Page 76 of Bad Luck Club

“I deal with it like anormalmature adult. I don’t have a tantrum in the park.” Why was he so aggravated? He was hoping to win Blue over, not piss her off. But his father was back in his head, like a cancer, making him doubt everything, especially himself.

“And how’s that going for you?”

He gritted his teeth in annoyance, but his conscience reminded him that when he was spun up over something, he worked out. It was why he’d found a gym so soon after making the decision to temporarily move to Asheville. He needed the physical release.

“Okay,” he conceded, still at war with his father’s voice in his head. But the urge to be honest with her was stronger. “I’ve worked out more here in Asheville than I did in the previous six months in New York.”

She muttered something under her breath that sounded like, “I can tell,” but then covered it up with a cough. “Nicole shouted at a statue. You work out. You have two different ways of handling your feelings.”

“They’re not the same at all,” Lee insisted. “Physical exertion is anormalway of handling stress. Not making a public spectacle at a park.”

Blue was quiet for a moment. He was certain he’d pushed her too far, that he was pushing a wedge between them, again, when she’d finally given him a green light. The thought filled him with unease, further muddling his ability to say the right thing.

“Perhaps,” she finally said, nearly a half minute later, “you need to change your perception of normal.”

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” he asked as he turned the corner next to the brewery. He wasn’t exactly thrilled they were in the middle of a disagreement, but he couldn’t quite rein himself in.

“Lee,” she said softly, “who taught you what normal is and what it looks like?”

“Society,” he said in a smug tone. “Obviously.”

“That’s not entirely true,” she pressed. “Most people learn what’s normal or not at home. From their parents and their family.”

Lee found a parking space on the road. What was she saying? Was that some kind of jab at his father?

He was still working through that push-pull of his feelings toward the man. On the one hand, he knew his father was a bad man, but he’d spent over thirty years trying to mold himself in his image, and even though he now knew he’d been looking up to a mirage, not a man, it was hard to let that go all at once. Much harder than he’d anticipated, which meant at inconvenient times, he found himself wanting to defend the prick.

Turning off the engine, he turned to her, surprised to see tears in her eyes.

“When I was little, I was terrified of doing something my father wouldn’t consider normal. That he’d find it as evidence that I was on the path to becoming my mother.” Her chin trembled. “It was exhausting, Lee. I carried that baggage with me to college. And, of course,” she said with a derisive laugh, “the first time I let myself do something society didn’t consider ‘normal’, I made one of the worst mistakes of my life, getting married in Vegas with a Ring Pop by an officiant dressed like Cupid.”

Lee blinked, sure he’d heard her wrong. “Cupid?”

“You’re missing the point.”

“No,” he said. “I’m not. You did something abnormal, and you were delivered consequences.”

Her face turned ashen, and he knew he really had gone too far this time. He’d been his father’s magpie. He suspected the bastard would be fast friends with Blue’s father.

“Blue…”

She reached for the door handle and started to get out, but then turned back to face him. “Did you ever stop to think that maybe the reason you’re so judgmental of everyone else is because you don’t like what you see in your own mirror?”

He sputtered, trying to figure out how to answer that, but she got out and headed toward the entrance.

The others were arriving too, and since he’d been the one to suggest the location for part two of today’s events, he couldn’t sulk in the car. So he got out and led everyone inside. Blue stuck to Harry, who shot him a look that suggested Lee’s character was lower than a cockroach’s.Harry,of all people. She was seeking refuge with a man who believed microwaves sent signals to aliens, or some such garbage.

The event room had been booked last minute by some new age crystal group that Dottie belonged to, so Lee suggested they sit in the tasting room, which surprisingly had two tables next to each other, large enough to accommodate them all.

“It’s kismet,” Dottie said, clasping her hands together in glee. “I love it when fate intervenes.”

Fate wasn’t intervening for Lee. Or if it was, it didn’t like him very much. Perhaps he deserved it.

Dottie meandered toward the bar, talking to customers while the members of the club took off their jackets and sat down. Blue, of course, situated herself next to the window with Harry on her other side. Everyone else quickly grabbed a chair, leaving a single empty seat next to Augusta.

Fate could kiss his ass.

But he would make the best of it and find an opportunity to apologize, because it was killing him that he’d hurt her.

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