Page 4 of Bad Luck Club

Blue.

Lee had heard that name before. Blue, along with Jack’s girlfriend, Maisie, were Adalia’s best friends. While he’d seen plenty of Maisie, he’d never met Blue. So why did she seem so familiar?

Blue stole a slightly surreptitious glance at him before turning back to Adalia. “I see you’re having lunch with your brother.”

How had she known he was Adalia’s brother?

“Yeah,” Adalia said. “We’re having a business lunch.”

Blue’s eyes widened. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“You didn’t interrupt,” Lee said, offering his hand in spite of himself. Something about her made him want to know more. “I’m Lee.”

The woman took a step back. “Have you been drinking?”

“What?” Lee asked in surprise. Did he smell like the brewery? “No. It’s barely noon.”

“Well,” she said with a grimace. “You never know.”

Adalia burst out laughing, then looked apologetic. “Sorry, Blue. It’s not funny.”

Blue made a face, and the corners of her lips tipped up into the hint of a smile. “I suppose it is, if you stop and think about it.”

“I’m sure the fact that it’s been a month helps,” Adalia said.

“True.”

Lee shook his head as he glanced back and forth between them. “What am I missing here?”

“I’m not surprised he doesn’t remember,” Adalia said, cringing. “Hewaspretty drunk.”

“Obviously,” Blue agreed.

Horror washed through Lee as it dawned on him that hehadseen her before. Not once but twice, and both times had been calamitous.

“Oh God,” he said, his face burning with humiliation. “I threw up on your feet.”

“Only the first time we met,” Blue said, her mouth stretching into a wider smile. “The second time you merely provided the entertainment.”

Oh. God.

The first time he’d seen her was fuzzy. It had been at one of the brewery stops during River’s bachelor party, two days before Christmas. Lee hadn’t gotten that drunk since college. But he’d just found out Victoria was cheating on him, plus he’d known his father was up to something shady, and he’d met his half-brother in person (officially) for the first time, and…even with all of that weighing on him, it was something else that had made his self-control snap like an overwrought rubber band.

The fact was, Lee had ignored his feelings for most of his life. Prescott Buchanan detested displays of emotion, which was one of the reasons he so strongly disapproved of Adalia. Lee’s bland, carefully controlled demeanor was the perfect counter to his younger sister’s inexhaustiblejoie de vivre. For years, he’d packed down his feelings and pretended everything was fine. Work was fine. His relationship with Victoria, the second most narcissistic person on the planet—his father being the first—was fine. His relationships with his sisters were fine…and strangely enough, that was what had finally cracked his proverbial Humpty-Dumpty shell. He’d found out that Adalia had gotten into legal trouble and hadn’t told him until months later.

Because she had expected him to be cold and aloof, the persona he’d worked so hard to maintain.

So two days before Christmas, Lee had decided to let loose for once, only he’d gone from sober to shit-faced in five point three seconds, and he’d ended up barfing on some poor woman’s shoes at the third brewery on the tour. (Or had it been the second? They had all blurred together.)

Turned out it wasthispoor woman’s shoes.

Then, to make matters worse, he’d shown up at Georgie and River’s engagement party (which had seemed like shoving the horse back in the barn after having the bachelor and bachelorette parties the night before, but nobody had askedhim) drunk as a skunk after spending a good portion of the day talking to the FBI. It wasn’t unreasonable for a man to get drunk after discussing his father’s betrayal with federal agents, then committing a betrayal of his own by granting the agents permission to raid the business in search of hard evidence that could put his father in prison for the remainder of his life. In hindsight, he probably should have skipped the engagement party and offered apologies for not attending. But one thought had made it through his drunken stupor: he’d spent most of his life disappointing his sisters, and he didn’t want to let Georgie down again. So he’d shown up and let slip to his father that the Feds were breathing down his neck. Still, while he’d publicly embarrassed himself, at least he hadn’t barfed on Blue again.

Lee reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. “I believe I owe you for a pair of shoes.”

If he’d wanted to make Blue more uncomfortable, he’d done a good job of it. She shook her head adamantly. “Oh, no. That’s not necessary.”

Unfolding his wallet, Lee said, “You have no idea how badly I feel about what happened. Please, let me try to make up for a small part of it by reimbursing you for the shoes.”

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