Page 70 of Bad Luck Club

He wasn’t sure what to make of that. He wasn’t sure that was progress at all. It felt like he was sliding ten feet back.

But the smile that lit up her face was blinding, and he took an involuntary step toward her.

“Thanks, Lee. You won’t be sorry.” Then she walked out the door.

Lee was well acquainted with sorry, and he was in the thick of it.

Chapter Twenty

Blue had thought Dottie would set her up with someone horrible, the kind of man who would instantly drive her into Lee’s arms. Truthfully, she’d kind of counted on it. But that didn’t happen. Which confused her at first because she was sure Dottie wanted her to be with Lee.

It wasn’t until midway through Saturday night, which she’d spent tossing and turning after her perfectly pleasant evening, that she’d realized Dottie’s genius.

She’d set Blue up with the kind of man sheshouldwant, and it had only made her realize how much she wished it were another man across the table—one who was less perfect but in a way she found more endearing. One who understood her. Hadn’t he proven as much on Wednesday?

She and Lee had texted several times since then. It had started with a few exchanges about her business plan, but none of their conversations seemed capable of staying surface-deep. He’d told her about his sales calls, and she’d told him about her latest yoga class. The older man in the front row had suffered from flatulence, and every time he’d passed gas, the woman behind him had said, “Namaste.” From there, they’d continued talking, sharing their days. He’d told her about the sale he made—and the sale he hadn’t—and she’d sent him a picture of Maisie with one of the octopuses on her face, pretending it was the alien from, well,Alien.

This one good for social media?she’d asked.

Strictly at Halloween, he’d answered, making her laugh. She’d thought about making a joke about Valentine’s Day, about maybe suggesting that she could market her octopuses as better companions than a boyfriend, but something had held her back.

The texts had dried up just before her date last night, which suggested he’d known about the timing from Dottie.

She’d come so close to blowing it off. To asking Lee ifhewould go to dinner with her. That was what she’d wanted to do…and she couldn’t help but feel he was disappointed that she hadn’t.

But every time she’d considered it, she’d felt a sliver of fear, not just because she worried what being with Lee would do to her, but because she feared that if she broke the club’s rules and Bear found out, he would send her away. Although Bear didn’t share her blood, he’d been more of a father to her than her own father had ever been, and losing him would hurt so much worse.

She’d said as much to Hattie in her Facebook messages—her sister was okay, thank goodness, and she’d assured her all was well with their family—and Hattie had been uncharacteristically quiet. Only to break in with more questions about Lee.I saw that picture of you on Facebook. It’s obvious you’re smitten with this man. I want you to tell me EVERYTHING.It didn’t sound like the Hattie she’d known—the teenage girl still in braces—and it made her feel a pang for all she’d missed.

If she lost Bear, she’d miss all of the developments in his life too. And Cal. And Harry. And all of them.

So she’d gone on the date with Dottie’s friend, and here she was the next day, riding to the Bad Luck Club with Harry, thinking about Lee anyway.

She heaved a deep, heartfelt sigh and shot a glance at Harry, who was behind the wheel. Harry always preferred to be the driver in carpool situations. Although he readily admitted men got into more fatal crashes than women, he hated giving up control. “Dottie set me up with a pediatric surgeon, Harry. He literally saves children’s lives. And he looks like he poses for catalogues in his spare time.”

“And you’re complaining why?” Harry said as he steered the car toward the North Carolina Arboretum, where they were meeting today instead of the Cluster. To her mind, the arboretum was one of the most serene places in Asheville, beautiful even in February, when the fountains were dry and the trees were stripped of leaves. She wasn’t sure why they were meeting there, other than they were supposed to serve as moral support for Nicole’s challenge.

They’d been told to wear the matching sweatshirts Nicole had given them for Christmas as a further act of solidarity. They were bright neon pink with a symbol of a snake eating its own tail. It felt slightly ominous in light of Blue’s last tea leaves reading with Dottie, but she’d worn it anyway.

“I would kill to be set up with someone like that,” Harry continued. “The only doctor I’ve ever been set up with was a dentist, and come on, we both know they’re not really doctors.”

“The problem is that I feltnothing. He’s exactly the kind of guy I should date, but he might as well have been Leo.”

“Tinfoil hat guy you went out with months ago?” Harry scoffed. “I think you give him a bad rap.”

She shot a look at him. “You want his number?”

“Hard pass. The last thing anyone needs is two paranoid people in one relationship. The guy I dated before David had anxiety spirals worse than mine, and we kept pulling each other into them. It was like two tornados living in the same apartment.”

That was what she feared it would be like with Lee, but the two of them didn’t have the same problems. Couldn’t they continue to help each other, as they’d been doing?

Had she been looking at this all wrong?

“I feel so messed up, Harry.”

“Of course you do,” he said, shooting her a sympathetic look. “We all do, doll. They don’t call it the Bad Luck Club for nothing.” A pause, then he asked, “I take it this has something to do with everyone’s favorite sleeper agent?”

She looked down at her hands, knit together in her lap. “I can’t let anything happen with Lee. I don’t want to lose Bear. Or you. Or anyone from the club.”

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