Page 18 of Silver Edge
Chapter Nine
I fist-bumped the speaker at Society Bitch’s exit. Drake stomped up the stairs. “Oh, I forgot you were here.”
“Gee, thanks.” I planted my hands on my hips. “Girl trouble?”
Drake rubbed the back of his neck again, but only shook his head and passed. “Let’s go upstairs. I want to show you the press releases I wrote before I send them out. We also need to set a date for the event.”
I trotted after him. “Why do you put up with her?”
“None of your business.” Drake grabbed the railing and marched up the stairs. At the top, he halted. “It’s complicated.” He rubbed his forehead as if ridding it of a Margo Migraine. “What was up with you earlier? You never told me.”
What did I say? I couldn’t sound like a freak, not now. “Um, nothing. Just some punk skaters bothered me, but I handled it. No biggie.”
He dropped his hands to his sides and tilted his head. “Didn’t look like it was no big deal. I’ll give you a ride home tonight. You shouldn’t be walking alone through town at that hour.”
“I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.”
He entered his office and collapsed into his leather chair. “Can’t help it.” Papers stacked in three piles covered his desk. One stack of bookkeeping, the next press releases, and the final pile was flyers. He handed me a press release from the top of the stack. “He’s dead. Same car crash as my parents.” His voice cracked.
I thought the right thing to do was to reach out and take his hand, but I couldn’t push through my thirty-foot-tall, ten-foot-wide touch protector. “I’m sorry.”
“As I said, we’ve both lost people. Maybe we can work together and prove something to some people. What do you say? You in on this crazy plan?”
“Crazy? I came up with it.”
Drake leaned back and bridged his fingers in front of him. “I like that.”
I glanced around. “What?”
“When you smile and don’t look so serious. You’ve looked like you were standing on the edge of a cliff since the first moment I met you. Right now, you look like you’re searching into the vast darkness for something shiny.”
I sighed. “You sound like my mother.”
“I do? She must have been a wise woman.”
I laughed. Laughed like a normal person, not one who was constantly on high alert with a hollow heart. “Yep, she used to tell me to search beyond the darkness to an edge. An edge where light, hope, and happiness live—the silver edge.”
Drake leaned forward. “I think I would’ve liked your mother.”
His words penetrated the well-built wall of sarcasm I’d perfected and left me with nothing to say. I lifted the page closer to my face as if I needed readers. “Looks good.”
Drake opened his desk drawer. “Great. Then let’s look at dates. I need to make a balloon payment at the end of November. What if we do it the weekend prior to that?”
“That’d work. Perhaps a harvest festival theme. We could decorate the place with pumpkins, scarecrows, cobwebs, add to the dungeon-esque atmosphere. It’ll work. Just one question.”
“What’s that?”
“Why the hell did you name the club Bands?”
He let out a hissing breath as if I’d pricked a hole in his skin. “I didn’t. Margo did. It was part of the contract when I took the loan from her father to save it a few months back. It’s kind of cheesy, huh?”
“Like processed spread.” I nodded. “Can we rename it?”
He shook his head. “I wouldn’t dare, not until I can make the loan payment. Even then, I’ll have to wait until I can come up with the money to repay the loan in full. I don’t think she’d allow it otherwise. I feel like she’s got me by the balls. I guess you had my drink right last night.”
“Hey, Boss. Time for grub.” Hawaiian’s voice echoed up from below.
My stomach lion-roared.
