there. Most of these assholes were there too, might I add…and I woke up the next morning only to discover a tattoo I don’t remember getting.”
“It’s really not funny,” Brian said, wiping his eyes with his thumb. “Except that it is.”
“My ass, it’s funny. It goes against every code of ethics we have.”
“You want to talk about ethics? When there’s a reason I don’t let you give me ink?”
“So…what’s the tattoo of?” Macy asked, setting off another round of hysterics. She saw quickly this was the really hard part. Seth wouldn’t meet the gaze of anyone in the room. Several of the others began goading him to tell her. Once that went on for a while, he finally sighed and looked at her.
“Casper the Friendly Ghost.”
Merriment ensued again. Macy couldn’t resist the laughter. Finally, Seth cracked a smile himself, as if the humor of the situation wasn’t entirely lost on him. “I mean, what the fuck? Casper? You’re gonna let someone who’s obviously inebriated get a tattoo of Casper?”
“I’m of the opinion it was a joke because they thought he looked like you. You’d just shaved your head for the first time. But that’s not even as funny as where it is,” Brian said.
Oh no. Macy dropped her face into her palm, having a pretty good idea where this was going.
“I can’t even wait for him to tell this,” Brian said. “Let’s just say that for a while, from what I gather, any girl who went down on him found herself face-to-face with a cute little white ghost. It was in the vicinity, if you know what I mean.”
The howls that followed were deafening. Macy simply moved her hand down to her mouth and watched how Seth was taking this. Remarkably well, she thought—although he was getting redder by the minute. Poor guy. That really was…bad.
“I got it covered up,” he explained quickly. “But the damage was already done, and I made the mistake of telling someone I thought was my friend.” He gave Brian a withering look. “Everyone was calling me Casper because of this son of a bitch. I somehow managed to divert it to ‘Ghost’. I had to try to salvage some shred of coolness about this whole thing.” He kicked Brian’s leg. Brian yelped.
“Hey! You can’t expect me to just sit on information like that. Deep down, I really was outraged on your behalf. Deep, deep down.”
Seth swigged his beer. “Sure you were. Like I said. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out you did it.”
“Nope. I wouldn’t voluntarily get that close to your junk, sorry. I left early and wasn’t even there to defend your virtue. But if it’s any consolation, if I ever found out one of my artists did something like that, his or her ass would get fired. Fast.”
Seth grumbled a reply she couldn’t make out.
“Maybe you shouldn’t be so pissed,” Brian said. “It could’ve been a hot girl who did it, and you might’ve had a good time.”
“So what did you cover it up with?” Macy asked.
“Never again will I divulge the secrets of any intimate ink I have. Not to these guys, anyway.” The look he gave her then sent a shiver down to her toes. It clearly indicated he wouldn’t mind divulging those secrets to her.
As the jovial conversation went on, she thought Brian was probably wrong. There was nothing “friendly” looking about Seth, nothing that could be compared to a cute cartoon. He was the polar opposite.
Except she’d seen another side of him over the last couple of days, and she couldn’t get it out of her mind. Before, there had only been the wisecracking tattoo artist and heavy-metal aficionado. The guy she could see hanging out with but never…being with at all. Now, he’d morphed into something else entirely—someone who did have cares and worries like everyone else, and who felt very deeply about them.
He was a loyal friend. He was devoted to his job. Even if they weren’t exactly the friends or the job she would have chosen for the guy she was with, it counted for something.
She wasn’t so dense that she didn’t realize she was being sucked in by the magnetic lure of the bad boy, superficial though it might be. Okay, so maybe she had realized this attraction wasn’t so crazy after all, and it could be good for the one thing she needed. But the coarse language and nonstop partying and loud music would wear on her nerves after a while—a short