Breathe Me In

He dialed Macy. Got her voicemail. Checking his watch, he decided to give her the benefit of the doubt. She had a job; maybe she didn’t like to talk at work. Brian didn’t necessarily like them to hang around up front yakking on cell phones either, even if they weren’t busy.

Her cheerful voicemail greeting ended, twisting a knife in his gut. The beep sounded. “Hey. Ghost. Call me back.” Short and sweet (of course, he’d probably sounded more sour than sweet, which hadn’t been his intention), and he’d only left it on the off-chance she had turned her phone off and didn’t see she’d missed a call from him. He hated leaving f**king voicemail unless he was jacking around with Brian or something. But in those cases, he only left a string of curses or obscene breathing or pretended to be calling about a subscription to a kinky magazine or some other shit he made up.

It was a cloudy, dreary day. He tilted his head back and stared up at the leaden, oppressive sky, hoping his phone would ring in the next few minutes and brighten his outlook on things. No such luck.

He thought of driving around for a few minutes, but unfortunately, he’d spoken the truth to Macy that night. He couldn’t get in his car without thinking of her. It was probably only his imagination, but he thought he could still smell her. Sweet. Warm. Vanilla. Fleeting.

Damn.

He ambled back inside, passing Starla who was now obviously on the phone with her boyfriend. He only had to catch the “Listen, motherfucker!” before the door shut to know that much.

Not everyone was wrapped in a cocoon of love and sunshine and warm fuzzies like Brian. Far more people were trapped in a web of pain and anger and doubt and couldn’t see a way of untangling themselves.

Maybe he’d rather stay with them. Far less to lose.

So when his phone didn’t ring that day, he decided to count it as a f**king blessing.

Macy listened to his message over and over just to hear his voice. It was terse, strained…so different than the one that had whispered and groaned in her ear.

He was pissed at her, and she couldn’t blame him. But he’d be okay. He was much better off without her…but now that Brian and Candace were back together, the huge glaring problem was that she would probably be bumping into him from time to time. Ugh. Awkward.

Folding her arms on her work desk, she dropped her forehead to them with a thud. There was no time for crap like this. Her parents’ outdoor sports store wasn’t going to run itself, and on top of everything else, her dad was here prowling around today. Usually he left her to her job. It always made her antsy when he showed up, like someone had taken complaints to him or something. He might be her dad, but he was still her boss. She didn’t worry that he would fire her but listening to him lecture her for an hour wasn’t on the top of her list of fun things either.

With that thought, she propelled herself upward. The least she could do was look alive. She checked her reflection in the mirror she kept in her desk drawer, noticing her eyes looked red and glassy, like she had the flu or she was about to burst into tears at any moment.

Not. An. Option.

Jaw clenched in frustration, she chucked the mirror back in its drawer and slammed it shut, then left her office for the floor to see if she could find out what her dad was poking through.

She had a life. She had a job to do. She had great friends to get her through whatever this funk was—at least she would if she could stop herself from pissing them off.

Ghost would be all right. He probably did this sort of thing all the time. To think she was the first one to ever be in his backseat—it had probably been a lie. And he hadn’t even kissed her! Really. She was torturing herself over this?

Call you? Yeah, okay. Maybe when you decide to tell me what your damn name is, for God’s sake.

Her dad took one look at her as she approached and unknowingly called her on all her acrobatic mental bullshit, his eyes keen with insight beneath the bill of his John Deere cap. “What’s the matter, Macy girl?”

She contemplated running away from the question, bursting into tears and pitching herself into his arms, or grabbing and throwing the nearest thing she could reach. In the end, she did what she always did.

Smiled, said “Nothing,” and carried on.

“Lizzy Hale.”

“Maria Brink.”

“Alissa White-Gluz, motherfuckers.”

The nominees for the never-ending hottest-chick-in-metal debate flew fast and furious, all the guys of Dermamania shouting out their preference almost simultaneously as soon as the question was posed. It was kind of a running joke whenever a certain client of Brian’s was under the needle. The guy needed constant conversation to get through the pain, and they all tried to accommodate.

“I’m the hottest chick in metal,” Starla said, her usual response when she was present.

“Alissa could kick all our candy asses,” Ghost said of his nominee. It was all in fun, because there’d been only one girl kicking his ass lately and he’d be forever grateful if he could only exorcise her from his f**king thoughts.

It had been a couple of weeks since he’d heard from her. He’d made some manner of peace with the fact that something had freaked her out. He didn’t know what; she’d obviously had a good time. Maybe that was all she’d been after. If so, hey, he couldn’t judge. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t done the whole disappearing act before.

Karma was biting him in the ass, that was all. Hell, sometimes he thought his ex, Raina, was a source of rotten, stinking karma flowing ever toward him, never depleting, never tiring of watching him squirm. It seemed as long as that girl walked the earth, a little storm cloud was going to rain on his head. He wouldn’t be surprised if she hadn’t hexed him somehow.

Candace came in. Ghost watched her stroll over to where Brian sat on his stool and drop him a little kiss before heading toward the back to wait for him. Brian’s dimples didn’t smooth out for at least ten minutes after that. Ghost’s need to rib him about it almost exceeded his capacity to resist, but somehow he managed.

Then his phone rang. His sister.

He caught Brian’s eye and stepped toward the front, away from the ongoing conversation. The waiting area didn’t offer any more privacy than the stations, though, so he moved on out the front door into the humid early summer air. Only then did he answer, lungs burning with the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

“Hey, Steph.”

She didn’t respond right away. The pause was all he needed to know that she was calling with news about his grandmother, and the news wasn’t good.

“Seth? I need you here.”

Fucking karma. It could kick him when he was down all it wanted; it didn’t have to go after the people he loved.

“I’m there.”

Brian caught his expression and frowned as soon as he entered. Ghost tilted his chin up at him and walked past, not wanting to be under the scrutiny of anyone present any longer than he had to be. “Need you for a second, man.”

Ordinarily a remark like that would be cause for any number of humorous innuendos. Brian only nodded solemnly. “Let me finish up.”

“All right.”

But Candace was waiting in Brian’s office, and Ghost stopped short the second he saw her there tapping away at her phone. “Sorry, forgot you were here,” he said, turning to go to the drawing room.

“It’s all right,” she said quickly, getting out of her seat. “I don’t want to get in anyone’s way.”

“You’re not.”

She made a move to walk toward him where he stood in the door. “I’ll just go wait—”

“No. Sit. Please. Damn if I’ll be the source of his deprivation.”

“He’s not that bad off without me, is he?” she laughed, obviously flattered.

“You have no idea.”

Maybe Macy’s best friend could offer a bit of insight about her. But no, that was lame, not to mention too little too late. Candace had already rebuffed him once in an effort to keep him away from her. He couldn’t recall her exact words, but maybe he should have heeded whatever warning she’d given him. He only had himself to blame, and that sucked.

But then Candace shocked him to his core. “Have you talked to Macy lately?”

What the hell? She knew?

“Huh?” he said stupidly.

“I know you hung out together. She won’t talk. Anything…brewing there?” She grinned at him.

“Apparently not.”

“Oh. Hmm. Well…” She gave a shrug and went back to her phone. “I’m texting with her now. I could tell her you said hi.”

“No. Don’t mention me.”

Candace’s gaze snapped back up to him, and he cursed himself for the bitter edge that had crept into his voice. “Okay then,” she said.

Brian appeared behind him and clapped him on the shoulder. “What’s up?”

Caught now between the two of them, Candace inside the office and Brian blocking the only escape route, Ghost rubbed his hand over his face and hoped he could hold it together. He could ask to talk to Brian alone, but f**k it. He’d never been one to care much about who knew his business. Unlike some people.

“I need some time off. Like…a lot of time.”

“Your grandmother,” Brian said. It wasn’t a question. Brian knew what was going on; they’d even spoken once about this possibility and he had assured Ghost he would always have a job to come back to. “Sorry, man. You gotta do what you gotta do.”

“Yeah.”

“Is there anything we can do to help? Check on your house, water your plants and shit?”

Ghost scoffed. “I don’t have any fuckin’ plants. But yeah, you can check on things for me. You know where the spare key is.”

Candace had remained pensively silent while they spoke. Macy would probably hear all about this. He didn’t care. It wasn’t like anything mattered now. Who knew how long he would be gone? By the time he came back she’ll have moved on. It was almost a comfort to know he didn’t have to agonize over it anymore. It was done and there were far more pressing matters to worry about.

Matters he didn’t want to give any thought to right now. The dark months that lay ahead, his grandmother’s failing health…the knowledge of their imminence had been pressing into the back of his mind for a long time now. He’d kept it out as best he could. Now that the reality of it all was upon him…God, he wasn’t prepared. Not in the f**king least.

“I need to get out of here and make some phone calls,” he told Brian. “Get packed, get on the road.”

“Sure, man. Call and let us know how everything’s going.”

“I will.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Candace asked as he turned to go. He smiled as reassuringly as he could at her sincere concern.

“I’ll make it. I always do.”

He bumped fists with Brian and walked away, leaving them staring after him.