A Boat Made of Bone (The Chthonic Saga) (29 page)

She was crippled. She wanted to jump to her feet and race after him. Her limbs were paralyzed. She stared at the ground, horror-stricken, willing her body to move, but it wouldn’t listen. Her breath was coming in gasps. She was hyperventilating.

Why is this happening? Why is a man from my dreams jealous of a guy in my reality?
And that man, Will, had confessed horrible things from his own life, which she’d gotten over, which she’d forgiven!

Was he just punishing her for having a life that he wasn’t a part of? Was that what this was?

She was finally able to move her head. She turned and found Will. He was down the beach, a lone figure staring out at the distant islands. His arms were crossed and in that light, he looked small and fragile. His head moved her way and it was like she could see straight into his heart, even from that far away.

The sorrow in his eyes shattered her. She’d crushed him. First the agony of his past, and now this, from her. The person he trusted with that former life.

Again she stumbled against the question of why, why was this happening?

And then she found herself running down the beach toward Will. He saw her coming and didn’t budge an inch.

“Don’t you get it, Will? Will? Look at me,” she demanded as she reached him. He relented and returned her gaze.

“What? What don’t I get, Kate?”

She stopped three feet from him. “I want you in my life. But this is all I can have. So what should I do? How do I fix this?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m fine with this.”

“Are you? Is that why you just stormed off in a huff?”

He blinked, shifted his feet, and looked uncomfortable. “That’s not what I did.”

“It is. You’re punishing me for having other relationships.”

“No I’m not.”

“Then tell me what you’re doing,” she said, softly. She’d gotten herself under control now. She was breathing normal again. She hated fighting. She didn’t want to argue with Will, not like that. Not in a way that she got mad and out of control.

He closed his eyes, unfolded his arms, and took a deep breath. When he opened his eyes again, the intensity of his gaze seared her. “You’re right. That is what I’m doing, Kate, I’m sorry. Because—because what I was once, when I was alive, doesn’t matter to me anymore. What matters to me now is you. I find it difficult to know that you have a life that I’m not a part of.” He stepped toward her and took her upper arms in his hands. His grip was tight, but not uncomfortably so. “I regretted everything I did, everything I was, until I found you. It’s a second chance, and I don’t even know why I’ve been given one. Only, I’m not real. I’m dead. And I can’t even touch you, your flesh, the real you.”

“But you get my mind, which is infinitely more powerful, and I would argue, infinitely more real,” she whispered.

He blinked, looking down at her. “That is true, probably. It’s just—it’s not enough. I want all of you. All those things we talked about earlier—marriage, kids—I want them to be my reality. With you. With someone, if you didn’t want me. I don’t know. I never did that stuff. I never thought it mattered, and my past—that interfered with the future I made on Earth.”

“I want you too,” she said.

“Well, that’s comforting to hear, I guess,” he said, letting his arms drop to his side. He gave her a crooked smile, which she knew was half-hearted. He still wasn’t satisfied.

Neither was Kate.

***

Kate sat up in bed, taking a sharp breath. Her neck was drenched in sweat.

I was dreaming of Will,
and then I woke up,
she reminded herself as the confusion dissipated. The window above her bed glowed with the first hints of daylight. She rubbed her neck, wiping away the perspiration, feeling cold suddenly.

A shiver passed through her and she noticed a full feeling in her abdomen. She must have drank a trough of water before falling asleep. She slipped out of bed and headed for the bathroom. As she returned to her bedroom, she glanced in the living room and stopped in her tracks.

What’s he doing here?

Ty was asleep on the couch, Kate’s sleeping bag was mostly on the floor, barely covering his feet.
Oh right,
she thought, remembering. They talked and watched a movie on her laptop. Before they knew it, it was one, and she told him he could sleep on her couch.

Kate glanced down and realized she was only in a T-shirt and underwear, so she darted back into her room and shut the door behind her before he woke up and noticed her. The last thing she wanted him to see was her thighs. He’d change his mind about everything, she was sure.

As she crawled back into bed, all she could think about was Will’s brothel and the fact that Ty was sleeping in her living room. It was all too much. For a while she stared at the ceiling as morning stole the night.

19: News

Kate still had no idea what was going on with Ty. They hadn’t had a determine-the-relationship talk, or as they were abbreviated: DTR. And to be honest, she dreaded having one. As it stood, she had nary a clue of how she felt about him. Nary. A. Clue.

He was cute, he really was. In fact, too good-looking. It got in the way of her being able to figure out what she thought about him when they were together. On one hand she resented him for being such a perfect specimen, and as one would expect, that clouded her emotions. On the other hand, she tended to spend the rest of the time when she wasn’t irritated about his good looks being enthralled by them.

The world was exactly as Kate’s mom always said. Great-looking people often had no personality because the world fell to its knees and worshipped at their beautiful feet, so they never had to struggle to achieve anything. Struggle—that’s what developed character.

She’s right about them falling at the feet of the beautiful,
Kate thought, as she sat in Lucy’s Diner and watched their waitress bantering with Ty as she wrote down his order. She’d given new meaning to the word
blush
. Every time Ty smiled at her, the red moved in waves across her cheeks and touched her hairline like a red tide on the beach. 

“So eggs Benedict with fruit instead of hash browns and sourdough toast?” the waitress repeated back to Ty. Her name tag read
Emma
and her auburn hair was pulled back into a no-nonsense bun. Freckles dotted her cheeks beneath the splotchy blush, and were sprinkled across the bridge of her nose. She was cute, and the freckles were endearing. Kate would have been threatened, maybe, if she’d known what she wanted from Ty. 

“That’s it,” Ty said, handing over his menu. “Thanks.”

“No problem. That’ll be out in a few minutes,” the waitress said, tucking her pad and pencil back into her apron and walking away. She’d already taken Kate’s order. Kate typically got the same thing here: two pancakes and one egg, even though she knew she ought to get an egg-white omelet.

After watching Emma stride back into the kitchen, Ty turned to Kate and grinned. “She’s great, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“That didn’t bother you, did it?” he asked, suddenly seeming concerned.

“What? Talking to our waitress?”

“That whole banter thing,” he answered, motioning with one hand back and forth between himself and the kitchen, into where Emma disappeared.

“No. I think you should be able to talk to anyone you want and joke with anyone you want, even if it is a cute girl.”

“She was funny. And I just have this thing—I can’t talk to people who are serving me without goofing off with them a little, just to ease the tension.”

“Tension?” Kate asked.

“Yes. The whole class feeling of it. I sit here while they slave away for me. It always makes me feel a bit odd.” He took a sip from his ice water.

“I get it. But you
are
paying them for it.”

“Still,” he shrugged and sighed, looking intently at Kate. “Anyway, I wanted to run something by you, if that’s cool with you.” He crossed his forearms in front of him on the table and leaned closer to Kate slightly, like he was getting down to business. Kate studied the bracelet on his wrist, trying to distract herself from the dread coiling up in her gut. The bracelet was a thin leather strand with a single wooden bead on it. It would have been funny if it hadn’t flattered his forearm so well.

“What is it?” she asked, hearing herself from far away. She didn’t do DTRs. She didn’t deal with the aggressive approach to finding out what she was thinking or feeling, not from guys in relationships with her, anyway. That’s what made Tom leave, or so he said. She bottled up her emotions. She made a wall around them and anyone who wanted to get through just had to deal with that. She hid her feelings from herself, even (except when she was dreaming, it seemed). She had no idea what she thought about Ty, except that he was fun to be around. And she was interested in getting to know him more.

“I don’t want you to freak out. Promise me you won’t?” He seemed apprehensive behind his grin, which nudged his cheeks up toward his dark eyes. 

“Um, no promises.” She laughed hesitantly.

“Oh come on, Kate. I know you’re not one of those chicks who freaks out at the drop of a hat. You’re almost one of the guys,” he said, tilting an eyebrow at her.

Oh no. One of the guys.
Kate took a gulp of water and wondered where this was going. She should freak out on him now, for pushing her into chum zone. “Well, with a comment like that, I can’t promise anything.”

“Comment like what?” he asked, looking mystified.

“Tell me how well you’d like to be one of the girls? Hey Ty, want to come over tonight? The girls and me are going to give each other pedicures. You’d fit right in. As it’s summer, I’m going to say you’d look good in a pearly pink. Something glittery, something light to show off that tan.”

He blinked, laughed a bit, and then shrugged. “I get it. I meant it as a compliment, anyway. You’re cool. Not flighty and hysterical.”

“Thanks,” she said with a smile. She was hysterical and flighty, sometimes. Kate had managed to fool Ty into thinking she was even-keeled, which was a total result of hiding from her emotions. He just couldn’t tell how messed up she was. Yet. “So what did you want to ask me?”

“Not so much ask, as get your feedback,” he rubbed his hands together and took a deep breath. “There’s this job in Vegas that I’m interested in. I’d be a representative for this outdoor company where I’d go to climbing events and visit stores in the southwest that stock the company’s products and liaison with them, repping, that kind of thing.”

He watched her face for a reaction. Kate squinted at him to stop herself from frowning. So he’d be leaving? Basically goodbye to any chance for a relationship? She supposed she should be glad. She felt like she’d been two-timing him. Or Will. Two-timing
someone.

“Kate? Kate?”

Kate suddenly realized he was waving his hand in front of her eyes. She must have tuned out.

“That bad, huh?”

“What? No, no, sorry. I was just . . . lost in thought.” She grasped at straws to stall for time to figure out what she thought. “Does Malcolm know?”

“Nah,” Ty answered his gaze flicking around the restaurant. “He’s my boss, if I told him he’d be ticked. I can’t discuss it with him till I’ve made a choice.”

“What about your family. Where are they on this?”

He shrugged. “They want what’s best for me.”

“Is this best?”

“It would be a promotion. My goal has always been to work in the outdoor industry. If I can do that without going to college, great, why would I stay in college?”

“How far are you from finishing your degree?” she asked, wondering if she was taking liberty and prying.

He flushed slightly. “I still have almost two years. I had to take some time off,” he said evasively.

“Why? What for? How long?” she asked, confused.

“Whoa there, Nellie, slow down,” he said, holding his hands up as though to halt her physically. A loud group of college kids came barreling through the front door of Lucy’s, which was just a booth away from Ty and Kate. Ty glanced at them, then back at Kate, but during that hesitation she felt like she saw the wheels in his head turning, how to backtrack out of the conversation, how to avoid telling Kate something.
What was it?
 

“Ignore them,” Kate said as the group spread out and filled the small lobby. Lucy’s Diner was old and not designed to accommodate the enormous, seam-bursting groups that tended to filter in.

“I’m trying,” Ty said with a laugh.

“So?” Kate prodded.

“What?” he asked, his eyes widening in innocence.

“Look, you don’t have to tell me if it was something bad. I just wonder why you had to take time off,” she said, noticing Lucy’s son, Wade, trying to work crowd control with the college group.

“It was nothing, princess. Don’t even worry about it. Family issues,” he told her, laughing and winking.

She nodded, trying to be content with his deflection. She let it pass, feeling the beginning of a conflict knot up her stomach. “Well, I guess if your family likes it, then you should do it. It sounds like it’s a good opportunity, especially since you want to stay in that industry. That’s . . . that’s really cool, Ty. You should be proud of yourself!” She tried to imagine not getting to hang out with him. They’d been spending enough time together that she’d notice his absence. But, well, with the Will stuff and all, it wasn’t like she was in love with him. Yet.