Page 5 of Ghost Business (Boneyard Key #2)

Four

Tristan wasn’t the kind of guy who stuck around in one place very long. But Boneyard Key might just change his mind.

“Please tell me you’re not eating oysters for dinner every night.” Eric, his long-suffering business partner and even longer-suffering friend, smirked at him through Tristan’s laptop screen.

Tristan made a pffft sound. “Of course not.” He lifted the takeout box from its spot next to his laptop on the coffee table. “Tuesday is fried chicken night. Apparently, people start putting their orders in at three in the afternoon, so you know it’s going to be good.”

Eric shook his head in mock censure. “I wish I had your physique, man. I’d be at the gym three extra days after a dinner like that.”

“Come go for a run with me. I think it counts double down here; it’s like running in a sauna.”

That garnered a full-on laugh, which brought a grin to Tristan’s face.

Eric was too serious; he liked when he could make him laugh.

The years fell away while he was talking to Eric.

They’d met at freshman orientation in college, ended up living on the same hall in the same dorm, and had even rushed the same fraternity.

They’d tried dating their sophomore year but quickly realized that while they were a disaster as a couple, they absolutely worked as best friends.

Together, they’d spent countless late nights in the living room of their fraternity house, planning out their fall fundraiser: a walking tour of campus that was part pub crawl, part ghost tour.

Lots of nights of cheap pizza and even cheaper beer, spitballing ideas, recalling every cheesy ghost story they’d heard as a kid.

The guy with a hook for a hand. Hitchhiking ghosts of various backgrounds and ethnicities.

Even that old 1950s song, “Teen Angel”—why had a song about a girl being hit by a train been a big hit back then?

—that was easy to spin into a story about a ghost lingering near some railroad tracks just off campus.

That fundraiser had been so much fun—and so lucrative—that they’d put it on every semester after that.

That meant more late nights, more brainstorming as they made it bigger and better each time.

Senior year they even gave the endeavor a name: Ghouls Night Out.

Then Tristan took it one step further by fleshing out a business plan and turning it into his senior thesis project.

As a graduation gift, Tristan’s father had agreed to be the first investor, and suddenly Tristan was a businessman, running a ghost tour operation.

They’d expanded to twelve cities around the country by now, Boneyard Key being location number thirteen.

All this work hadn’t been easy, and a lot of the time it hadn’t been the least bit fun.

But Eric, with his knack for spreadsheets and unwavering optimism, had been with him every step of the way.

While Tristan was the face of the organization, scouting out new locations and getting them up and running, telling the marginally spooky stories with aplomb and charm, Eric was the true businessman of the outfit.

He was the one who made sure the numbers added up. Even when they didn’t, really.

Tristan knew the business was in trouble.

Okay, maybe not trouble —they weren’t on the verge of closing down imminently or anything.

But that graduation gift from his father had come with strings.

Very long strings—they’d stretched for almost five years.

Except now Tristan was running out of string, and time was almost up.

If Sebastian Martin wasn’t happy with the state of things come October, it was the end for Ghouls Night Out.

But when Tristan talked to Eric, he wasn’t thinking about any of that. Talking to Eric, he remembered why he did this. He remembered that above all, leading a tour, telling cheesy ghost stories was fun .

“Seriously, though.” Eric was ready to talk business, and Tristan snapped to attention. “How’s the new location shaping up?”

“Fantastic.” Tristan popped a french fry into his mouth.

“This place couldn’t be any more perfect if I’d made it all up.

Everything is ghost themed, and I do mean everything.

Try and find something in one of these gift shops that doesn’t have a ghost slapped on it.

” His collection was already embarrassing: three T-shirts (including one with an intricately tie-dyed ghost on the front), two ball caps (one of which he was about to put in the mail to Eric), and a shot glass so far.

Every time he was downtown, he saw something new in a shop window, and before he knew it, he was inside getting yet another souvenir of Boneyard Key.

He was going to have no trouble remembering the place once he left.

“Sounds like we’ll fit right in, then,” Eric said, as though he was ever going to set foot in Boneyard Key.

The man practically lived behind his screens; it drove his boyfriend crazy.

“Now, if you’ll just give me a second, I was working on compiling the reports for the rest of the locations…

” His attention switched off camera as he clicked and frowned.

“Okay. I’ve got the monthly reports from Richmond and Montgomery.

Nothing from Omaha yet, but you know they’re always a little late turning in their numbers.

For the most part everything is trending upward, but… ”

“But not fast enough, right?” Tristan sighed. He knew it.

“Well, now, hang on. Just because certain tourist attractions aren’t doing well in February , when they have half a foot of snow on the ground, doesn’t mean that it’s time to declare bankruptcy.”

“Good point.” It was easy to forget things like that when you were in Florida, where winter meant putting on a sweatshirt.

He thought about Sophie and her blue peacoat; she had to have been sweltering in that thing.

But maybe people’s blood was thinner down here.

Maybe temperatures below seventy made her shiver.

Nope. Not thinking about what might make Sophie shiver.

Thankfully, Eric pulled his attention back with a compliment. “I think the new Florida location is going to help out a lot. Your timing is good, so there’s no worries there.”

“All part of the research, my friend.” Tristan indulged in a little self-congratulation.

“This whole state gets invaded soon for spring break, and I imagine a sleepy little town like this is no exception. I’m just about done mapping out the route, and then I’ll match the stories in our script to the locations.

We can start taking reservations online, and then open at the beginning of March or so.

That gives us a couple weeks to work out the kinks before spring breakers really hit. ”

“Perfect. That revenue should boost up the lower-performing locations, and then things should be heating up in the more northern locations when you hit the dead time in the summer there in Florida. No pun intended.” Eric cleared his throat while Tristan rolled his eyes.

“Speaking of which…” Eric leaned in closer to the screen. “Seen any ghosts yet?”

Tristan scoffed. “Yeah, right. It’s all a gimmick. You should see this place, seriously. Your pun’s got nothing on it. Ghost schtick everywhere.”

“They claim it’s for real, though.” Eric’s eyes strayed to his phone as he tapped and scrolled. “I found a couple articles online. Says it’s been haunted since the turn of the century. Twentieth century,” he clarified.

“Oh, I know. I’ve even had a couple of the locals try and tell me that.

But come on. Ghosts aren’t real. We should know, right?

We’re in the ghost business.” And as far as Tristan was concerned, the stories he told on his ghost tour were just that: stories.

Snatches of urban legends and Americana that he’d cobbled together to make for a fun night out. Nothing more.

“That we are.” Eric put his phone aside with a firm nod. “And we’re in good shape.”

Tristan felt a warm glow of satisfaction.

They’d planned this out meticulously, and if they just stuck to it, this extra location should generate enough revenue to put them far enough in the black to make his father happy.

Maybe not happy —the thought of Sebastian Martin looking gleeful was too unsettling to contemplate—but at least satisfied enough to not pull his funding and make Tristan shutter their entire business.

“Something’s up, though.” Eric tilted his head and stared a hole at him, right through the video call. “I can tell. Spill.”

Tristan sighed. “There’s this girl…”

“Hey-o.” A wide smile broke across his best friend’s face. Not only at the prospect of talking about something other than business, but at dissecting Tristan’s love life. It had been a long time since Tristan had had a love life to dissect.

Not that he had one now. Sophie wasn’t going to give him the time of day once she found out what he was doing there.

Around bites of the best fried chicken leg he’d ever eaten, he filled Eric in on the night he’d met Sophie, from their flirtation at the bar to him lightly stalking her ghost tour afterward.

“But we looked it up.” Eric shook his head in amazement. “There’s no ghost tour in Boneyard Key.”

“I know!” Tristan was glad Eric confirmed it; honestly Sophie’s presence made him feel gaslit.

“She’s gotta be new around here too. That’s the only explanation.

She got the jump on us by a few weeks or something.

” It was a theory he’d been working on since that first night.

There were flaws in it, of course. Her familiarity with The Haunt, for example, and with Tony behind the bar.

Sure, Tristan could make friends easily, but Sophie’s demeanor was almost too familiar, like a long-term resident.