Page 45 of Ghost Business (Boneyard Key #2)

Thirty-One

Broken glass.

Broken glass, and a shitload of water. Everywhere.

Tristan stood in the doorway of his condo, frozen to the spot. His brain couldn’t comprehend what he was seeing.

It was a gorgeous day outside. Bright sunshine, a slight breeze off the water.

You’d never know that just twelve hours ago a hurricane had plowed through Boneyard Key.

Except, of course, for the smashed plate-glass window in Tristan’s living room.

That same breeze from off the water danced playfully through the space, ruffling the now-damp pile of mail on the table by the door that had somehow remained untouched by the storm.

His first thought was My dad’s gonna kill me , like Hurricane Flynn had been some kind of rager that he’d thrown here in this condo. His dad had told him not to trash the place, and it was well and truly trashed.

He must have spoken the words out loud, because next to him, Sophie’s hand slid into his. “Hey.” She gave his hand a squeeze. “It’s gonna be okay.”

Sophie. She was the absolute best part of this hurricane.

She was the best part of everything, as far as he was concerned.

He still couldn’t believe that he’d woken up with her curled in his arms. They’d fallen asleep long after the hurricane had slowed to a light rain, reaching for each other in the dark over and over all night.

They’d woken up this morning sometime between two and ten in the morning; hard to tell when the windows were boarded up and the power was out.

Tristan had lost count of the number of times he’d reflexively hit an unresponsive light switch.

From behind them in the breezeway came the sound of heavy footsteps on the stairs.

“Hey, Sophie!” Nick called when he hit the landing.

Sophie jumped and dropped Tristan’s hand as she turned around.

“You make it through the storm okay?” He revved the screw gun in his hand like he was firing a six-shooter in the air.

“Ready for me to take off those shutters—oh, shit.” He looked over Tristan’s shoulder at the carnage that was his living room. “That doesn’t look good.”

“No,” Tristan said. “It doesn’t.” It wasn’t even his place, but he still mourned that hardwood flooring.

And that living room set; the couch looked like it had soaked up rainwater like a sponge.

The glass-and-steel coffee table had been upended but otherwise looked undamaged.

Palm fronds lay scattered across the living room like favors from an especially violent party.

Nick stepped past him into the condo, and now that it had been breached, Tristan was able to go inside too. Nick headed straight for the broken window, his work boots crunching on the broken glass on the floor. “So no hurricane shutters, huh?”

Tristan shook his head. “Apparently Dad wanted to save a buck when he bought the place.”

“Well, that was smart.” Nick peered out onto the balcony, then let his gaze sweep the carnage in the living room. “And hey, the good news is that it’s not your place, right? Not your problem.”

“Woooo.” Tristan made a feeble raise-the-roof gesture, and Nick snorted.

“How about the rest of the place?” Sophie stepped into the condo, and Nick immediately darted toward her.

“What the hell are you doing? There’s broken glass everywhere, and you’re in those little flip-flops? Go put real shoes on.” He scolded her like an older brother, and Sophie reacted in kind, screwing up her face in a scowl before retreating to her own place.

Tristan looked down at his own flip-flopped feet. Nick hadn’t been concerned at all for him.

The rest of the condo seemed intact. It was just the living room that had been hit, but it had been hit hard. That huge window would need replacing, of course. And probably the floor. All the furniture.

Like Nick said, though. At least it wasn’t his place.

“So, you rode out your first hurricane.” Nick crossed his arms and leaned against the kitchen counter.

“Congrats. Did you lose your shit when that happened?” He nodded toward the broken window, and Tristan blinked at it.

When had it shattered? Had it been when he’d had his hand down Sophie’s underwear in the living room?

Or later that night, when he’d dug his second emergency condom from the depths of his wallet?

“Um. Not really. I was…” He glanced uncertainly toward the front door.

This morning, he and Sophie had shared a pot of cold brew coffee she’d prepped in her French press the day before, but they hadn’t talked about…

well, they hadn’t talked about them . Tristan didn’t want to spill the beans if she didn’t want him to.

This was her town, and he was more than happy to follow her lead.

But she wasn’t here to lead. She was back in her place, putting real shoes on.

Nick nodded, thankfully not following Tristan’s thoughts. “You were in the bathroom, right? That’s what you do. A room with no windows, so you don’t get a face full of glass.”

Tristan nodded dumbly while his cheeks burned. He was an actor; lying was practically a hobby of his. But in front of this guy, who was basically Sophie’s big brother? Who could probably kill him with that screw gun if he wanted?

“He was with me last night.” Sophie’s voice in the doorway was a sigh of relief in Tristan’s brain. She stood just inside the front door, hands on her hips and sneakers on her feet, daring Nick to say something.

He didn’t take the dare. Sure, his eyebrows crawled up his forehead as he looked from Tristan to Sophie and back again, but he held up his hands in a placating gesture. “Hey, I’m just here to take down some shutters.”

“You need help?” Tristan remembered how Sophie had struggled the other day.

Nick considered Tristan for longer than it really should have taken to determine his worthiness to carry heavy things. Finally, he nodded. “Put some damn shoes on first.” He clomped in his work boots out of Tristan’s condo and into the breezeway.

Tristan put some damn shoes on.

Between the three of them, they made quick work of both the exterior shutters and the sheets of plywood that had boarded up Sophie’s interior windows. Afterward, Nick accepted a partially cold bottle of water from the cooler in Sophie’s kitchen.

“How’s the rest of the town?” Sophie bit on her bottom lip absently, and Tristan wished Nick would go away so he could take over that task.

Instead he concentrated on his own bottle of water.

A gallon per person per day , he thought absently.

It seemed like a lot, but with the power still out in this late-July humidity, he’d probably sweat that much out before noon.

“Not that bad.” Nick shrugged. “Some flooding here and there. Branches down all over, you know. The usual. A tree hit Cassie’s house but just knocked a couple shingles loose.

I can fix those myself this weekend. I think so far the worst I’ve seen is at your place.

” He nodded over to Tristan, including him in the conversation.

“Anything else I can do to help? I mean, I put shoes on and everything.” Taking down the shutters had been hard work, but now that they were down and put away, he felt adrenalized.

Something about having been cooped up all night—not that he was complaining about how he’d spent that time—made him want to be out in the world.

Nick considered him for a long moment, glanced over at Sophie—who was all wide-eyed innocence—then nodded. “Come on down. Join the cleanup effort. I have the generator up and running at the café, and Ramon has food going for folks.”

“Breakfast burritos?” Sophie lit up in a way that would make Tristan jealous if she weren’t talking about food.

“That’s his tradition.”

“Can I bring anything?”

Nick shook his head. “We should be good on water and sodas, and we already brought down the beer for the hurricane party we didn’t have. But if you have some extra cords, I could use them for the charging station.”

Their conversation sounded like one they had regularly, as though hurricanes and long-term power outages were a regular occurrence. But this was a coastal town, so they probably were. Nick and Sophie somehow made it sound more like party planning than storm recovery.

“We’ll be along.” Sophie nodded firmly, and Tristan liked the way the word we sounded in her mouth.

He also liked the way she said it so matter-of-factly, as though not only was it a given that they’d be downtown to help clean up, but that it would be the both of them.

Together. Yeah, he really liked the sound of that.

On their walk downtown, Tristan got his own cleanup efforts started.

The first step was to start a group text with his father and the condo’s property manager, attaching pictures of the broken window and the other damage to the front half of the condo, and offering to be available to meet with whatever insurance representatives and contractors necessary.

After that, the conversation was mostly between his dad and the property manager.

Tristan checked in every so often, but they were still deep in talks about water remediation and what would or wouldn’t be covered under the homeowner’s insurance. None of his business.

He was good at texting and walking at the same time, but when they got to The Haunt, he glanced up and his steps slowed.

“Damn.” He clicked his phone off and stuck it in his back pocket. He and Sophie surveyed Beachside Drive.