Did Blue really care about him?The unloved boy he’d been didn’t dare to hope.
“I’m not talking to you about this, Dan. It’s between me and Blue.”
“Okay, let’s move onto something else then. When I walked into the clinic, she was on her phone. She dropped it when I asked what she was muttering about. I picked it up and saw the woman on the screen,” Dan said.
“Who was on the screen?”
Dan studied him for several seconds. “Your half sister.”
“She told you about that?” Jay felt a stab of pain at her betrayal. That was their secret, and he hadn’t wanted anyone else to know about it, not even his oldest friend.
“I asked who it was, and she’s not a liar, so she said she couldn’t tell me. But I got it out of her. You should have been the one to tell me, Jay.”
“I didn’t want anyone to know!” The words exploded out of him. “This is my business, Dan, not Lyntacky’s. I don’t even know if I want to make contact with her, and now suddenly two people know.”
“And you think we’d tell anyone?” Now Dan was mad. His jaw clenched as he carefully lowered his mug onto Jay’s desk before rising to his feet.
“You don’t keep secrets from your family,” Jay snapped.
“You are my family!”
“I’m not your blood.”
“That means shit to us!” Dan was roaring now. “You’re family.”
“Spoken like a man who has ten blood relatives within five minutes of where you’re standing right now,” Jay said. “You don’t understand this, Dan—none of it. You’ve been surrounded by love your entire life. Surrounded by people who have your back even when you’re a dickhead.”
“And all those people are there for you.”
Jay knew the signs when Dan was reaching boiling point because he’d pushed him there often enough. He saw the muscle pulse in his neck, along with the slight flare of his nostrils.
His phone rang, and the ring tone had Jay reaching for it. “I have to take this, and it will be a long call, so I need you to leave.”
“We are nowhere near done with this conversation, Jay.”
“No, we’re definitely done,” Jay argued, wondering if he’d damaged his friendship with the man he did—in all honesty—love like a brother.
“We are not done, we’re just done for now. I’m coming back later, and we are talking,” Dan said.
Jay didn’t answer. They shared a look, and then Dan left, and Jay reached for his phone. After taking the call, he finished up in his office and walked back inside to pack.
His heart felt heavy and his head all over the place, not good conditions when he needed to do what he was about to, but Jay was good at shutting out the things that hurt him and focusing.
He was coming back downstairs when Blue arrived home.
“Where are you going?” she asked, noting he was carrying his overnight bag.
“You told Dan about my half sister.” He’d told himself to leave it until he returned, but Jay wasn’t feeling rational at the moment. He felt raw and exposed.
“Listen to me, Jay, Let me explain,” she said, coming closer.
He held up a hand. “I told you I didn’t want to find her yet. Told you not to tell anyone, and you betrayed the trust I placed in you.”
He watched the color literally drain from her face at his words, but Jay was past caring.
“I-it happened, because he saw?—”
“Don’t bother explaining, I don’t want to hear it.” His skin felt tight and his head weird. He needed to get out of here before he said something he couldn’t take back.
