Ghost had gotten all kinds of excited about the prospects of some girl-on-girl action happening in the backseat, and offered the use of his cell phone to record it. Brian had shaken his head, laughing.

The conversation hadn’t stalled since, and she found herself struggling to keep up. It was like wandering into a roomful of strangers who were speaking a foreign language, trying to decipher their gossip and inside jokes. They were probably all the more hilarious for their mystery to her.

“Dude,” Ghost proclaimed after about an hour and a half on the road. He dug deep into the duffel bag he’d brought and produced a CD, which he handed to Brian. “Play this.”

Brian took it and held it up in front of his face to examine it, but it looked blank from where she was sitting. “The f**k is this, man,” he muttered around the sucker in this mouth. She had to giggle at the way he often made questions sound like statements.

“Just play it. You’ll like it.”

“I’d better or you’re walking the rest of the way.” He glanced back at Candace. “Ghost favors some unusual shit.”

“Very,” Starla agreed, passing Candace the bag of chips that had been circulating the cab.

As Brian fiddled with the CD, Ghost surprised Candace by turning all the way around in his seat so he could look directly at her. “What’s up with your girl?”

Caught with a mouthful of BBQ Ruffles, she struggled to swallow before she spoke. “Huh?”

“Your girl. The one you came in with the other night.”

“Oh, Macy? What about her?”

“She have a dude?” His dark eyes were intent, almost unnervingly so. He normally seemed so nonchalant. But then, she’d only been in his presence a couple of times.

“Um…not at the moment.”

“Gimme her number.”

She laughed, looking at him incredulously. “I can’t just give you my friend’s number.”

“Why not? She’s your friend, ain’t she?”

“Yeah, that’s why I can’t hand her number out without her permission.”

“What I’m saying is, if she’s your friend, she’ll forgive you. But she doesn’t even have to know where I got it from. I won’t tell her.”

“Who else could you have gotten it from?”

“I’ll say you left your phone sitting in your seat or something and I swiped it and got her number out of it.”

“I didn’t even bring it.”

“Well, she doesn’t know that!”

Brian and the girls were laughing. Starla reached up and grabbed Ghost’s shoulder. “Down, boy, turn around now. Stop harassing her.”

Ghost ignored her. “She’s kind of prim and proper, huh.”

“You don’t know the half of it.”

“Oh, shit,” Brian muttered, as if he knew what was coming next. “Dude, turn around. Eyes front.”

“Daaaamn, I love girls like that. I love getting them dirrrty.”

Candace giggled. “Good luck with that. Look up ‘dirty’ in the dictionary and it’ll say ‘Not Macy’.”

Starla yelped with laughter, but Ghost only looked pained. “Ah! You’re killing me here.”

He shook his head and turned back around, grumbling. “I still think you should give me her number.”

She was tempted to do it just to get a good laugh out of the situation. This poor guy didn’t know what he’d be getting himself into.

Every time Brian had glanced into the backseat on the drive, she’d been smiling. She looked better already, and he had to congratulate himself. But then, his friends could always be counted on to keep the mood festive. Starla and Janelle had made sure she felt welcome without him even having to ask it of them. He’d been afraid Starla’s opinion of her had changed after last week. Apparently, that wasn’t the case at all.

By the time they pulled up to the curb outside Marco and Kara’s house in the suburbs of Dallas, every line of tension in her face had smoothed out. Their plan had been not to call this a date, but God, he wanted to. He wanted to run straight to her side, wrap his arm around her shoulders and introduce her to his friends as his. His date, his woman, his girlfriend…hell, whatever title she would allow him to put on her.

He couldn’t do that, but there was no denying the magnetism that pulled him toward her as soon as his feet hit the ground. She smiled at him as he came up beside her, and gestured to the sucker stick still in his mouth as she stretched her muscles after the long drive. “New habit?”

“Yeah. Rot my teeth instead of my lungs.”

“Ew!”

He laughed, flicking the stick in the back of his truck. Normally he would’ve thrown it in the gutter, but he didn’t want her thinking he was a litterbug.

“When I first saw you pull up at my apartment, I caught that flash of white in your mouth and I was so afraid you were smoking again.”

“I’m doing okay,” he murmured as they all walked across the neat green lawn toward the house. “Haven’t slipped up yet. Don’t worry.”

“So, how do you know these people whose house I’m staying at?” She gave a nervous laugh. “I hope they won’t mind me tagging along.”

“Not at all, they’re totally cool. You’ll see. They own a parlor here in Dallas. When I want ink, I go to these guys. Marco is my mentor. I did my apprenticeship under him.”

“Oh! So they’ve done all your work?”

“I’m pretty much a showcase for them.”

Ghost had overheard. “Yeah, the bastard won’t let me touch him.”

“Because I can only imagine what you’d put on me,” Brian fired back.

The front door to the house opened and Marco’s wife flew out, squealing. Janelle and Starla made similar sounds of excitement and rushed forward, crushing her in a hug.

“That’s Kara,” Brian said at Candace’s ear. “I’ll introduce you. You’ll like her.”

The three danced around in a silly merry-go-round hug and finally broke apart, laughing. Kara evaded Ghost’s groping as best she could before moving on to Brian and then Candace, surprising him by grabbing her in a hug, too. Candace returned it, beaming.

“Candace, meet Kara.” Brian laughed. “Who is not shy in the least.”

“I’ve never met you before,” Kara said to her, “but if you’re with him then you’re all right by me.”

“Oh, I’m…” Candace looked at him in alarm, and he gave a little shake of his head to say it was okay. They didn’t need to explain themselves to anyone. “It’s nice to meet you. I hope you don’t mind me coming along.”

“Of course not. You guys might be crowded tonight, but we are fully equipped for this sort of thing, trust me. The more the merrier.”

“That’s if we sleep at all,” Ghost said happily.

Kara was still scrutinizing Candace. “Brian, she’s adorable! Look at that face. You take good care of him, Candace. Ever since he was a starry-eyed eighteen-year-old kid hanging around our parlor, he’s been one of my favorite people.”

“Just one of them?” he teased, and she winked at him.