Page 81 of Bad Luck Club

It was more laughter than the joke warranted, and the owner looked at them in amused bafflement and then nodded slightly.

“Ah, I see,” she said. “You’re here forpersonalreasons. You’re like Jackson Maine inA Star Is Born.”

Not the most flattering comparison, given how the movie had ended, but Blue wasn’t about to say so. Her gaze was fixed on Lee, waiting to see how he’d respond.

His mouth twitched. “Don’t worry, we’re not going to burst into song. I think the last time I sang was ‘Happy Birthday’ for my mom. When I was seven.”

“Oh, you know what I meant,” the gallery director said with a wave of her hand. “You’re an artist, aren’t you? You fell for each other because of your art.”

“No, I’m not an artist either. I’m a salesman—”

Blue expected him to leave it at that, but after a beat, he added, “—for my family brewery. I’m here because I believe in Blue. I have one of her octopuses—”

“You do?” the woman interrupted, as surprised as if he’d announced he still slept with the tattered remains of his baby blanket.

“They’re not stuffed animals, they’reart.” His cheeks went pink, just slightly, and the residual anger Blue had felt leaked away in an instant. “I hung it in the corner of my room, and when I look at it, I feel…a sense of wonder. Like maybe there’s more to the world than just doing a job and doing it well. That’s no small thing.”

No, it wasn’t. Especially not for him. Blue felt her heart split open at this evidence that maybe he did see her after all, and liked what he saw. She had the urge to reach out to him. To touch his flesh, even if it was just his hand.

“No, indeed,” the gallery owner said, thumbing up her wire-rimmed glasses. She eyed them speculatively. “I begin to see your point. Perhaps I wasn’t thinking big enough.”

Somehow, by the time they left, Lee had convinced the gallery owner to put on a whole show, centered around Blue. She’d even talked, enthusiastically, about painting the walls to resemble an ocean and playing ocean sounds to ramp up the atmosphere.

Blue turned to Lee as soon as they hit the sidewalk outside the gallery. He was close enough to touch, and she remembered the firmness of his arms beneath his jacket. Looking up at him, she whispered, “How’d you do it? You’re a magic man.”

He smiled at her, a real smile, not the polite crinkling of his lips from earlier, and then he was pulling her into a café, next door to the gallery. “Shhh. Don’t give away all my secrets.”

A few minutes later, sitting with coffees in front of them, they stared at each other for a while before Lee broke the silence. “Why octopuses, Blue? What is it about the ocean?”

“I told you why I changed my name. But ‘blue’ wasn’t just Mom’s nickname for me. We used to go to the beach as a family, every summer. And I always daydreamed about walking beneath the waves, discovering a different world…a place full of mermaids and starfish and sea creatures. I’d seen the octopuses at the aquarium in Camden, just across the river from where we lived, and they were just…magic. The way they moved, the colors. Looking at them made me feel like the world was bigger than just my family and our problems. Like there was real magic, all around me, if only I opened my eyes wide enough to see it.”

He nodded slowly, his gaze fixed on her.

“Running was like that for me. My dad didn’t want me to do track, so I didn’t, but I always loved falling into the movement of a run. Letting everything else float away.” His mouth stretched into a grin, making his face so luminous it almost hurt to look at him. “A therapist would have something to say about that, huh? I’ve spent my whole life running away without even realizing it.”

The intensity of his gaze, the way he’d stood up for her, the way he’d opened back up to her, like a treasure chest under that magical sea, it made her brave enough to say, “You were wrong yesterday.”

“I know,” he said, a little snippy, his grin falling away. “I said so. Do you expect me to apologize again? My understanding was a person only had to do it once for each offense.”

“No, you were wrong aboutyou. You’re not bad for me, Lee.” Taking a sip of her coffee for liquid courage, she added, “Bear said I don’t need the club anymore.”

He set his coffee down so powerfully she was surprised the paper cup didn’t crush. Then his hand was on her arm, his touch searing her as much as his concerned gaze.

“Blue, I didn’t want that to happen,” he said gruffly. “That’s the last thing I wanted to happen. That was why—” He cut himself off.

“It’s not because of you,” she said, feeling his fingers still curled around her arm. Wanting them in her hair, on her butt. Wanting them everywhere. “He told me that I don’t need it anymore. That I’ve learned how to cope on my own.” She raised her eyebrows. “He thinks I can stand up for myself.”

A brief smile lifted his lips. “He’s right about that.”

“You blushed earlier.”

His hand pulled away, and he leaned back in his chair. “That’s impossible. I don’t blush.”

“You did,” she insisted. “And it was the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. Radical honesty, Lee. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and you’re not going to wreck me. We’re not going to wreck each other. You may have work to do on yourself, but you’re a good man. You’re not your father. Your father wouldn’t have come to that meeting with me. And he wouldn’t have worried about the cost of taking what he wanted. He never would have said what you said yesterday.”

A hunger lit in his eyes, and he leaned closer. But she sensed a hesitation in him, a holding back. “I’m still an asshole, Blue. I’m not sure how not to be one.”

“You’re doing it now, and you don’t even realize it,” she said, leaning closer too. Giving in to the desire to touch him, she laid her hand on top of his, and he turned her palm over, tracing a finger over hers, one by one, that simple touch sending shock waves through her.

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