Page 48 of Undone, Love Times Three

“Now that sounds like a better idea. And I think they’re going to get eight.”

“Eight. Jeez Uncle Dan. Do you know this game at all? They’ll be lucky to get two.”

I smother a laugh as he hurries ahead to the door to our box. At least he’s keeping it real.

We were both wrong. Not a single home run, but the Cubs win and that is all Elliott cares about.

As we’re getting ready to head out, an advertisement flashes up on the big screen at the far side of the field. It catches my eye because of the distinctive beer bottle, followed by the sign for Blue’s Hideaway.

It costs a shit ton of money to advertise at Wrigley Field. What the hell is she doing? She has a lawsuit hanging over her.

“Daniel, you coming?”

“Yeah, in a sec,” I say to my sister without taking my eyes off the electronic billboard.

People are being interviewed in the advert. On the streets, in the stands at the ball field, and inside the bar. They are all holding up bottles of 312 grinning as they talk. There is no sound, but subtitles are rolling across the bottom. Each one of them is endorsing the bar and the beer.

Holy shit.

One thing I learned about Blue and that beer, she is determined to never give away the rights, distribute or even consider sharing it outside of the bar.

Is this what it’s come to? Having to go against her uncle’s wishes to raise money for her defense?

My anger rises at ReedfuckingFaulkner. What the hell does he need to sue a small bar in Chicago for anyway? He makes more in a week than Blue probably does in a year.

It’s been three days since I spent the night with her. Three days of reliving one of the best nights of my life. Sex had never been like that for me before. Nor have I ever known a woman like Blue.

It seems strange to think of her as anything other than that now. Not once did she tell me to call her by her actual name. In fact, she was more responsive when that was the name I whispered in her ear as I told her all the ways I wanted to fuck her.

I’ve thought a lot about her making me promise not to fall in love with her. What did that even mean? Has she had guys do that before? The ones who used the condoms from the opened box. Raging jealousy has never been something I’ve let get to me. My ex-wife is gorgeous and got her fair share of male attention, but I never doubted her.

Yet she cheated.

The more I think about Blue with other men, the more volatile I get. She’s beautiful, intelligent and a businesswoman who knows what she wants. She will always stand up for herself, her family and her bar. That, more than her skills in bed, of which there are many, make her attractive to me.

Something tells me Blue has more class than to ever purposefully cheat or hurt people. Her integrity and steadfast stance on holding her family beer close is one of her best qualities.

She owned my body the other night and didn’t ask for anything in return, except mutual pleasure.

And a promise not to fall in love with her.

It fucking hurts and pisses me off in equal measure she has been brought to this. It’s not something she will have taken lightly. She is being forced into an impossible choice, which has got to be killing her to make.

It makes me want to beat the living shit out of Faulkner.

One final slogan fills the screen, and I widen my eyes as I read it. ‘Blue’s Hideaway, the home of 312 IPA.Not sold anywhere else.’

Wait, what? This isn’t a campaign to sell her beer outside of the bar. Fuck, my grin spreads.

No, this is a campaign to get more people to the bar, to get the name out there and bring positive attention to Blue’s Hideaway. This is a way to fight it. And she figured that out.

Opening up my social media, I check out their recent posts. Fucking hell, over a million people are following the bar. There is post after post supporting them. #ProtectBluesHideaway is trending.

There is no official post from the bar, but people are making videos of support, calling for witnesses the night Faulkner lost his shit. There is no talk about how a multi-millionaire wants to take Blue’s away from the community. She hasn’t used the lawsuit as an excuse for this. That’s fucking smart.

In amongst all the people commenting, one or two have posted they were outside the bar and saw a man being taken out of the club, drunk, slurring his words, yelling at the security guys who helped him out. Then they say he fell over and smashed his own face into the sidewalk. The security guys were nowhere near him.

A shocked laugh barks out of me. I don’t know how she did it, but she’s figured out an irrefutable way to find anyone who saw what happened outside of the bar that night.

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