“And I’ll never know why you and that awful Gladys Prader—a woman you used to hate—have struck up a friendship. Although some might call it a coven.”

Nita sucked on her teeth so hard Blue was afraid she’d swallow an incisor.

Tim Taylor popped up next to them. “The game’s starting. Let’s see if the Stars can finally pull one out.” He pointed toward the big-screen TV that the Barn Grill had added so everyone could follow the Stars on Sunday afternoons. “This time try to stop closing your eyes every time Dean takes the snap, Blue. You look like a sissy.”

“You mind your own business,” Nita shot back.

Blue sighed and dropped her head to Nita’s shoulder. She stayed like that for a while. Finally, she said, so only Nita could hear, “I can’t do this much longer.”

Nita patted her hand, brushed her cheek with a gnarled knuckle, then poked her in the ribs. “Sit up straight or you’ll get a hump.”

By October, Dean’s game had improved, but not his mood. The snippets of information he wormed out of Nita weren’t reassuring. Blue was still in Garrison, but no one knew for how long, and those brilliant, magical paintings of gypsy caravans and faraway places he’d seen in the photos Nita forwarded weren’t encouraging. The initial firestorm of publicity over Jack and Dean’s relationship had begun to die down. At least one member of his family attended every game, depending on their work and school schedules. Still, as much as he loved them all, the hole inside him kept growing larger. Every day Blue seemed to be slipping further away from him. A dozen times he picked up the phone to call her, but he always set it back down. Blue had his number, and she was the one with something to prove, not him. She had to do this on her own.

And then, on a rainy Monday morning at the end of October, he opened the Chicago Sun-Times, and all the blood drained from his head. A big color photograph showed him at Waterworks, his favorite dance club, with a model he’d dated last year. He had a beer bottle in one hand and the other wrapped tightly around her waist as they engaged in an intimate kiss.

Dean Robillard and his former girlfriend, model Ally Tree-bow, got cozy last week at Waterworks. Now that they’re back together, is the Stars’ quarterback finally ready to give up his title as Chicago’s most eligible bachelor?