“Here are your drinks,” the server said, arriving with his order.
“Move, Blue,” Jay said.
She did, shuffling a few feet to the right, but she didn’t sit.
Stubborn woman.
“What’s that?” Blue said, pointing at the large bowl of alcohol he’d ordered for her.
“Island Dream,” Jay said.
“How do you know I wanted an Island Dream?” she demanded, glaring at it. “You’ve got a beer.”
“Do you want my beer, Blue?” Jay said, holding it out.
She then let out a loud sigh that came from her toes and dropped into the seat across from him. Taking the cocktail, she took a long slurp on the straw.
“It’s alcoholic,” he drawled as she continued to drink.
“Why were you in that limousine, Jay?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Can’t or won’t?” she asked, taking another drink.
“Can’t.” Jay did work for the government, which was something he couldn’t discuss, and had worked in Washington for a while. Now he just did the occasional contract when they offered him enough money he couldn’t refuse, which was why he was in New York at the moment.
“I remember you were really good at working things out. Computers and numbers were your thing,” she said, now eating the pineapple that had been in the cocktail.
He nodded but didn’t add anything.
The server returned with a plate of beef sliders and seasoned wedges. He ordered another round of drinks, seeing as she was inhaling hers.
“How did you know I wanted food?” Blue studied the platter.
“I didn’t.” Jay picked up a slider and took a bite. “I did.”
“You wouldn’t have eaten all this,” she protested.
“So would.”
They ate in silence, and he felt her relax. Like him, Blue Jay McAllister was clearly hungry.
“Tell me what’s going on with you, Blue. Because that box signaled to me you had packed up your desk and left your job. I could be wrong, but I don’t think I am.”
She crunched on a wedge and swallowed. “Do you ever sometimes think you’re the anomaly, Jay? Like you were raised in Lyntacky, where honesty and integrity were important, but that is missing in other people.”
“Constantly.”
“Don’t get me wrong, some people are great, but then you get those assholes that really throw you a curveball.”
“You have a good curveball, from memory, Blue,” Jay said, smiling.
“I do.” She drank some more. “I miss being in Lyntacky sometimes, like a toothache, and then other times, I wonder how I lived there.”
“With age I’ve realized, I want to be there more. Before, when I was younger, I needed to know there was more out in the world for me,” Jay said. “But now I just want to go home when I’m done.”
“Now Sawyer and Birdie have Sadie, I’m constantly wondering if I’m missing out on watching her grow up,” Blue said.
