“Have you responded?”

“Hell no. ?Cause like I said, I always get stuck with the crazy.”

“You must make quite an impression.”

“Well...yeah.” He said it as if it should be patently obvious, and she laughed.

“Hmm. Well, let’s just fix this right now.” This time when she tried, she succeeded in taking his phone from him, and he looked at her with a startled frown.

“The f**k are you doing?”

Macy grinned. She might try to avoid drama among her friends, but she didn’t mind it among complete strangers. It could be fun, in fact. And...oh hell, just like with this entire night, she didn’t know what had possessed her. She hit the Call button on the message and brought the phone to her ear.

“Oh my God. You’re f**king crazy,” Ghost said, but the admiration in his eyes was obvious.

“I have my moments—” She cut off abruptly as a feminine voice purred a hello, then forced steel into her own words. “Who is this, please?”

The voice on the other end of the connection rose several notes. “Who is this?”

“I asked you first. Is there some reason you’ve been texting my boyfriend all day?”

After sputtering a few seconds, the girl seemed to find her spunk again. “Your boyfriend said he didn’t have a girlfriend last night, just so you know.”

“That is good to know. Thank you for that. But that didn’t mean he wanted you to try to get the job, I’m sure, or he might have answered you by now. Don’t you think so?”

Seething silence met her sugar-sweet question, then the connection went dead. She tossed the phone at him, and he barely managed to catch it as he stared at her in open admiration. “Problem solved, I think,” she said with a wink.

“You’re awesome. She didn’t tell you who she was, though? It probably wouldn’t have rung a bell with me anyway.”

“She didn’t. But if you need me again to help clean out the crazy, just let me know.”

“I will. I definitely will. In fact I have an ex I’d love to see you go up against. But we won’t get into all that. It just puts me in a bad mood.”

“No exes. Okay.” She didn’t much like discussing hers, either, but she was enjoying the hell out of this. “What else is going on in your life? Anything I can help with right now?”

“Nah. No quick fixes.” He gestured toward the darkened building in front of them. “Just whatever’s going on in there. And I’m in a band…we’re on a bit of a hiatus right now. My family is mostly in Oklahoma. My grandmother’s not doing so well. I’ve been going up there whenever I get a chance, which isn’t often enough lately.”

“Oh? Do your parents live there too?”

“Both my parents are dead.”

“Oh. Oh…God, I’m sorry.” She leaned forward a little to get a better view of his face, since she could only see him in profile. “Really, I’m so sorry.”

He’d busied himself tracing his thumb around the edges of his cell phone. “Car wreck when I was six. Nah, it’s all right. It was so long ago, I barely remember them.”

“Still, though. I can’t imagine the pain being any less. Seems…seems it would hurt just as much to not have many memories of them.” She thought of her own parents and couldn’t even imagine.

He shrugged. “I guess I wouldn’t know. I remember the wreck, though. I was in the car. I have no idea why it was only me with them—I have a brother and sister too, but it was only me. Probably because I was being a little shit and wouldn’t stay with a babysitter or something.”

God, what did you say to something like that? Did he even want to talk about it? She was at a total loss, so after a moment she said the first thing that came to mind—probably not wise, but it was all she had. “All that, and still you like to live close to the edge, huh?”

He looked at her then. “I do?”

“Well…compared to someone like me, yes, you do. At least…me the way I am now.”

“So...you weren’t always the way you are now? Interesting.”

Now they were skirting the borders of her taboo. “I used to be different. Yeah.”

“How so?”

“A little wilder, maybe? More...I don’t know, invincible. Or at least feeling like I was.”

“And now you’re just a killjoy,” he teased. She laughed and gave him a little shove. “Nah. Are you sure you’ve change that much? You did just call up a chick you’ve never even met to lie for me. Not everyone would do that.”

“Oh, I’ve changed.” She tried to keep the bitter note out of her voice, but it crept in regardless.

“Why?”

“I just…decided to.” That was it. That was all he got. For now.

He didn’t look convinced, and she hadn’t expected him to, but hopefully he would drop it anyway. “I think we’re both doing a lot of dancing around each other right now, Macy.”

Starting with the fact that he hadn’t given her his real name. She wasn’t about to dredge up any deep, dark secrets from the basement of her soul when he hadn’t even put that much on the table yet. No way. He was an intriguing guy; that much she knew. Maybe that was all he needed to remain to her. A cool guy with mystique. She didn’t need to be the one delving behind those dark, enigmatic eyes.

No matter how much she wanted to.

He sat staring thoughtfully ahead, his elbow propped on the door and his hand near that enticing mouth. She wondered what he’d do if she drew it away and put her lips on his. Hard to believe this man who seemed to exude raw sex hadn’t made one move to get into her pants yet. He hadn’t even really put forth any innuendos.

Macy fought desperately against the little part of her that was disappointed. An achy, needy little part. God. It had been a while for her. Too long.

The million dollar question was, if he made a move, would she let him? Really?

It almost reminded her of high school…sitting in the car in the dark with a guy, will-he-or-won’t-he scenarios running through her head, along with her imagined responses. Her gaze strayed to his hand, and she pictured it on her thigh, its weight, its warmth pressing through the denim.

When she realized pretty much all of her imagined responses were edging toward the yes-yes-YES! category—hell, they were nearing the jump-his-bones-NOW category—she knew it was time to go.

“You know, it’s getting kind of late…I have work in the morning.”

“Ah. Gotcha. Didn’t mean to keep you out past your bedtime.”

“It’s okay. Except for the part where I feared for my life, I’ve had fun. It’s good to…get to know you.” Ugh. Awkward goodbyes. She hated those. “Since it seems our best friends are pretty much inseparable now and everything.”

“Right. Hey, thanks for chasing off my newest stalker.”

Macy laughed. “No problem.” Funny thing was, she didn’t want to leave, even knowing she had work tomorrow. He was someone she could imagine talking to all night long, and it had been a long time since she had that, too.

“Before I let you go, though, I need proof this actually happened.” Leaning toward her, he held his cell phone out in front of them. “Smile pretty.” She made a silly face. When he snapped the picture and turned it around to have a look, both of them laughed—he’d made a silly face too.