Chapter 25
Jay could always focus on work. It was his superpower. He could work in any situation or location, no matter what was going on in his life.
So why was he struggling now?
He’d worked out in his home gym to settle his mind, and all he’d gotten was sweaty, and he still had a head full of questions.
Blue and a half sister. Two women were consuming his thoughts. One he knew, the other he didn’t.
He wasn’t sure if he wanted to contact Hazel Davis, because what if she was like his mother? What if she wanted nothing to do with him?
Blue had been nudging him to do something, but he couldn’t make himself.
It was easier to remain oblivious than to find out the person you were related to was a monster.
Giving up on work, he stepped out of his front door and started walking. He’d made it halfway down his street when he heard the thud of feet hitting the road. Turning, Jay found the Duke brothers. Just what he needed.
He thought seriously about sprinting back to his house and locking the door. But he’d never been a coward and wasn’t about to start now.
“Handy that he’s dressed for running. Move it, Haddon,” Brody Duke wheezed, reaching Jay.
“I’ve had my workout today.”
“W-we’re training,” Ryder said, sounding as breathless as his brothers.
“For what?” Jay asked.
“Good health,” Ryder wheezed.
“Move it,” Dan said, nudging Jay in the back.
“Since when have you cared about good health?”
“Since we heard that there is a 5K run happening in two months and you get to eat as many pies as you want if you enter,” Brody said.
“At the end, I’m hoping,” Jay added.
“Well, duh,” Sawyer said.
“Plus, there is a prize for the winners,” Ryder said.
“Which is?”
“Free breakfast for two months anywhere in Lyntacky,” Sawyer said. “And you can bring a friend.”
“I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: This town is weird.”
“Damn straight,” Ryder said, slapping him on the back. “Now move your scrawny ass, Haddon.”
“And that’s the only reason you four are out here when you could be home watching the game?”
Brody’s sigh was loud.
“His kid,” Ryder said, pointing at Brody, “has a bet running with this little shit in her class, who is constantly annoying her, that we couldn’t beat his father and uncles.”
“Now it makes sense. Ally asked you, so you’re training to make sure she wins her bet,” Jay said. “After all, heaven forbid anyone says no to her.”
“That won’t be me,” Sawyer added.
Jay started to run because he knew they’d stand there and nag him until he did.
The three eldest Dukes took the front, a wall of huge men, with Dan and Jay at the rear.
“So I’m your best friend, and I have to find out with everyone else in The Courtesy Turn Cafe, while eating my breakfast waffles, that Blue has moved in with you.”
“Dan—”
“The definition of a friend is a person with whom one has a bond of mutual affection. There is loyalty and trust involved too. Plus, often a long history.”
“I always hated arguing with him because he researches stuff like that,” Jay heard Sawyer say.
“Youngest and most annoying,” Brody added.
“I didn’t mean to exclude you, Dan. I didn’t know it was going to happen. She just appeared at my door.” Even if I did invite her, but he kept that thought to himself.
“A simple text, like, ‘I want you, my oldest and dearest friend, to know before everyone in town that Blue Jay McAllister, the mother of my child, has moved in with me.’”
The mother of my child. “I’ll do better from now on,” Jay said solemnly.
“No, you won’t, but I like the sentiment.”
“Waffles?” Sawyer shouted.
All Dukes agreed.
“Have you even trained? I mean, 5K is not in and out of Lyntacky,” Jay protested.
“We’ve been running awhile and even stopped to talk to your girl while dancing the Grapevine Twist,” Dan said.
He only just managed to swallow the words, how is she? then reformed them as “Not my girl.”
“Well, she’s carrying your child and living in your house, so maybe you should work on that?” Ryder said.
Maybe he should. One thing he’d realized having Blue in his house was how much he wanted her to stay. She fit there, and he wasn’t sure how to tell her that. Jay didn’t want to push. Not when everything was so uncertain between them.
Then there was the tension in the air. He’d felt it, and she had to have too. Whenever she was near, he wanted to lower her onto the nearest counter, table—hell, floor, he wasn’t fussy—and take her again. Sink into her body and experience what he had that night.
But she was pregnant, and Jay wasn’t sure that was okay—or that she wanted it.
“I should make you pay, seeing as you’ve been a shitty friend,” Dan muttered when they entered the waffle place.
“I have put up with your whining BS for years, so don’t you come at me about being a shitty friend. I’m the one who causes the least amount of trouble in this group.”
As they reached the Courtesy Turn café, his phone rang.
“Is that a new ring tone?” Dan asked.
Jay waved them inside, ignoring Dan’s question. His phone didn’t have just a single number. He had one for business and one for personal.
“Haddon.” He listened to the man on the other end and then said, “I’ll be ready.” Pocketing his phone, he headed inside.
Jay found the Dukes in a booth and slid in beside Dan. The interrogation then began.
“So Blue is living with you—”
“Everyone knows that, Ryder,” Jay said.
“And what?”
“What, what, Brody?” Jay asked.
“He tell you what’s going on yet?”
The man who had asked that was stomping toward their table had once been the most unsociable in Lyntacky.
He’d owned the bakery before Ryder and used it to play cards and sell nothing resembling food.
Now, Larry Limpet still dressed the same in overalls and work boots, and he looked in need of a shave, but suddenly he was in everyone’s business.
“Larry, this has nothing to do with you,” Jay said through his teeth.
“Nobody’s business is private in this town. Now let me tell you, Jay, I like that girl. You do right by her.”
Jay actually blinked at those words.
“I think I liked you better when you were an asshole and never stepped out of your bakery, and I use the term bakery loosely,” Sawyer said.
“Yeah, well, I got time on my hands now,” Larry said.
“Seeing as you were up at the asscrack of dawn, baking and stuff?” Ryder asked.
Larry bared his teeth. “Blue helped me out a time or two when I needed it. She’s a good one, and if you can’t see that, then more fool you.”
“She’s living in my house,” Jay felt the need to clarify.
“I know you young’ns don’t think marriage important, but alls I’m saying is, in her condition, you watch out for her. I’ll have my eyes on you,” Larry Limpet added. He then stomped away.
“There are no words,” Jay whispered.
“What the fuck just happened?” Dan asked.
“I’ve never heard him string that many words together,” Brody added.
“I tell you, it’s them aliens,” Sawyer said. “I’ll take the blueberry waffles thanks, Esther.”
“Need me to cook something up to take back for Blue?” Esther offered when she’d taken their order. “Now it’s out in the open, we can discuss it.”
Jay shook his head because he had lost the ability to speak.
“Okay, now they’ve gone and we’re alone, tell us what you need advice on,” Brody said.
“Nothing at the moment, thanks,” Jay said.
“Some of us have kids and are in relationships,” Sawyer added.
“Lay it on us, and we’ll offer pearls of wisdom,” Dan said.
“Look. Blue has moved in. We don’t know what’s happening or where anything is going. For now, we’re just living together because she can’t live with her brothers. So let’s leave it there, okay?”
“My brothers used to get all up in my business.” LouJean’s voice reached Jay from somewhere behind him.
He leaned forward and banged his head on the table.
But if Jay were being honest with himself, he wanted to ask relationship advice because he’d never really had one—a relationship. There had been plenty of women, but none had lasted long.
Jay liked to be in control and have a plan, but he could honestly say he had no clue how to proceed with Blue. He was playing things cool, but inside, he felt tense about making a wrong move.
“Well, if you need advice, you know where to come,” Dan said, giving Jay a hard look.
When he finally got home, after the grilling he’d received from the Dukes and half the town of Lyntacky, the peace he’d hoped to achieve leaving the house earlier had definitely not happened.
It was dark out, and all he wanted was a shower and some mindless TV with Blue.
Is she home?
He took the stairs up, as the lights down here were off. Passing her door, Jay heard a bang coming from her room. Was that the toilet seat dropping? Was she being sick again?
He knocked on the door, but there was no answer. He opened it and stepped inside.
“Blue?” he called, reaching the bathroom. He stepped inside and lost the ability to breathe. Blue wasn’t bent over the toilet bowl retching—she was stepping into the shower. Naked, which she would be if she was showering, but hell, what a body.
He exhaled slowly.
Water slid over her shoulders, down the gentle swell of her breasts, across the soft curve of her belly. It was no longer flat. There was now the faintest curve of new life showing there. The sight rocked him back on his heels.
His child.
As if sensing him, she looked to the doorway. Her expression shifted from surprise to something else.
“I’m sorry, I heard the toilet seat bang. I thought you might need me.” He couldn’t stop his eyes moving over her.
“I’m not throwing up,” she said.
“I can see that.” His voice was rougher than he meant it to be.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
Jay had seen her naked once before, but this, seeing all of her now, without touching her, was different. She was different, and Christ, he wanted her.
He scrubbed a hand down his jaw. “So you’re okay?”
She nodded. “Just tired after a big day. But it was good; I had fun. What about you?”
“I ate waffles with the Dukes after a run. The older three bitched the entire time.”