Page 19 of Bad Luck Club

She was about to clarify that the situation was in no means romantic, nor could it be, when Lee cut her off. “Where?”

“My house, I was thinking. There are too many people in yours.”

“You said it,” he mumbled.

She smiled a little. “Plus, I think it’s a distinct possibility Addy and Maisie would try to hide behind your sister’s sculptures and watch us if we did it at the studio.”

He nodded.

Did that mean he was saying yes?

Before she could press him, the server from earlier came out with a burger on a tray. A sparkler had been shoved into the bun, and half the restaurant looked their way as the server started singing “Happy Birthday” in an off-key voice. An older woman at the table next to their booth perked up and said in a projected undertone, “I volunteer as your present.”

Her friends laughed, throwing out lewd comments of their own, and Lee’s face blanched with horror. He looked like he wanted to leave the restaurant and walk back to New York.

The server proudly set the plate down in front of Lee. Blue didn’t get a plate. She’d already told Dottie she thought it would be best if she said her piece and left.

Dottie’s role was simple: she’d spend the rest of the day stepping up her attempts to “help” Lee, thereby encouraging him to seek another way out.

“You must have the wrong table,” Lee said forcefully. “We haven’t even ordered yet.”

The server looked from Lee to Blue in confusion. “But your grandmother gave me the food order before she left the restaurant to pick up your present. She asked me to put a sparkler in your burger.” She looked around worriedly. “She wasveryadamant that I do it fifteen minutes after you sat down, but I guess I should have waited for her to come back.”

“She’s not my grandmother,” Lee grumbled. His expression darkened as he plucked the spent sparkler out of his burger.

“Oh,” the server said, her cheeks flushing. “Your, uh, girlfriend, then? Sorry, the signs were all there, what with her sitting on the same side of the booth as you and calling you ‘dear.’ I was just being ageist. I’ve been trying to open my mind since coming here. My third eye was blocked.”

“My girlfriend?” he asked, outraged. “She’s got to be eighty!”

“Really?” the server asked with interest. “She doesn’t look a day over seventy. I need to ask her about what she uses on her skin.”

“You thought I would date a seventy-year-old?” he sputtered.

“Why not?” the woman at the adjoining table said. “An older, more experienced woman knows how to please a man. I’ve studied the Kama Sutra in two languages.”

Her friends tittered with laughter, and Dottie, who came strolling back to the booth as nonchalantly as if she’d only been in the restroom, grinned at the woman. “Oh, Lettie, you need to cut back on the ginkgo biloba.”

“You know that woman, Dottie?” Lee hissed.

“Oh, I know lots of people, dear,” she said, waving a hand as she dropped into the open seat next to him, sealing him in. Sure enough, she had a little shopping bag with her. “You would too, if you could be fussed to talk to them.” She glanced at his plate and pouted. “Iamsorry I missed the sparkler.”

The server apologized and started peppering Dottie with questions about her creams and serums, but Blue’s attention was on Lee. His discomfort had shifted to anger, and he tried to get to his feet, presumably in an attempt to get Dottie to move. She didn’t budge, and he lowered back down. Blue reached out to touch his arm without altogether meaning to. With her other hand, she tucked the jasper into her pocket.

He was dressed in a long-sleeved button-up shirt, but she felt the warmth of him beneath the fabric, and a solidity that surprised her. She felt a shocking awareness of him, and his gaze, which had been firmly on the door, settled back on her. It seemed to soothe something inside of him, looking at her, and in that moment she felt it wasn’t a mistake to become his sponsor. It seemed right for both of them. Maybe helping him would finally pull up the last of her roots from a past that hadn’t served her. Maybe they would help each other.

“Don’t go,” she said. “Dottie doesn’t mean any harm. Plus, you have your burger to finish.”

“You didn’t get any food. Aren’t you staying?”

“I’m not,” she said. “But I want you to think about what I said.” She pulled a card from her pocket and stooped to tuck it under the string of the box she’d brought for him, which had been sitting next to her leg under the table. Then she slid it across the floor to him, pushing it with her foot. “This is for you.”

He tilted his head, studying her. Wondering, perhaps, if he’d gotten it right in the beginning after all, and she was a cultist, trying to get him to sell Tupperware or essential oils to funnel all the money back to the Bad Luck Club.

“It’s a gift,” she clarified. “Something I crocheted for my studio. There was a little accident, so it’s not perfect anymore, but it’s clean again. It still has worth. Think about what I said.”

She glanced at Dottie, who was now stooped over the server’s phone, giving her detailed instructions about her skincare regimen, which apparently involved goat’s milk. No doubt it somehow involved Stella, her eccentric artist friend. Stella and Blue didn’t mix much, partly because the goats had a habit of attempting to eat her yarn creations. Partly because narcissists didn’t just come in suits and ties, and in her new life, Blue had limited patience for them.

When she looked back at Lee, he was sitting again. But he hadn’t picked up the burger. Instead, he was stooping to open the box. He peered inside, and his eyes widened. For a moment, she worried about how he’d react. She didn’t like that fear. Before coming to Asheville, she’d promised herself she was done caring about what men thought of her and her art. But if she’d learned anything from the last two months of self-work, it was that it was a vocation one never truly finished.

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