Everything within her wanted to reply When, where, what do I wear and what should I bring? but that might have sounded desperately…desperate. Maybe she was, but she had to keep some shred of dignity, for God’s sake.
So she sent back one word. Absolutely. He replied with a winky face and Call u ltr.
“Okay, what’s up? Because you’re grinning like a goon,” Candace said. She tapped a pen impatiently on the desktop calendar. “Hot date? Please say yes.”
“No comment.”
Candace practically howled with frustration. But Macy was sure she put the mystery to rest when she swallowed all pride and asked, “So is he, uh, not working at all today?”
“Nope. Brian told him not to worry about coming in tonight since he was here so late last night—I could’ve killed Brian for actually letting him volunteer to work, by the way. But I heard Ghost say he was going to call the guys in his band and see if they could throw together an extra practice.”
Interesting. She didn’t know much about his band—just that he was the guitarist and they often played gigs in surrounding cities but didn’t really have aspirations beyond that. He’d told her it was mostly a fun, blow-off-steam thing for him, and an outlet for any pent-up creativity he didn’t manage to exorcise through his art alone. But he obviously loved it.
She’d never heard any of his music. She doubted she could give an objective opinion. Her main concern at the moment was what went on during these band meetings, practices or whatever. Hopefully no drunken debauchery that might delay him…or keep him from showing up altogether.
Great. Something else to obsess over.
Chapter Seven
“Nice of you to finally show up, G.”
Ghost bit down on a retort that might not have been conducive to repairing some of the tension among the members of In the Slaughter. Then again, being confronted with assholic remarks from the much-maligned front man the second he walked in the door of Mark’s home studio wasn’t too conducive, either.
“Aw, I missed you too. All you worthless bastards.”
The guys scattered about the room chuckled, looking glum. Ghost set his guitar case down and sighed when he glanced around and saw one of their five-piece was missing. He dropped into an empty seat and assumed the same sullen position as most of the others, arms crossed, mouth turned down.
Yeah, so even when he wasn’t pulling a months’-long disappearing act, it was often hard for him to find time to devote to the band because of his work, and the guys gave him shit about it. But Brian needed him, and he didn’t like letting Brian down. Gus, the other guitarist and his musical counterpart affectionately known as Little G to his Big G, often found it difficult to find time to devote to the band because he was off somewhere getting high.
“I guess no one’s heard from him?”
No one had to ask who he meant. Heads shook in slow unison. “Couldn’t even reach him,” Randall said, rubbing his eyebrow ring the way he always did when he was worried. “I texted him earlier but didn’t get a reply.”
Ghost had received similar results. Mark bolted from his chair and paced a few steps away, a mass of nervous energy as he scrubbed his hands on his jeans. Onstage, that energy made the guy explode. Offstage, it sometimes made him hard to handle. “So fuckin’ sick of this bullshit.”
“What bullshit? So he wasn’t sitting on top of his phone today. We did kind of put this together last minute, you know.”
“Quit making excuses for him. It’s always this way with him, and you know it.”
“The guy’s got a problem, Mark.”
“That’s not my problem, is it? But I’ll tell you what is. The gig we have next month. The fact that one of our guitarists might be lying dead in a ditch for all we know, and the other has more important shit to do.” His narrowed gaze landed directly on Ghost.
Aw, hell no. “Yeah, I did have more important shit to do. Way more important than you even know. But I can always go do more of it, if all I’m going to do is sit here and listen to you bitch.”
“So that’s how it is?”
“Yeah, that’s how it is.”
“We can’t play without Gus, anyway,” Eddie said, slowly twirling the drumsticks he held in both hands. “What’s the point?”
“The point is we need to replace him.” It was the statement from Mark they’d all known was coming for