Free A Boat Made of Bone (The Chthonic Saga) by Nicole Grotepas Page A

Money?” Ferg was clearly not happy about it. He pursed his lips and avoided eye contact with her. Every move he made had a snap to it.
    “But—but—our sales have been good. Well, better than average,” she said, trying to remember the last report Ferg went over with her. She rubbed her temple and squinted her eyes. “At least, we aren’t in the hole. Are we?”
    “This is why we’re going under,” Ferg said, looking ticked.
    “Oh, so you don’t think it has something to do with treating paying customers like trash because they ask about our trade policy?” she asked, referencing Ferg’s most recent offense. He dropped the clipboard onto the glass countertop. It made a bone-jarring slapping noise. Kate jumped in her skin a little, but tried to hide it.
    “No, look, that’s not why. It’s something bigger.” His face softened but he avoided her gaze. “I didn’t mean to blame you, Kate. I was joking, sort of.”
    “Bigger, like what? The economy? Nine-Eleven? Can we still blame bad things in the country on that?” She stood with her arms crossed, leaning against the video game shelves by the door. After a hesitation—concerned about getting in his space when he was irritated—she dropped her arms and strolled to the counter and took a cautious sip of her cappuccino. The warm drink soothed her.
    “Yes and no. Bigger like out of our control, but not one specific event like Nine-Eleven. The internet. Torrents. Skyrocketing gas prices. It’s just stupid to have a storefront now. The only reason people come here is for the personal touch or for vinyl, not because they have to come here to get their music, which is how it used to be.” He sighed and looked around the room. “Remember when you had to go somewhere to buy something? Man, those were the good old days. Stupid Amazon.” He ran his hands through his styled, sand-colored hair and shook his head like maybe he’d be able to dispel the horrible hallucination. “Dammit. I messed up my hair. Why do I do that?” He muttered to himself, grabbing a scratched CD and using it as a mirror to adjust his hair.
    “Darryl can’t just close us down. We’re a national treasure. At least a city treasure. We’re historical. We’re part of the personality of the city,” she said, frustrated. She didn’t even know why, in a way, since she was planning on finding a better paying job in the next year.
    Ferg just laughed. “He can do whatever he wants. He’s the boss.”
    “So you’re just going to sit there and let him do it?” she asked, unable to hide her shock.
    “Maybe. I’ll try to come up with something, but he’s looked at the numbers already and the store is becoming a drain on his bottom line. He called it a gangrenous limb that has to be chopped off. I almost told him to shove it. I took personal offense at that, kind of. I manage the place for him, you know?”
    “Yeah,” she said, biting her lip, trying to think of something to do to change things.
    Ferg stood up and stretched his arms above his head. “My back is killing me. Didn’t sleep much this weekend,” he said with a groan.
    Kate’s eyes narrowed. “When did you find out about the store closing?”
    He smiled but didn’t say anything.
    “Ferg?”
    “Last week,” he said, finally.
    “What? You know, that’s completely sucky. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me till now.”
    “So you wanted your weekend ruined too? I didn’t think that’d be fair to you guys.” He shook his head, and went into the back. When he returned, he handed the label-maker to her. “Make some new labels.”
    “For what?” she asked.
    “I have a plan,” he said. “It just hit me, like lightning. First of all, we need to make our genres narrower. Not quite as narrow as All Music Guide, but more specific. Like, we need a Dirty Beach Rock section. And a section for Vintage Chamber Pop. Stuff like that, where we can file more indie stuff.”
    Kate stood there, looking first at Ferg, then