly say she never thought she’d be, it was every bit as awkward as she would’ve imagined.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” she said at last, realizing she had almost chewed her thumbnail to the quick.

“The things we do for love, right?” Brian said.

If only she knew that’s what this was. She knew how she felt, but she wasn’t foolish enough anymore to call it love when she had no idea if it was reciprocated. “I wonder if maybe I should’ve thought this out a little more.”

“Sometimes the spontaneous decision is the right one.”

“I guess so. He really wants to see me, then? You didn’t just say that?”

He cut her a glance beneath his black ball cap. “Like I’d let you walk into that. Come on. He’s more worried that you’ll never want to see him again.”

“I never meant to drag you and Candace into this. That was exactly what I didn’t want.” And one of the reasons she hadn’t wanted to get into this whole thing to start with. No matter, though. She was in it. She was in it up to her eyeballs.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“He doesn’t know we’re coming?”

“Not at the moment. Do you want him to?”

She remembered that night at his house, staying awake until the sun came up, talking and laughing and arguing and having earth-shattering sex. How earnestly he’d talked about his music and how much she could tell he would’ve liked her to be there for his show. Brian had said they would probably be too late to catch the set, but if Seth still wanted her, she’d come to every damn gig he had from now on to make up for it.

“No,” she said, allowing a little smile at the thought of his face when he saw her there. “Let’s surprise him.”

“Cool.”

“So when are you going to marry my best friend?”

He laughed in surprise, suddenly looking adorably embarrassed as perfect dimples appeared on his cheeks. If it weren’t dark already, she would swear he was blushing. “You’re all right with that, huh?”

“Well, not that you need my permission or anything, but yes, I’d be very all right with it.”

“I appreciate that. Never really thought you were crazy about the idea.”

“I’m sorry if I ever gave you that impression. To be honest, yeah, I didn’t know about you at first. But that was strictly me being a shallow bitch.”

“No, that was you looking out for your friend. Which is admirable.”

“I’m really glad she has you.”

He smirked. “Think you could talk her parents into feeling the same way?”

“Oh, don’t worry about them. Either they’ll come around or they won’t, and if they don’t, they’re fools. You never answered the question, by the way.”

“Mace, I’d marry her tomorrow if I could. But we want to do everything right, not rush into anything. Be carefree and spontaneous and without responsibility for a while.”

It was a foreign concept to her, a future she’d never envisioned for herself, and not even for Candace when the two of them would sit up late at night and romanticize about their dashing future husbands and their three to four perfect kids. Candace had more or less abandoned the fantasy with ease. Macy didn’t know if she could do the same. She’d always been about responsibility and drive and her life clicking along at the perfect pace, the next logical step being finding someone with equal drive and determination to settle down with.

If the past few weeks had shown her anything, it was that there would be no settling down with Seth Warren for a long time, if ever. He was a whirlwind. There would be no domesticating that one.

But here she was, chasing him like a lovesick fool. At least tonight would probably let her know if there might be a future with him at all, whatever it entailed.

Dammit, she’d gone from gnawing her thumbnail to her index finger now. She was going to ruin her entire manicure before they got there.

How Ghost made it through the show without bashing his guitar upside Mark’s head would be a mystery to ponder until the day he died. The answer probably lay in the mass quantities roaring through his bloodstream, and the fact that he spent most of his time onstage avoiding Raina, who kept coming too f**king close to him, wanting to sing into his mic on their shared vocals.

At the end of it, he made his feelings on the entire situation clear by bashing his guitar against the drum platform a dozen times instead, not caring which direction the shrapnel flew. He thought he’d caught a piece above his eye, but who the f**k cared. He took great satisfaction in feeling the stunned aftermath as he stormed off the stage.

Now. Get somewhere before you pass the f**k out. Damn good thing he’d decided in the end not to swallow the shit Gus had slipped him earlier; he’d probably be dead. He staggered down a short, too-bright hallway and veered into the first open door he saw with darkness beyond. Immediately he slammed his shin on something and nearly toppled over. “Shit!”

His hands met cushions as he caught himself and, realizing the offending object was a couch, he groaned and plopped down on it, stretching out along the length and burying his face in the back cushions. Darkness. Yes. No telling what past transgressions had transpired on the slightly foul-smelling piece of furniture, but at the moment he couldn’t give less of a shit. It was soft and horizontal. That was all he required.

When the door clicked shut behind him, he said a silent thank you to the considerate f**ker who had bathed him in blessed darkness, and contemplated unconsciousness.

A hand, small and gentle, slid down his sweat-slick arm. Beyond the fingertips he felt the hardness of long nails. A grunt left him, and he jerked away. Leave me the f**k alone.