Page 121 of Bad Luck Club

Bear had already gotten out the hoops, and four contestants were lining up to compete: Bear, Lee, Nicole, and Harry. He’d set Buford down, and Dee was currently feeding him carrots from the vegetable and dip tray.

Augusta cranked up the music, and they started hula-hooping, and the sight of Lee, twisting awkwardly in his cape, Hula-Hoop around his waist, an enormous smile on his face, made her heart expand in her chest.

She loved that her grumpy man could open his heart this wide.

And she shouted out, “Octopus,” even as Nicole dropped out, muttering about a foot injury.

Lee let the hoop drop as the competition heated up between Harry and Bear, and he stepped out of it and came toward her, a look of pure joy on his face.

“Are we just shouting out random words now?” Augusta said. “Scrotum!”

“Poker!” Nicole responded.

“You’re keeping the cape on,” Blue said to Lee quietly, and he flashed his teeth at her as he picked up Buford, giving his back legs plenty of support, and handed him over. Then he swooped her up off her feet, to the cheers and whistles of the Bad Luck Club—and Harry murmuring to himself in wonder, “I won? I won!”—and he carried her outside as effortlessly as if she were a feather.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“Home.”

It didn’t matter where they went. Because Asheville was her home, yes, but so was he, and fate had brought them together. All it had taken was a little vomit.

Epilogue

The eighteenth annual Brewfest Competition was held the third weekend of March downtown in the city’s largest outdoor music and event space. They couldn’t have asked for better weather. Tent canopies lined the square, hosting well over a hundred breweries, and there were stages in the middle for the multiple bands on the entertainment lineup. The Buchanan siblings and their significant others were taking turns manning the Buchanan Brewery tent, handing out samples of Home Sweet Home and several other brews.

Of course, midway through Lee and Blue’s shift, Stella approached the front of the line with Lurch, her fireman friend whose name Lee couldn’t remember, and a third man with shaggy gray hair and a hard look.

Lee filled their tasting cups, Lurch opting for Beau Brown with a hiccupping sentimentality. It was obvious he’d been enjoying many of the various offerings, yet he met Lee’s eyes with a surprisingly coherent look and said, “I was wrong about you and the others. Your grandfather would be proud of what you’ve done. I know I am.”

Somehow it felt good to hear that from Lurch, of all people, even if the message was somewhat undercut when his face turned peaked and he stumbled to the side to throw up in a bush.

Stella looked Lee in the eye, her expression shrewd, and pointed to her new companion. “This could have been you.” Then she lifted her brows in speculation. “It still can.”

Blue put an arm around his shoulders. “He respectfully declines.”

Stella huffed off with her friends, mumbling about harridans stealing all of the available men, although she seemed to be doing pretty well for herself, all things considered. Rather than join them, Lurch wiped his mouth and walked over to talk to Dottie, who’d been going up and down the line of customers waiting for their chance at the tent, serving them water and entertaining them with her stories about the brewery “back in the day”—and how her grandchildren had breathed new life into it. Lee had witnessed her giving away no less than five crystals.

Finn tapped him on the shoulder from behind, his smile wry with amusement. “I saw you had another close encounter with Stella. Why don’t you let us take over for a while? Maisie and Jack are over by the Perplexity tent with their sisters.”

“Yes, no hogging all the fun,” Adalia agreed.

So Lee and Blue stepped aside, watching as Finn and Adalia, the ruby ring now winking on her hand, stepped in behind the taps.

According to Adalia, the proposal had gotten nine and a half stars out of ten, but only because she didn’t want Finn’s ego to get further out of whack. Both of them beamed the kind of happiness that Lee would have never understood in his life before.

Until now.

As Lee and Blue wandered away from the tent, he squeezed her hand. “Thanks for the save.”

“Any time. Besides, you promised to help me teach yoga Friday evening. If I’d let you go off with her, you might never have come back.”

When she’d asked for help with the yoga class a few days back, he’d laughed and shaken his head. “I’ve never even taken a yoga class in my life, let alone taught it.”

Her answer had been a sexy smile. “It’s your challenge, Sleeper Agent.”

She’d finally explained his Bad Luck Club nickname to him, and in retaliation, he’d fashioned a nickname for Harry: Buzz. Both for his haircut, and because he had a way of knowing things he shouldn’t, like a fly on the wall. They both pretended to think the names were funny. Although Blue no longer went to the regular meetings of the club, they saw everyone at least as often as the club met, and he was somewhere on the path toward liking them for themselves, not just because they loved Blue and she them. They were here this afternoon too, and apparently Harry had a challenge to fulfill, something that made Lee slightly nervous despite Bear’s upbeat assertion that “nothing illegal” was planned.

While the last thing the old him would have agreed to do was teach a yoga class, hehadagreed, because he could never refuse Blue anything, let alone one of their Good Luck Club challenges. But far be it from him to deny himself a little fun in the process. So he’d inclined his head and smiled at her. “Only if you give me a private yoga lesson first.”

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