A Boat Made of Bone (The Chthonic Saga) (26 page)

“A month. That’s crap,” she said, more to comfort Ferg than herself. “But I bet we can do it.”

“Piece of cake,” Audra said.

Ferg sighed, but didn’t tell them they were full of shit. “Maybe. I don’t know. It’ll take a miracle. Our online presence is non-existent. And Darryl hasn’t given us anything to help build it up.”

“That stuff doesn’t require much,” Audra said. She picked up the label-maker and began typing something up. “Look, all you need to do is sell stuff through Amazon and ebay. Anything else is just stupid. You utilize their customer base and their server storage and all that, and that way you’re not trying to build an online presence from scratch.”

“What, are you some kind of expert or something?” Ferg asked, his voice derisive like it always was when he talked to Audra.

“I might be. I have a little store on Amazon. I sell some of my records that I don’t want any more.”

“Instead of bringing them in here?” Ferg sounded genuinely offended.

She shrugged. “I want more than you’d give me.”

Kate glanced at the clock. “Hey guys, fun conversation, but I need some food. I’m going to go get some and maybe we can continue this brainstorming session when I’m back.”

“Yeah, get out of here,” Ferg said, jerking his head toward the door.

“I’m coming with,” Audra informed Kate in a sing-song voice and pushed off the counter and followed Kate to the back room where she grabbed her bag before they left.

***

Almost the moment they walked out of Suga’s, Audra launched into the reason she came to see Kate at work. They started toward the raw-food restaurant as she lectured Kate.

“You need to get a grip, Kate,” she said, immediately. Kate could barely hear her friend over the ruckus of a man with a jackhammer tearing the sidewalk up across the street.

“What?” Kate yelled back at Audra, cocking her ear toward her.

“You need to get a grip!”

Oh.
“What are you talking about?” Kate knew what Audra was talking about, but she didn’t want to give her friend the satisfaction of knowing implicitly what she meant.

Audra arched one dark eyebrow at Kate and smirked. “Don’t give me that. You know what I’m referring to.”

They’d put a bit of distance between them and the jackhammer. A cloud of dust blew in their direction that smelled of gasoline and age-old concrete. “No I don’t. To what are you referring?”

“Ty. Ty and the dream guy,” Audra answered as they turned the corner and headed up the street to Amir’s.

“Piffle. I don’t need to fix anything,” Kate said, feeling feisty. She didn’t know why. Normally she’d just buckle under the pressure and tell Audra that she was right. Because she was. However, Kate didn’t feel like being told what to do today.

“So you’ve realized you like Ty and want to stop being deluded about the man in your dreams?” Audra looked at Kate hopefully, but a glint in her green eyes told Kate she knew it was a false hope.

“Yes,” Kate lied.
Why am I lying?
Perhaps the fight just drained right out of her and now she wanted to deflect Audra’s inquiries and the peer pressure she was piling on. Kate always thought peer pressure would disappear once she was old—or, older—and everyone had a firm grasp on who they were. Oh how naive that had been. No one ever knew who they were. A person constantly changed, or at least Kate noticed that she vacillated an awful lot. And Audra was the biggest purveyor of peer pressure Kate had ever known. In high school, Kate stuck with a crowd who shared similar values and she never had to question things too much or feel like she was on the outskirts of the cool scene. Well, Audra always wanted something for Kate, so the other girl doled out her opinions constantly, hoping to sway Kate.

Kate adored Audra, despite how bullheaded the girl was at times. The reason Kate stuck around was because Audra was passionate in a way that Kate wasn’t. Audra felt things deeply and Kate managed to get a vampiric jolt of passion from it. It was a case of opposites attract, when she thought about it. When Kate watched Audra in one of her many moments of intensity, Kate found herself getting worked up and she started to believe that she could change the world too. She like it that Audra stuck to her guns and that Kate could generally count on her friend to tell her what she thought and what Kate should do. But . . . sometimes . . . sometimes those same traits Kate admired in Audra got oppressive.

“Ha,” Audra laughed, shaking her head in disappointment. “You are such a bad liar.”

They arrived at Amir’s and went inside. There were a few other people seated at the circular tables near the front. Audra and Kate sat down at one of the empty tables. When the server brought them a menu, they ordered their usual—the hummus and taco. They split a goji berry drink.

Kate took a deep breath. It was such a relief to be in there after the smell of exhaust and summer road construction.

“So what are you going to do?” Audra asked.

The server dropped some glasses of water off at their table and Audra took a drink.

“About what?” Kate asked, intentionally not answering.

“Why are you being so evasive today? What’s gotten into you, Kate?” She leaned close and lowered her voice. “It’s the dreams, isn’t it?”

Kate avoided her gaze.

“You can tell me anything, you know that right?” She reached across the table and grabbed Kate’s wrist. “Hey, look at me, girl. Talk to me.”

“Why should I?” Kate asked, finally, surprised to hear a tone of defensiveness in her voice.

“Oh man, I’ve pissed you off, haven’t I?” Audra let go of Kate’s hand and leaned back in her chair, studying Kate’s face. Audra’s lips weren’t even twitching like she was about to smile. She seemed genuine.

“No, no, I’m not pissed,” Kate said, adjusting her shirt and fidgeting with the hem. “I’m just, I don’t know. I don’t feel like talking about this. I know what you’ll say. I know what you think.”

“You do?”

“Of course. You’ve made it clear a few times,” Kate said.

“What do I think? Tell me,” Audra said, tilting her head down.

“You want me to date Ty and have sex with him so the dreams will stop,” Kate said. “You want me to be super confident and realize that I’m hot and that guys want me.”

“Yep, that’s right. I do think all those things. But Kate, you know you can still talk to me. I’m not going to force you into something you don’t want. I couldn’t, even if I tried,” Audra said with clipped laughter.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Kate said.

“What? Forcing people to do my will?” Audra asked guardedly. Kate nodded and Audra laughed. “Damn right. But who wouldn’t? I’d be an awesome dictator and we both know it.”

“I don’t want that,” Kate said.

“What? Really? Liar.”

“I wouldn’t. I don’t believe I know what’s best for everyone else. I barely know what’s best for me,” Kate explained. The serving guy brought out the goji berry drink. Audra unwrapped a straw and took a long sip. “I just want to take care of myself and see if I can get that right.”

“Aw, sweet girl. Well, look, I’ll be the dictator and you can be my spiritual advisor,” Audra said with a laugh.

“Done,” Kate said. “Except I’ll advise you to stop being a dictator and let people run their own lives.”

“Boring. If you do that I’ll fire you,” she laughed. “Speaking of, what will you do if Darryl closes Suga’s?”

Kate shrugged. “Get a new job?”

“Really, getting the business online shouldn’t be that hard and it will bring in sales,” Audra said.

“I know,” Kate answered. “The problem is uploading all our inventory. We’ve been doing it during work, it just takes a lot of time.”

“Have you had any online sales yet?”

“We weren’t uploading them to eBay or Amazon. Just getting them into a store profile using one of those free online store sites.”

“That won’t help much. You have to put your inventory on Amazon and constantly be creating auctions or buy-it-now listings on eBay.”

“Yeah, well we didn’t think of that.”

“You know now,” Audra said, winking.

“Right. And knowing is half the battle.”

“
The
battle, really.” Their food arrived and as they ate, Kate’s thoughts drifted toward the night, toward seeing Will again.

17: Brawl

Sleep wouldn’t come for a while. Kate had a date with Ty—or a . . . a something; a date? A hang out? Whatever it was, they were scheduled to be in the same area around the same time, and he was picking Kate up.

Luckily, Audra was at work and Kate intentionally didn’t mention the date (not a date) at their lunch. So Audra wouldn’t be nagging Kate to seduce Ty to stop the dreams. Despite what happened in the dreams with Will (they were dreams), Kate wasn’t that confident about what men wanted in bed. Tom was easy. He just wanted to be loved, he was never selfish, and Kate never had to think too hard about what they were doing.

Why did I let him go, again?

Love, maybe? Maybe Kate never loved Tom. He was easy. He liked her. He treated her well. But that wasn’t a great reason to stay with someone, especially committing a lifetime to them. Tom deserved to feel like he was the most important person to Kate. Or whomever he loved. That girl he was marrying. Stupid girl. 

She finished reapplying fresh deodorant, spritzed herself with some perfume, and filled up Brody’s bowl with water. Kate hadn’t seen Jill in a few days. She hadn’t asked Kate to watch the dog, but could Kate stand the thought of him without water when the days were so hot? No. She couldn’t.

While Kate waited for Ty on the old couch in the front room, she scrolled through YouTube clips of
LA: Bluefire
on her phone, thinking about Will (like a total loser). Ty had tickets to some musical event at the big downtown park. A jazz guitarist.

The sky-blue BMW rolled into the driveway five minutes after six. 

“Hey princess,” Ty said when Kate sank into the old leather seat.

“Hey Han.” Kate pulled her seatbelt on. Ty was dressed in a snug dark blue T-shirt and gray shorts that reached his knees.

“Han?”

“Han Solo. You keep calling me
princess.
Han called Leia
princess
, well, because she
was
a princess.” Kate explained.

“Oh right. Well, just don’t go thinking I mean it literally,” he teased.

“I’d never,” she said with mock astonishment.

“So do you have a bike? I should probably know that if we’re going to be hanging out. Riding over would have been fun,” he said as he backed onto the street.

“Yeah,
if
I had a bike,” Kate answered, finally catching her breath from running out the front door.

“Why don’t you?” 

“I don’t know, actually,” Kate laughed. “Maybe I should get one.”

“We could get his and hers bikes—yours could be pink and mine black,” he joked.

“Or vice versa,” Kate said.

“Of course, yes. I could definitely ride a pink bike.” He smiled. “I’m comfortable with my masculinity. I even have a pink T-shirt.”

“Really?” Kate asked, hardly believing him.

“There’s some writing with pink in it. A few stripes. The rest of the shirt is black.”

“Sounds like you’re really comfortable with that masculinity,” Kate joked.

He shrugged and gave Kate a lopsided grin. His eyes seemed to sparkle in the evening light that split through the trees lining the street. “OK, to be honest, I just don’t look good in pink.”

“I doubt there’s any color you don’t look good in,” Kate said.
What? Why’d I say that?
He’ll think I’m crushing on him or something.
Her stomach did a three-sixty. She glanced at him to see what he was thinking and their gazes collided.

“Well, thank you, Kate. But I wouldn’t know, since I’m more into just wearing the clothes, rather than thinking about them,” he said.

“A likely story.”

He laughed. “You’ll never know, will you.”

“Maybe. Maybe not,” she teased, surprising herself with her confident verbal sparring.

The city was clogged with evening traffic and it took them longer than usual to get to the downtown venue. Ty parked two blocks away and they hoofed it toward the summer concert. Stretched over the growl of car motors, they heard the blare of music. It echoed in the slot canyons of the city-center buildings, which cast long shadows across the streets and neighboring buildings.

“Sorry we’re late,” Ty said, strolling casually beside her.

“No big deal,” Kate told him.

“I forget that downtown traffic is so gnarly.”

“Me too.”

“Do you?” He asked in disbelief.

They passed a bar as a tipsy couple popped out the swinging door, laughing. The sound of music poured out mixed with the smell of fried food and cigarette smoke.

“Not really. Ha. But don’t worry, I never get annoyed about this kind of stuff.”