Page 75 of Bad Luck Club

That was, if he could actually get his hands on a T-shirt.

He gritted his teeth, hating that he was in this position with his sister, but so be it. “I need one.”

Adalia’s eyes narrowed as she peered up at him. “Why?”

“Can’t a person need a T-shirt?” he demanded, a little louder than he’d intended.

“Yes,” she said, dropping the brush into the bowl and getting up onto her knees. “A personcanneed a T-shirt.Lotsof persons not only need butwantT-shirts. In fact, we sell them to all sorts ofpersonsat the brewery every day.”

“Oh, for the love of God, Addy,” Lee had roared. “I need a damn T-shirt. Did Finn leave one behind or not, because I’m not wearing one ofyours.”

A slow grin spread across her face. “A T-shirt, huh?”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I thought we had already established that fact.”

“Why not take one of Jack’s?”

He had considered it, but he wasn’t a thief. “Because Jack’s not home, and I won’t take something from him without permission.”

“Awww,” she said, slipping off her gloves as she got to her feet. “A man of honor. You definitely got that from Mom, not Dad.”

He’d stared at her for a heartbeat, his father’s voice in his head berating him for acting like his mother, whom he’d always painted as weak. Needy.

“Do you have a damn shirt or not?” He had begun to regret asking her. He decided to go with a hastily made plan B—stop by the brewery and take one for “promotion.”

But she must have taken pity on him. “Yeah. It just so happens I got Finn a shirt as part of his Christmas present. He keeps it here, and lucky for you, it’s even clean.”

That sounded ominous. If he liked it, why didn’t he keep it at home?

He’d been right to worry. A few minutes later, he came out wearing the T-shirt, groaning. “What the hell is this?”

“Be nice,” Adalia had said in mock admonishment. “Dottie designed it.”

“While she was likely high on shrooms.”

Adalia tilted her head to the side with a pensive look, considering it. “Possibly. One never knows where Dottie is concerned.”

He’d worn it anyway, but the moment he’d approached Blue hadn’t gone quite as planned, because she’d stood motionless as a deer in the headlights, staring at the arboretum employees as if she feared she was about to get arrested. But then he’d taken her hand without even thinking about it. It had been automatic, like they were meant to hold hands anytime they were standing close to each other. Likenotholding hands was an atrocity.

And then she’d turned to stare up at him. The hunger in her eyes had taken him by surprise, but her kiss had blown away his senses. He’d been lost in her, lost in her kiss. His hand sunk into her hair—how many times had he fantasized about her hair? Spread out on a pillow. Trailing across his body. He wanted her more than any woman he had ever known.

But then shouting invaded his senses, and a wave of protectiveness had washed over him, and even though he was pretty sure the sweet-looking older woman in the collared shirt and arboretum-branded jacket wouldn’t have done anything other than deliver a stern rebuke, he’d gotten Blue out of there because she’d needed to go. And yeah, he’d worn the shirt for her, and she’d busted him, but for some stupid reason, he couldn’t bring himself to outright admit it. All he could hear was his father’s voice in his head saying,You’re good and whipped, boy. So he finally blurted out another excuse, a little too stiffly for a man wearing a graphic tee and not a bow tie. “I typically do laundry on Sunday.”

She smiled at him then, a huge smile that lit up her eyes and made her whole face glow, and it was every bit as glorious as he’d known it would be.

All he could think about was that he had been the one to put it there.

He was a sap, an idiot.

An idiot who, for better or worse, really liked her…as evidenced by the shirt he was now wearing. It was no longer a secret in his mind. He was wearing tangible proof, and he couldn’t help feeling exposed and vulnerable. Now that she’d seen the shirt, would Blue mind if he zipped up his jacket?

“So,” he said, needing to fill the silence. “What did I walk up on?”

“That was Nicole purging her soul.”

These people really were wackadoos. The kid was lucky she hadn’t broken a foot kicking that statue. “By shouting at a statue like it had personally offended her?”

“I’ll be honest,” she said with a slight shrug, “it made me uncomfortable, but it was good for her. Couldn’t you tell? Everyone needs to vent. What do you do when you get angry or hurt? How do you let it out?”

---