Page 117 of Bad Luck Club

“I’m sure there was,” she said, her voice even. “If there wasn’t an opening, he created one to get you away from me.”

That was another blow to his ego, even if he’d already assumed as much.

“I’m not looking for any more jobs in commercial real estate. And yeah, part of that decision is because I can’t get one, but part of it is because I don’t want to do that anymore. Well,” he added, “at least not for now. I want to work with my brother and sisters at the brewery. I actually like selling our beer. It makes me feel like I’m part of something larger and I’m carrying on Beau’s legacy. Plus, I need my siblings, and they need me. If I move away, I risk losing them again.”

“That’s good, Lee,” she said through a watery smile, crossing her arms over her chest. “That’s progress.”

“Yeah.” But he could see he still wasn’t winning her over. The way she’d crossed her arms over her chest—that meant she was done, didn’t it? He was no body language expert, but he knew a thing or two about people from working in sales. Crossed arms equaled no sale. What did she need to hear from him?

“I know I majorly screwed up,” he said, tears stinging in his eyes, “but it’s like I told you last week. I don’t know how to be in a real relationship. All I can do is promise you that I’m never going to screw up like this again. I’m begging you, please forgive me.Please.”

Her eyes widened, softened, then shuttered again.

“I forgive you, Lee,” she said softly, but she kept her arms over her chest.

“But you won’t take me back.”

The air squeezed from his lungs.

He’d walked away from her, again, like her father had done, after he’d told her he never would. She didn’t owe him a thing.

He wanted to fight for her—needed it—but where was the line that he shouldn’t cross between fighting for her and letting her go? God forbid he should become another Jeremy Rousseau.

“I…I don’t know what to do,” she said, barely above a whisper. Yet he sensed the quiet strength in her voice, the hint of steel, and Goddamn it, he wasproudof her. He loved this woman with every last bit of his bruised heart. “I don’t want to keep repeating the same pattern again and again. If you pull away from me every time you’re angry or sad, where will that leave us?”

Desperate, he reached out a hand to her. “We never finished our origin stories.”

Her nose wrinkled. “Is that why you’re wearing a cape like Batman?”

The cape had obviously been a terrible idea. “No. I’m talking about the first night when we were back-to-back, telling each other how we got to a place where we needed the Bad Luck Club. We didn’t finish.”

Her posture loosened slightly. “But you left the club, and I’m graduating. It’s pointless.”

“No,” he said, excited that he’d gotten under one of her layers of defense. “I never officially quit, only to you. I’m still a member, and the rules state that a sponsor and sponsee must tell their stories. What rule number is that again?”

The corners of her mouth tipped up slightly. “Rule #4A.”

So the rule about sharing stories was a subset of the rule barring sponsors and sponsees from dating. He really needed to talk to Cal and Bear about their numbering conventions.

But that could come later. For the first time in twenty-four hours, Lee thought he might have a chance at winning her back.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Blue hadn’t realized she’d feel this way. She’d thought she’d be nothing more than relieved if Lee came back, if he told her that he still wanted to be with her.

But as the day wore on without any word, without even anI’m sorryorHey, I’m still alive, she’d started to feel angry again. Angry at him for doubting her and making her doubt herself, and angry at herself for always accepting crumbs from the men in her life. She wanted more. He had made her want more.

The feeling had built as the day wore on, especially since she knew he’d been booked on an early flight home, and he still hadn’t reached out.

But now he was here, and he’d come to her luau in a cape, of all things, just to please her, and she couldn’t seem to let go of her anger and despair. Of the way her heart had crumbled like a week-old cookie after he told her to leave and take her things, as if anything associated with her was dirty and wrong.

She understood why he’d done it, truly she did, but what if he did it again? What would it feel like the next time?

He’d told her that he would screw up. He’d even asked her to call him on it. And yet, if she walked back into his arms, she worried that the small part of herself that had been Mrs. Jeremy Rousseau would rear up. That she would once again be the person who smoothed the road for other people and left herself on a rocky expanse with no exit in sight.

But she couldn’t stop thinking about what Cal had said earlier. His words had moved her. Even more so because she could see the deep pain behind them. So she took a deep breath and let herself grasp Lee’s hand, feeling a hint of profound relief at his touch, like she’d lowered into a warm bath after walking through the snow.

“Let’s do it, then.”

---