“Now I do, but not back then.”
He sat there while she told him stories about her childhood that to him sounded wonderful, but Jay knew they wouldn’t have been easy for a kid to handle.
“I know I sound ungrateful, but you did ask,” Blue said suddenly.
“No, I get it,” he said. “You never want to stand out or be different from the other kids your age when you’re young.”
She lifted her head again and looked at him. “I’m sorry you were different, Jay.”
“It’s okay. I’m all right now and pretty similar to others.” He tried to smile, but Jay could feel that it didn’t reach his eyes.“What birthday cake did you want most in the world?” he asked her.
“A Barbie cake, but we didn’t really do frosting, as it was full of sugar. How about you, Jay? What cake did you want?”
She probably thought he wasn’t going to answer, but then he said softly, “A racing car cake.” No matter how hard he’d tried to mask it, he could hear the long-lost child he’d been in those words. The longing for something he knew he’d never get.
“Nice. Lynx would have enjoyed that too,” Blue said.
“Not Finch?”
“No, he liked motorcycles.”
“I can see that actually,” he said.
“Jay, I think you should make contact with Hazel. I could do it if?—”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to discuss this, Blue. When and if I do, then that’s on me, not you.”
He could feel himself withdrawing from her. Backing away emotionally and physically.
“Did you tell Dan?”
Blue wasn’t someone who gave up easily, and he guessed that was a leftover from her childhood too. But Jay had leftovers from his childhood also, and one of those was that when he felt under threat, his shields came up.
“I have to work.” He got up off the step, where he’d sat in that morning light with Blue’s head on his shoulder, and walked away, because it was what he knew how to do well.
Chapter 27
Blue watched Jay disappear inside. The man was kind, generous, and closed up tighter than a jar of her mother’s pickles.
His childhood had made him insular. Jay’s emotions were locked away, and when someone pressed him, rather than respond, he put up a wall and ran.
She wasn’t sure what, if anything, she could do to help him, but she wanted to try.
The night before had been a revelation.
New York had blown her mind, but their lovemaking in the shower had been different. She’d heard people talk about having their soul touched. Last night, she’d understood what that meant. And this morning, waking in his bed, after the night in his arms, she’d found Jay outside in the sun with his coffee and felt it again.
Everything about being here with him felt right and natural.
Getting to her feet, she followed Jay and caught him coming back down the stairs, dressed for his workday in jeans and a T-shirt.
“I’m sorry for pushing you, Jay. That wasn’t my intention,” Blue lied. Itwasher intention because she felt he needed to dealwith the Hazel issue, but she was used to her brothers. You had to push hard with them because persistence was the key to get them to do or tell her something, and she’d taken that tack with Jay. It hadn’t worked.
“It’s okay. I wasn’t upset.” His face was calm, all emotion locked away, but last night, she’d seen and felt that emotion.
