“I couldn’t before?”
Dan shrugged. “I mean, you could have, but now there’s that family code of silence thing we share.”
“Ah, that,” Blue said. “No one pissed me off. Red and Bart made me come to work by guilting me into it.”
“Harsh,” Red said, dropping a tray of clean glasses down before Blue. “You big-city types need constant stimulation, so I’m supplying that.” His big, beefy hand swept the room before her. “What’s not to love? There’s ambience and happiness everywhere.”
Dan snorted loudly.
“I need two more beers, Red,” JD Hopper said, having just arrived at the bar. “I’m counseling Jay.”
“Yeah, yeah, keep it together, pretty boy. I’m enlightening Blue here.”
“About what?”
JD Hopper could easily stroll into New York’s most elite society gathering and fit right in. Well-groomed and dressed in expensive labels as he was, it was a wonder to Blue he still lived in Lyntacky.
She was born here, so that was her excuse for coming back, but not his. From what she gathered, he came from money and had been raised in luxury, but he’d forgone that for Lyntacky.
It took all sorts, Blue guessed, which was what she loved about this place.
“Is that a Tom Ford?” Dan asked, pointing at the tailored button-down shirt JD wore.
He rolled his eyes and ignored his brother-in-law.
Birdie had told Blue that the family researched high-end labels to annoy JD.
“About Lyntacky society and the ambience,” Red answered JD’s question with a straight face. “She’s bitching about working for me.”
“No way?” JD said straight-faced. “People kill to work in the bar on boys’ night. It looks real good on a resume.”
“Damn straight.” Red held out a hand, and JD slapped it.
“So about those beers?”
“Pour the man two beers, Blue,” Red said. “Why does Jay need counselling?”
“He’s a lost soul, Red,” JD said, shaking his head. “He needs the love of a good woman to complete him.”
“I just threw up a bit in my mouth,” Blue said. “Can you hear yourself?” she added, refusing to acknowledge the little stab of something she felt at the thought of Jay with another woman—which she had absolutely no right to feel. “You sound like you’re sixty and married with a passel of kids, with no life.”
“I can honestly say I haven’t heard the word ‘passel’ in years,” Dan said.
“No need to get tetchy, Blue?—”
“Another word that is missing from my vocabulary,” Dan cut in.
“You and Jay need to settle down. I can highly recommend it,” JD added. “Right, Dan?”
“Damn straight. Did I tell you that Hudson won an award at school for his paper on growing sustainably?”
“No way. That’s cool,” JD said.
Blue loved how Dan and Leah Reynolds had become the boy’s parents. She might not live in Lyntacky anymore, but her family kept her up on all the goings-on.
Slowly all the people she’d grown up with were finding partners and building lives together. Some had children, and while she knew the reality was that not everyone was happy in a relationship, most of those she knew who lived here were, at least outwardly.
Blue wondered when she’d become such a cynic. Did she even believe in happy-ever-afters anymore?
