Page 63 of Baby Blue
Indie reached for Anne and Blue handed her over. “You about ready to go?”
“Yeah. Let’s round up Polly and Toady. You need to get to the bar.”
Blue fell into step beside her. “You do realize there are women at the bar, right?”
“You know, I’m not nearly as worried about the ones you see there as I am about the ones who come on to you with me standing right here.”
“Yeah. That is pretty ballsy, I gotta say.”
“If she’d reached out and touched you, I would’ve snatched her baldheaded,” Anne muttered.
“Whoa! Down, girl! It’s okay. No harm, no foul.” He leaned down to her ear. “Do I need to take you home and remind you who it is I’m in love with?”
She grinned. “That would help.”
“Well, okay then. Polly! Hey, come here,” Blue called to her from about twenty feet away. “You about ready to go?”
“I guess so. Toady’s right there,” she said, pointing to her little brother. He’d found the brother of a classmate and they were laughing and playing.
“I’ve got a present for you. A graduation present. Turn around,” Blue said and waited.
“Turn around?”
“Yeah. Turn around. Go on.” He waited until her back was to him, then reached into his pocket, pulled out the box and opened it, and drew out the chain. Very carefully, he drew the chain around her neck and clasped it in the back. “So? Do you like it?”
Polly looked down and gasped. “Is that a real diamond?”
“Yes, ma’am, it is. I wanted to get you something special, something you could enjoy for years. But do you like it?”
“I love it. Thank you, Blue!” Polly spun and threw her arms around his neck. It was the first time she’d done that, and Blue wrapped his around her waist and hugged her tight. “I’ll never take it off.”
“I wish you would when you shower!” he said, laughing. “The chain will last a lot longer that way!”
“Wow. I feel old. I have a kid in high school,” Anne said when they were all settled in the car.
“Yep. I’m a high schooler now.” Polly started talking about her class schedule and the things she’d need for biology class when she asked out of the blue, “I know where Mom went to high school. Blue, where did you go?”
“I, uh…” That was hard to talk about, but she’d asked, and he wanted to be honest with her. Wasn’t that what relationships were about, getting to know the other person? “I, um, I didn’t get to go to high school.”
“How could you not go to high school? It’s a law!”
“Because the foster people I lived with didn’t care if I went or not. They were really, really mean to me.” He didn’t want to get too graphic. It would just scare her.
“Mom told me. And I saw you in the bathroom.”
As soon as she said the words, he saw Toady’s head pop up in the rearview mirror. Blue’s heart almost stopped. “What?”
“I saw you in the bathroom. Before you got in the shower the other day. You didn’t have a shirt on and I saw your back. Did they do that to you?”
A tiny voice in his head whispered,Hold it together, Wallace.“Uh, yeah. Over the years. It wasn’t just one person. It was several as I was growing up.”
“What happened to your parents?”
He shrugged. “I have no idea. Never knew.”
“Wouldn’t you like to know? I mean, wouldn’t you like to find out?”
“No.” He shook his head decisively. “Not at all. They abandoned me. I don’t want to know where they are.”
