Page 37 of Ghost Business (Boneyard Key #2)

Twenty-Four

The hardest part of going for a run in Florida in late July, Tristan found, was pulling himself out of bed at oh dark thirty.

The second hardest was putting on pants at that hour.

But once his shoes were laced up and he was out the door, it was like magic.

Lingering stars winked out as the deepest blue sky gave way to indigo before the earliest touches of dawn crept on the horizon.

By the time he’d pounded out five miles, the sun was fully up, bringing her best friend, humidity, with her.

Normally he went straight home, but this morning he deserved an iced coffee, and Hallowed Grounds was right there.

The rush of cold air as he pushed open the door made him gasp in relief.

The weekday morning rush was mostly locals—folks stopping by to support this local business on the way to open up their own local businesses.

Most of them gave Tristan a smile or a small wave, and he was surprised that hardly any of them scowled at him anymore.

It may have taken a few months, but he was no longer the new asshole in town.

From behind the counter, Nick inclined his head in Tristan’s direction. “Coffee?”

Tristan gave a grateful nod. “Iced, please. With one pump of vanilla. Unless…I don’t suppose you have a protein shake back there?”

Nick gave an amused snort, which was the response Tristan had expected. “Not that kind of place.”

“Didn’t think so.” Tristan’s smirk matched Nick’s. “That’s okay, milk’s got protein.”

“The amount you put in, that should be plenty.” Nick handed Tristan’s drink across the counter. “There’s a rumor about a smoothie place opening up in the fall, out by the pier. Cassie’s about to pee herself with joy.”

“Wow, what a delightful way to put it,” came Cassie’s voice from the back corner. Tristan glanced over his shoulder, and she rolled her eyes in Tristan’s direction from where she sat at a back table, laptop open in front of her.

“I’ll have to check that out,” he said, but the end of the sentence trailed off as his brain caught up with his mouth.

He wasn’t going to be here in the fall, was he?

Even if Ghouls Night Out was a success here, he wasn’t sticking around.

He’d establish a manager here—maybe Sophie if he could get another attempt at talking her into it—ensure everything was running the way it should, and he’d be off.

Scouting a new location and doing it all over again.

Tristan was usually excited at this stage of things. Adding a new location to the stable and thinking about where to go next. But right now, he was more intrigued by the idea of the smoothie shop down by the pier.

He took a sip of his iced coffee, smooth and creamy with just a hint of vanilla, as the bell over the door chimed.

There was Sophie, frozen in the doorway.

He froze as well, like a kid caught in the cookie jar.

When he’d first come to town, Hallowed Grounds had been Sophie’s territory, so he’d backed off.

But things seemed to have turned a corner since the night he apologized to Cassie Rutherford’s refrigerator.

Nick hardly ever glowered at him anymore, and Cassie was even outright friendly.

Which, thank God, because while the pastries were good at Spooky Brew, Nick’s coffee was vastly superior.

But the fact remained: he was on Sophie’s turf.

Could they share this place, the way they’d been able to share The Haunt the other night?

Sophie’s smile was minuscule, hesitant. It was an olive branch. “Hey.”

“Hey.” Relief flooded through him. Maybe more than one corner had been turned here recently. Thank God; his heart rate was still coming down from his run. He was too tired to do battle. He didn’t want to do battle with Sophie. He wanted to kiss Sophie. Where was her front door when you needed it?

He’d leaned forward, starting to take a step in her direction, when Cassie’s voice came from her back corner like the voice of doom. “Ah, shit.”

Tristan startled, and so did Sophie, and they shared a wide-eyed look before they both turned in Cassie’s direction.

“Everything okay?” Nick frowned in concern.

Cassie nodded absently. “It’s the storm. Hurricane Flynn? He’s coming.”

“You serious?” Nick put down his kitchen towel and came out from behind the counter.

Sophie groaned. “Not you too. I’ve been getting text after text from Libby, ever since they named the storm. It’s barely a thunderstorm.”

“I don’t know…” Nick had moved to stand behind Cassie, and he bent to look over her shoulder at her laptop screen. “This looks like more than a thunderstorm now. Shit.”

Cassie groaned. “And what a stupid name. Flynn? Are we naming storms after cartoon princes now?”

Sophie’s nod was solemn, but her eyes danced in amusement. “Disney’s probably gonna sue the weather people.”

Tristan tried to get them back on topic. “Wasn’t that storm always coming, though?” He felt like the kid in the room, clueless while the grown-ups were talking. “It’s been in the news for days now.”

“Yeah, as a hypothetical. It might go this way, it might go that way. News stations love to fearmonger.” Nick’s eyes stayed on the screen while he talked. “But as a storm gets closer, they’re able to track it more accurately.”

“And it’s looking a lot more accurate now.” Cassie turned her laptop around to show Tristan. He bit hard on his bottom lip to not laugh, because what on earth was he looking at?

“This looks like someone let their toddler loose on MSPaint. It’s just a bunch of random squiggly lines all over the state.”

“That’s the spaghetti model,” Sophie said, as though he should know what the hell that was. “All the possible outcomes, according to projections.”

“He’s not wrong, though,” Nick said. “Those things are always a mess.”

“But if you look at all the lines…” Sophie stepped forward, and her fingertip grazed Cassie’s screen. “See how most of them are clumped together here? That’s the likely track the storm will take.”

The map showed ten different lines, and now Tristan could see the pattern. While two spun off into the Gulf and one cut through Key West and Miami, seven of them went straight through the Gulf of Mexico. Right toward Boneyard Key.

Now he understood. Shit.

Cassie looked up at Nick. “We good on supplies?”

Supplies. Right. Tristan’s mind whirled.

He remembered this. An article on the internet a couple months back.

His frantic shopping trip. In the weeks since, he’d drunk most of the water and tried one of the cans of ravioli (terrible).

He had a meeting this afternoon, but there was enough time for him to double back to the grocery, do a restock…

Meanwhile, Nick was nodding at Cassie. “I think so. There’s three, no, four bottles of red in the cabinet at home.

Could probably use another bottle or two of rum, and some mixers.

Just let me know what you’re thinking in terms of snacks, and I can pick that up when I go into town tomorrow for a supply run. ”

“Oooh, are you going by a Publix?” Her eyes lit up, and Nick sighed with good-natured amusement.

“For you? I can make the trip. One chicken tender sub coming up.”

“Yes, please! And see if they’re doing any hurricane cakes this time. I know they stopped officially doing them, but there’s got to be someone going rogue in the bakery department.”

“You got it.” He bent to kiss her, and she curled a hand around his head. The kiss lasted a good long while, and Tristan started feeling awkward. He cleared his throat loudly, which didn’t do much to hurry things along.

He turned to Sophie, desperate for a subject change, and judging by the redness of her cheeks, she was all for it. “Snacks?” he asked. “Rum? I thought hurricane supplies were things like bottled water and canned goods.”

Sophie nodded. “You’re right. Those are hurricane supplies.”

“The basic hurricane supplies,” Nick corrected, who had apparently come up for air. “Believe me, if you’re stuck in your home with no power for a few days, you’re going to be glad for the alcohol. And the snacks.”

“Red wine and chocolate-fudge Pop-Tarts,” Sophie said. “Remember?”

He did now. Stuff that didn’t need refrigeration. “Of course.”

“Anyway, we’re not talking about those hurricane supplies,” Cassie continued. “Not yet. The storm’s still way too far off; we don’t know what it’s going to do.”

“But…” Tristan gestured with his almost-empty coffee toward her laptop. “The spaghetti model…?”

“Oh, it’s heading this way for sure. Or at least, it’s coming up the Gulf instead of hitting the east coast of Florida.

No matter what, we’re getting some weather.

” She sighed. “Between you and me, I could go for a nice Category 1 right about now. A little wind, a little rain, maybe a day or two off work…” Cassie’s face turned dreamy.

“A nice hurricane party,” Sophie chimed in.

“Hurricane party.” He was doing that thing again, repeating what was said to him, but he was so far out of his element that he didn’t feel capable of doing much else.

But no one seemed to notice. “Hurricane party,” Nick repeated with glee.

“Don’t worry, you’re invited. It’ll be at our place.

Drinks, food, a little running around outside in the rain while the storm comes through.

” He clapped Tristan on the shoulder on his way back to the counter. “You’ll love it.”

Tristan tried to not rotate his shoulder in an effort to work out the slap. “I’m sure I will.” He took another sip of coffee and tried to calm his racing thoughts. If Nick and Cassie weren’t overly worried about the storm, then he wouldn’t be, either. They were the experts.

“Then again…” Sophie looked doubtful. “It could be a big storm. And you’ve never ridden out a hurricane. Might not be a bad idea to evacuate.”

“Evacuate?” The urgency of the word shot adrenaline through Tristan’s blood. “How soon would I have to evacuate?”

“Oh, probably really soon. You know, beat the rush.” There was that amusement again, dancing in Sophie’s eyes. Now that it was trained on him, it made his heart go all fizzy.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” He leaned in closer, and the gleam in her eyes spread to a full-fledged smile on her face. “Nice try, Horvath. It’s going to take more than a natural disaster to get rid of me.”

But he was smiling, and so was she, and she was right there, so close.

Closer than she should probably be, considering they were in public, and as far as anyone knew, they were barely tolerating each other.

Tristan wasn’t thinking about that, though.

He was thinking about the way the tip of her tongue looked, peeking out between her teeth as her smile turned wicked…

Nick cleared his throat loudly, making the both of them jump. “Cassie,” he said, “what the hell is a hurricane cake?”

Oh, thank God. Both for the subject change and the question. Because Tristan couldn’t even begin to picture what a hurricane cake might be. Did it have special storm-repelling powers?

But Cassie just smiled as she started typing on her laptop.

“Not that deep, y’all. It’s a cake. Decorated with hurricane symbols.

Usually something nice like ‘leave Florida alone’…

” She turned her laptop around, and there was a page of image results.

Outlines of the state of Florida done in green with blue for the ocean, with a big red blob in the middle representing the impending hurricane.

Names on the cakes like Dorian, Ian, Irma.

They were beautiful. They were a little disturbing. A weird thing to celebrate.

But Tristan could understand. He’d whistled in the dark more than once in his life. And an imminent hurricane seemed very, very dark.