“How was it?”

I set my food on the table beside Mr. Cooper and gave his shoulder a pat. “How was what, Mr. C?” I asked, pretty certain he wasn’t asking about the reaming I’d given Jason again that morning just in case the first one, the day before, hadn’t been enough.

I was still mad about it. Bitching him out the morning before, then refusing to speak to him the rest of the day hadn’t been enough to get the anger out of my system. I had gotten to work that morning, still unable to forgive him, and when he’d decided to go out on a limb and ask me a question about an hour ago, I hadn’t been particularly nice in my response to him.

I only felt like a tiny bit bad about biting his head off.

Then again, I had gotten my head bitten off because of him, so I knew I shouldn’t.

Mr. Cooper smiled at me, not giving me a single clue what he was referring to, as I pulled out the chair next to him. “How was it?” he asked again.

I plopped into it and gave him a smile right back. “Mr. C, I don’t know what you’re asking.”

I hadn’t complained about what had happened the day before. As far as I knew, only Rip, Jason, and I knew about his screwup, and I highly freaking doubted he had found out about Rip going with me to Dallas over the weekend. The only people who knew about that were Thea, Rip, and me. As much as I was willing to share with Mr. Cooper, my sister’s crap was one of those rare things I would rather keep to myself. On top of that, I hadn’t overheard a single argument between him or Rip either so….

He tipped his head to the side. “How did your date go, little moon? I thought you told me you were going on one on Saturday.”

Oh. Oh. That.

I had told him about it. “Oh. It didn’t happen on Saturday, but I did meet up with him yesterday.”

“Did it go well?”

I lifted a shoulder as I pulled the top off my container of food. The noodles were from the batch I had made on Sunday. They were overcooked, the vegetables were soggy, the meat didn’t have enough seasoning, but… I had made it. And it hadn’t given me the runs yesterday, so I could only hope they wouldn’t today either.

“He was… decent,” I admitted.

Mr. Cooper snickered. “It didn’t go that well then?”

I set the lid of my food between us with a sigh. “I went in with zero expectations, Mr. C, and I’m glad I did.”

That was the truth. I hadn’t gone to the bar expecting to meet the love of my life, but I had gone with my hopes up that my day couldn’t get any crappier after what had happened with Rip.

It hadn’t. But it hadn’t made it any better either.

The Out of my League man had been in his forties and very good-looking, just like Lenny had shown me. He had been outgoing and talkative.

I didn’t mean to laugh as I thought about how the night before had gone, but it happened.

I lifted a shoulder as I shot Mr. Cooper a look and snorted then shook my head. “It wasn’t total crap. Maybe 50 percent.”

The expression on his face was so overprotective it warmed my heart about a hundred degrees. “That bad?”

Well...

I didn’t want to bother with all the details. I had called Lenny on my way to work that morning to let her know that the man Grandpa Gus had set me up with had spent the entire time telling me all about how he had just gotten divorced and how he was so excited to move on with his life and do all the things he hadn’t been able to do for all those years.

I took it as: I’m single and not looking forward to reliving marriage any time in the next decade.

I had only been in one actual relationship in my life. I had dated one other man for a little while but didn’t count that. Since then, I had gone on another handful of one-off dates. I had even tried the online dating app that was more of a hookup site, and that was where I had met the Daddy guy. So, I thought I was pretty good at recognizing the look in a man’s eyes when he wasn’t ready for commitment.

At least not commitment with me.

The man who had sat across from me hadn’t been looking forward to settling down in any way in the near future. Not even close. None of his words had given me the impression he felt otherwise either. He’d said all the right words and told me just how “cute” he thought I was, but that had been it.

“Nothing bad happened?” he asked carefully. A little too carefully, really.

Honestly, I loved it. It was a nice reminder after yesterday.

I shook my head, my ears picking up on the sound of two familiar, heavy footsteps coming from down the hall. Nothing had happened except for the fact he kept trying to get me to agree that I was basically looking for a booty call, but I wasn’t about to tell Mr. Cooper that, at least in those words. I lowered my voice just a fraction. “No, he just wasn’t looking for something serious, and I could tell. And I’m not… trying on clothes that I don’t want to buy, you know?”

Mr. Cooper’s smile was gentle as he nodded. “I don’t envy you this adventure, little moon.”

“I wish I didn’t have to do this, Mr. C, trust me, but hey, maybe the next guy will sweep me off my feet and treat me the way you treat Lydia.” I took a bite of my food and ignored all the things that were wrong with the taste of it. “Maybe my luck will finally take a turn for the better,” I covered my mouth and told him.

Bad dates happened. I’d heard about them enough from the guys at the shop. I’d heard it enough from my sisters. I wasn’t going to give up after the first one.

I was just not going to trust Grandpa Gus again to fix me up any time soon.

I’d only gotten one more bite in when a voice I was too familiar with spoke up. “Luna, you got time to go with me to the store and pick out some paint?”

Go to the store and pick up some paint with Rip? For the first time ever? After the partial weekend we had spent together?

After he had given me so much crap yesterday?

I chewed the rest of the lo mein I had in my mouth and turned my attention to my other boss, finding him standing there with his hands on his hips over his coveralls, his undershirt a navy color today. Heading into the kitchen, he moved that big body behind the chair I was in to grab something from the fridge, before he kept talking. “I wanna pick out some paint for the GTO and the SS you found, but I don’t like anything in the catalogue or the samples you got.”

To give him credit, he hadn’t been even a little weird with me that morning. I had brought him his coffee, muttered a “Hi, Rip” that was more out of good manners than anything. He had been working and had called out behind me, “Luna.” Like nothing had happened. Then I had said, still grumbling, “Leaving your coffee on the bench.” And he had replied, “Thanks.”

And that had been that. Normal. Fine… as if yesterday hadn’t happened.

So it was with that, that I told him, sounding pretty freaking nonchalant, “I can get you the address to my favorite shop.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mr. Cooper glance between the two of us—probably surprised I didn’t immediately say yes—but I pretended like I didn’t see his movement.

What neither one of us could ignore was Rip saying, “I want you to go with me.”

He wanted me to go with him.

Mr. Cooper eyed both of us again, and I wasn’t sure who was more surprised by Rip’s words. Me or him. He was always such a stickler for people getting paid to actually work. Two people going for paint? That was unheard of. Him inviting me twice to go somewhere with him in less than a month? It was practically a miracle.

My gut said he was doing it because he felt bad.

“You want me to go with you?” I echoed, still trying to process his invitation and why he’d even extended it.

His “Yeah” came out more like “duh.”

I picked up some more noodles with my fork and shoved them into my mouth. Because I was hungry, not because I was at a loss for words.

Definitely not because a part of me wanted to be petty and tell him that no, I didn’t want to go anywhere with him because he’d been so mean the day before.

Not me. I was better than that. Yup.

He was still hanging out by the fridge when he kept going. “You got time, don’t you?”

If I said I was just busy enough, it would sound like I didn’t have enough to do. If I said I had time, it would sound like I didn’t have enough to do. And if I told him I was barely catching up after the crap with the Mustang, then I would sound like I was harboring some resentment toward him.

So…

How was I supposed to answer him?

Did I want to go?

I didn’t have to think about it too long. The answer was: not so much. Normally, I wouldn’t mind going. I really wasn’t very busy, and I didn’t want to be around Jason more than I needed to since we were on thinner ice than usual. On top of that, I didn’t want to talk to Mr. Cooper about the day before and cause another argument between him and Rip, because that’s what would happen. I had already planned on going to bother the guys on the floor to see what I could help them with.

But if I insisted I didn’t want to go, he would know I was butt-hurt, and I was almost never butt-hurt. If he thought that, he would know he had gotten under my skin.

Rip had just been my boss. He did to me what he would have done to any of the guys. I had no logical reason to take it personally.

But it was really hard to know that and accept it.

It was hard to tell your heart what your brain was smart enough to understand.

“Nothing’s pending?” he asked when I still hadn’t replied.

There was always something pending, technically.

He didn’t wait for me to answer. He didn’t give me a chance to give him an answer. “Finish your lunch, and then we’ll head out.”

I didn’t need to go with him. I actually wasn’t even sure why he wanted me to. He might listen to me sometimes, but not that much.

But…

I was better than this. I wasn’t going to let him get to me. I wasn’t going to let him know that he had.

“Okay,” I finally got out, shrugging. I had made myself let Jason do what was on the schedule for the day since it had only been small projects, and I’d watched to make sure he did it right. I hadn’t wanted to, but that’s why Mr. Cooper had stuck him with me. To learn. Me leaving would be good, for both of our sakes. There were only a couple things left the rest of the day that needed to be done.

I could be a mature, reasonable person and put the day behind me.

I was loved. I had a good job. I had everything I needed. I’d had a decent date the night before, but I had another one coming up.

Every day was a new day that gave you the opportunity to have your entire life ahead of you.

And that was what I was going to keep telling myself.

“What do you mean you’re leaving?”

I tried to control my temper—a temper that I didn’t normally have unless it was provoked, a temper that this guy seemed to stoke like a snake charmer, like it was his superpower, while my superpower was that I was easygoing and didn’t get mad that often.

But I guess even Superman had his kryptonite.

Mine was a coworker with an attitude problem who had cheated on my sister. An attitude problem that I had unfortunately noticed mostly only flared up in my company.

That seemed to be a running theme throughout my life for some reason that I wasn’t about to focus on.

“I’m going with Rip to pick out paint,” I said again as I unlocked the cabinet in the desk that held my purse. I’d only started doing that since Jason and I had gotten stuck with each other. I didn’t trust him to not eat the snacks I kept in there or rub my toothbrush along a toilet rim if he had the chance. The booth was mine. I wasn’t sure what I would end up doing if they tried to put him with me permanently, like I had been Mack’s assistant for years, but I’d make sure it didn’t happen.

Somehow.

“Why?” he had the nerve to ask, like the last time we’d exchanged words, I hadn’t wanted to strangle him.

Did I need to give him an answer? No, but I did anyway. “Because he asked me to,” I responded as I locked the cabinet back up. He didn’t need to know that I had tried to get out of it.

“But now I’m stuck here doing your work,” Jason complained, like he wasn’t paid to do just that. He’d been acting like an abused puppy since yesterday. All meek and whiney, but not in a cute or likable way.

I made sure my back was to him as I made a face that couldn’t hide how much he was getting on my nerves. “Going with him is part of my job. You also get paid hourly, so you’d either be in the booth or out there helping out the other guys. If you would rather go back out there, go tell Mr. Cooper. He won’t force you to do something you don’t want to do,” I told him, not able to totally hide my irritation.

But man, I hoped, I hoped, I hoped, I hoped he would go tell Mr. Cooper he wanted out.

If he wasn’t out of here by the time my birthday came around, I knew exactly what I was going to ask for.

There was a moment of silence and then, “I can go with him.”

Oh, boy.

I was choosing happiness and patience.

I was choosing happiness and patience.

I was choosing happiness and patience.

So I bit my cheek. “Ask Rip. I’ll stay if he’s fine with you going.” I mean, I was going to get paid anyway. I didn’t care if I’d end up staying instead of him.

Then again, I was also 99 percent sure Rip wouldn’t say yes even if Jason had the balls to invite himself. I had seen the way he took him in, and I’d bet he’d heard him complain enough on the floor to know what he was like. After yesterday, he had firsthand experience of the mess that was this turd.

I hoped that, if he hadn’t already, he would eventually chew him out. Or even fire him. I had been more than a little disappointed he hadn’t yesterday.

The lack of response he gave settled that he either saw the point I wasn’t making or understood that maybe he shouldn’t try and change the boss’s mind.

“Can’t you ask for me?”

“No, she can’t, and you’re not coming,” came a voice we both recognized.

A voice that startled both of us, because somehow we’d both missed the door opening. Missed getting eavesdropped on. But only one of us was embarrassed by it, and that person wasn’t me.

“Luna’s going with me,” Rip confirmed, sounding bored.

Fortunately, unlike with his conversations with me, Jason managed to actually shut his mouth and not argue or beg or be a passive-aggressive jerk. His head had snapped over to Rip’s direction the second we’d heard him speak up, but at our boss’s decision, he dropped it.

Sucker.

But had Rip given him a hard time yesterday after giving me one? I wondered.

“You ready?” that deep voice asked.

I nodded, gripping the strap of my purse tight.

He stood there, holding the door open.

I didn’t say anything to Jason as I walked by him, but I did smirk.

Like usual, neither one of us said a word on the way out of CCC. Rip didn’t ask if my sister had called to check in with me—she hadn’t—and he didn’t comment about anything else this past weekend, which all worked for me. The only words out of my mouth on the way over were the instructions on how to get to the business, which wasn’t far, but it was still a nice twenty-minute ride away in Houston traffic. It wasn’t until we were only a couple minutes away that I asked Rip what he had in mind.

Because I wasn’t going to give him the idea that he’d hurt my feelings. Staying quiet would do just that. Fortunately, it worked.

The problem was, he didn’t have anything in mind. He wanted to look and see what could be mixed for him in person. Fine by me. We had never gone to the store together, but there was a first time for everything, from the looks of it. I enjoyed going to pick up paint. It was one thing I didn’t mind leaving the booth for, even though most of the time it got dropped off in our weekly deliveries.

Rip parked his truck in the nearly empty lot and we both got out. I was busy thinking about what colors he might be interested in—trying not to think about the day before too, if I was going to be honest—that I just barely managed to tell him “thank you” when he held the door open for me.

Once we were both inside, I finally asked, “Are you feeling a light or a dark color?”

His eyes seemed to scan the shop, and I had to ask myself if he’d ever actually been here, period. I didn’t think so. He usually just chose colors from samples. It was Mr. Cooper who had come with me in the past if he wanted something custom, but even then, that was rare. Custom paints were a lot more expensive than the thousands of options you could choose directly from a catalogue, but sometimes with certain types of cars they bought, it was worth doing something really custom. The two cars he had bought at the auction were totally worth it, so I didn’t blame him for wanting to do something original.

“I’ll know when I see it,” he answered as he turned down an aisle that held brushes.

I almost crossed my eyes. Then I asked myself why he was in the brush section to begin with. Then I reminded myself that I didn’t need to wonder over it.

“Sup, Luna?” a voice called out from behind the counter at the back of the store.

I couldn’t help but immediately smile as I craned my neck toward the counter along the far back wall of the paint store. “Hi, Hector.”

“I had a feeling today was gonna be my lucky day,” the really good-looking man, who had worked at the shop for as long as I could remember, replied from where he stood. He was already smiling that giant, white smile that had to be one of the nicest I’d ever seen.

I snorted. “You say that to everybody.”

“Only you.” He grinned. “Whatcha need?”

I stopped right in front of the counter and took a peek over my shoulder as I said, “My boss wants to do something custom for two cars he’s going to start working on, so I had to bring him to the best.” Standing on the tips of my toes, I called out, “Rip?”

What might have been a grunt answered me from the direction of where I had last seen him. The storefront was pretty small. I wasn’t positive what he was looking at, or why I couldn’t see him, but all right.

I turned back to my friend and rocked onto my heels. “He’ll be here in a sec.”

Hector leaned forward, planting his elbows on the counter between us, and asked the same question he always did when I came to see him. “What are you doing for lunch?”

Then I told him the same thing I always did. “I already had lunch. What are you doing for lunch?”

He laughed, like this was new, and it was just as nice as his smile. Just as nice as everything about him. “Nothin’ now that you aren’t coming with me.”

“You’re so full of it.” I snorted again and glanced over my shoulder once more. Rip still hadn’t come. I turned back to the other man before asking, with my eyebrows raised, “You got one?”

He raised his eyebrows right back. “I always got one for you,” he said, making it sound way flirtier than it was.

He always had them, period, but this was our game.

I dug through my purse for a dollar, then thought twice about it and grabbed another one before holding both between us. “Can I have two, please?”

“Two?” he asked as he took the bill, then opened a drawer on the other side of the counter and pulled what I wanted out as he traded it for the money. “She’s saving for a bike now.”

“A bike? What happened to the cell phone she wanted?”

Hector snickered as he closed the drawer. “That’s how long it’s been since you dropped by. She already sold enough of those things to buy her cell.”

“No way!”

“You probably paid for a quarter of it,” he said.

The sound of a throat clearing behind me told me Rip had appeared, and when I turned, I was more than a little surprised to find him looking past me. He was staring.

At Hector.

And because I knew his features well enough, I knew that face that might look carefully blank to everyone else was a lie.

He was irritated.

But by what, I had no clue.

And it wasn’t any of my business.

“How’s it goin’?” Hector asked, being as friendly as usual. “What can I help you with?”

When a moment passed and my boss didn’t say anything, I glanced at the other man and said, “Hector, this is my boss.” Like that would explain everything. “Rip, this is Hector.”

Rip though, didn’t respond, and his eyes still didn’t stray from the dead-eyed stare he was shooting the man on the other side of the counter.

Okay.

I needed to get this in gear.

I gestured toward my boss. “Ah, Rip? You want to come over here so you can narrow down some ideas?”

He didn’t move, and he didn’t look away from the other man. All right.

“Here you go, Luna,” Hector said from the other side of the counter, tapping what I knew were mango-flavored chili-covered lollipops against my forearm.

I bought one from him—from his niece to be exact—every time I came in.

Taking them, I smiled and said, “Thank you,” before pulling the plastic off the top off one and shoving the whole thing into my mouth before holding the other one out toward Rip.

His body still hadn’t moved, but those blue-green eyes had. To the lollipop. Then back over to Hector.

“I got it for you,” I told him around the pop as I balled up the wrapper with my other hand and handed it to the one man in the room who had never hurt my feelings.

“Luna said you were wanting a custom color for a couple of cars,” Hector piped up as he threw the trash away.

Rip took the lollipop from me and shoved it into his free pocket.

His eyes slid to me, and somehow I managed to raise my eyebrows at him because I didn’t get what had irritated him. “You okay?”

He tipped his chin, and I noticed the way he let out a deep breath. Noticed the way his shoulders were shoved back as he came toward the counter. Then I definitely couldn’t miss the way he stood next to me, his upper arm touching my shoulder. His boot against the side of my boot.

Maybe he did feel bad about yesterday.

It wasn’t like he ever jerked away from me before, but he’d never come up to standing right beside me either unless there was a reason. That reason being me being upset if the last two times counted. That was something to think about.

“Any ideas what you’re lookin’ for?” Hector asked, his eyes bouncing back and forth between Rip and me in a way I wasn’t sure how to take.

Just as I opened my mouth, Rip beat me to it. “Red. Blood red.”

I’m sure I looked up at him with my mouth open in surprise. Where the hell had that come from? I had literally asked him in the car if he had any ideas.

“Almost black, but not,” Rip kept going.

Hector seemed to think about it for a second before he nodded. “I can work with that. What about the other one?”

That handsome face tipped down to look at me, those intense eyes lingering on my hair for a moment before they finished the trek down to mine, and he asked, “What’s your favorite color?”

My favorite color?

Hector answered for me. “It’s white, isn’t it?”

I nodded, but I was going to blame the lollipop in my mouth for why I did. We’d had plenty of conversations about colors over the years. Of course he knew.

Rip’s gaze swung back around to me, his forehead furrowed. “White?”

I nodded again.

“Why?” he asked like even he couldn’t believe it.

I shrugged and took the lollipop out of my mouth long enough to say, “It’s classy. Everything looks good in white.”

He blinked.

“If you mix the three primaries together, you get white. I think it’s cool.” I smiled at him, for real that time. “And I’ve only painted one white car in years. I’m not sick of it yet.”

“What kind of white can you do then?” my boss asked the other man, but his gaze remained on me.

“Don’t do it because of me. You can do any color you want,” I threw in, not liking the pressure of him putting my favorite color on a car he was going to be selling.

His face was super serious. “I know.”

Okay then.

“Show me a pure, bright white with a blue undertone then,” Rip told the other man after finally turning to face him again.

Hector bobbed his head before pecking at the computer keyboard.

Well.

He really must feel bad.

Good.

It took about ten different tries to get the shade of red Rip had envisioned in his head, which took hours because mixing colors was literally a science that Hector had a doctorate in, and it took half as long to get the shade of white that he liked.

When Rip said I could spray a fine layer of metal flakes onto the car that was going to be the shade of white he’d chosen—white with some hints of light blue—I had “oohed” and “ahhed” because I loved doing metal flakes and didn’t get to do them all that often; cleaning up the booth and the gun afterward was time consuming and a giant pain in the butt but totally worth it.

I had barely closed the truck door as Rip loaded the paint into the back of the truck—he’d given me a look that said I was nuts when I’d gone to pick up the first container—so I’d backed off, put my hands up, and let him do it. It wasn’t like I hadn’t carried my own paint to the back of the CCC truck a thousand other times, even though Hector always offered, but if Rip wanted to do it now, so be it.

The door had barely been shut when my phone started ringing from inside my purse. I pulled it out and frowned at the screen. It was the shop’s number. “Hello?” I answered.

Instead of Mr. Cooper’s voice, or even Miguel or anyone else’s, the one I dreaded said, “When are you getting back?”

I tipped my face toward the window to my right and bit the inside of my cheek. “Soon. Why?”

“Something doesn’t look right.”

I thought about the work I’d left him with and didn’t understand how it was possible for him to screw up any part of it. He should have been done by then. He should have been helping out on the floor. “How?” I heard the edge in my own voice. I really was fed up with him. I was so fed up, I was almost to the point of being past caring about whether or not he got fired for messing up so often.

“Look… you need to get back so you can fix it,” the man-child claimed.

Just the words I wanted to hear.

I kept making a face. “Tell me what you think you did wrong, and I’ll tell you how to fix it before I get there.”

The driver door opened, and I didn’t miss the teal-colored eyes that swung toward me as Rip got in.

“It’s easier to show you. How much longer are you going to be?” he repeated.

“I don’t know. Probably not that long, but I need you to tell me what happened because a lot of things you think might be messed up, can be fixed,” I said, trying to sound calm, but just thinking about how much him screwing up might eat up my time when I got back left a tight feeling in my gut. It was already almost five, and I wasn’t too crazy about staying late. Not today at least. I was supposed to go to the gym with Lenny.

Jason decided to pretend he hadn’t heard me. “How long? Twenty minutes?”

Kill him with kindness, kill him with kindness, kill him with kindness. The words alone felt like a boulder right in the center of my entire freaking existence. I’d been having to tell myself those exact same words way too often lately, and they weren’t being as effective as usual. “Jason, tell me what you did.”

He ignored me like he always did. “It doesn’t matter. You’re going to have to fix it.”

The truck starting up broke through my thoughts, but I kept my gaze forward on the building we were parked in front of. “I’m not going to fix anything. You need to learn how to fix it. So even if I get there, you’re still going to have to do it, okay?”

There was silence on the other end and then, “This isn’t my job.”

Oh, no.

A big hand landed in front of me, palm up, and I glanced over to see that obviously it was Rip’s.

He opened and closed those long, forever-stained fingers despite the bulk-sized Orange hand cleaner in every bathroom.

Did he…?

Screw it. Fine. I had already come in between these two, I wasn’t about to volunteer to do it again.

I dropped the phone into his hand, and he didn’t waste a second bringing it up to his ear and grumbling, “What did you do?”

I wasn’t sure if I’d answer that question if I were Jason. Honestly, I’d probably hang up.

“You’re calling Luna when you know she’s busy, with me, so I wanna know what you did that’s making you call…. You didn’t do anything? Then why are you calling?.... So you did fuck up?.... That’s what I thought…. Again? What did I tell you yesterday?.... Go upstairs, tell Cooper what you did…. Yes, Mr. Cooper. Yup, the one who hired you. That one. Go tell him right now. Don’t wait until she gets there. She’s not doing shit.” There was a pause and then, “The fuck did you just say?” Rip snapped, and I had to press my lips together, if only to keep my mouth from opening... in almost glee.

He blinked.

I blinked.

Then he pulled the phone away from his face and stared down at the screen.

“Did he hang up on you?”

He was still staring down at the phone when he muttered, sounding pissed, “This motherfucker….”

He’d hung up on him.

And… it made me laugh.

Maybe it was Rip’s facial expression, maybe it was the idea that he was genuinely outraged, but I laughed, and I didn’t stop laughing. The frustration I’d felt toward that motherfucker, in Rip’s words, instantly disappearing. Maybe because it was nice to see that I wasn’t the only one who got treated like crap. I seriously couldn’t believe he’d hung up on him. It made me cackle and forget I was supposed to be professional and stuff. “Watch, he’s going to pretend the phone dropped the call, but he’s on the landline,” I warned him.

Rip kept his gaze down on the black screen before thrusting the cell back in my direction. His tone was freaking grumpy as he asked, “He always this much of a piece of shit? He already knows he’s got one strike against him after yesterday. Now he’s gonna have two after this bullshit. He can’t play the dumb card too much longer.”

So he had gotten in trouble then. That made me feel just a little better about yesterday. But I would have liked it more if he’d gotten the ax. I mean, Rip had gotten rid of people for less, but that was none of my business.

Fortunately, he didn’t wait for my answer, probably knowing that was a yes. “He always act like that with you?”

I closed my eye, still looking forward. “What do you mean exactly?”

I was pretty sure Rip clucked his tongue. He rephrased it, bless his heart. “He always act like a prick like that?”

“Well…” I trailed off, but inside, I thought yep, which was why he had reamed me the day before—because Jason was a prick.

There was a rough, “Hmm.” Ripley’s cheek did that twitch thing, and I almost laughed again at the reminder of how mad he’d just been. “He gives you shit like that again, you tell me. Got it?”

I made a face to myself, telling myself to let the day before go—and only partially succeeding—but still managed to say, “Sure.” If it came out sarcastic, that hadn’t totally been my intention.

Those blue-green eyes swung to my direction, exposing something in them I couldn’t pinpoint. “Luna, just fucking tell me, all right?”

Like I wanted to deal with Jason’s attitude more than I already did. Rip could have him if he wanted him. I felt a little like I was cheating on Mr. Cooper by going through Rip to get rid of him, but I had told Mr. C about how he acted around me, and he’d still thrown him my way. “Sure,” I agreed again, knowing I didn’t sound convincing.

I was choosing happiness. I was going to move on and forgive Rip for the day before. He would have done it to anyone.

I shouldn’t take it personally.

I could see his hands flex on the steering wheel, but it took a minute for the next round of words to come out of his mouth. “Say, think of something else you want.”

My body froze, instantly choosing that to focus on instead of… before. Because, we were back to this? Again? “Rip,” I almost groaned. “No, we’re done. We’re even. We’re fine, whatever you want to call it.” I almost started to say we were good, but that felt like a little bit of an exaggeration. In a few days, we’d be good. Right now, we were just fine.

He didn’t look at me though. “We’re not.”

“But we are.”

“Nah, Luna, we’re not. Choose something else,” he insisted, still focused ahead.

Was he being serious? He’d spent fifteen hours in my company, including the time he slept in a room down the hall from mine. If that didn’t count as a massive favor, a favor that should make us totally even for all intents and purposes, I wasn’t sure what else would.

Unless….

Did he really feel that bad about getting mad at me?

“Rip, it counted. Just because—” My sister kicked me out, I thought but didn’t say. “—we didn’t end up having to stay or do anything, doesn’t mean it doesn’t count. You went with me. That’s more than enough.” I just wanted to… move on.

He had other ideas though.

“Too fucking bad.” Those blue-green eyes slid back to me for a split second, and I could see the tightness at his jaw. “Figure it out and let me know what you want.”

“Nothing. I promise. There’s not a single other thing you need to do.” Because there wasn’t. There really wasn’t.

Those long fingers tapped along the steering wheel, and his jaw did that tightening thing again. “Yeah, there is. The other one doesn’t count. All we did was take a fucking ride and eat a late dinner. Figure it out, Luna. I don’t wanna be sixty when you decide.”

I pressed my lips together.

Don’t do it, Luna. Everything is not fine and dandy. Don’t do it. Don’t—

Let it go. Let it—

I didn’t.

“So I have… two years… before then?” I whispered, grimacing at the joke that I shouldn’t have made so that we could focus on the serious topic of our conversation. So I could hold on to the distance I was supposed to put between us because he was my boss.

What I got was silence.

Freaking silence.

The sigh that came out of him reminded me of what I figured a hot air balloon would sound like if it deflated. “I should’ve fired you the other day.”

I sucked in a breath, and my entire upper body turned to him.

He was smirking.

He thought he was being funny.

He was… joking.

These mocking, laughing eyes I had never seen before slid over to me, and the second they spotted my expression, they changed. My name came out a grumble. “I was playing.”

Sure, he’d been.

His mouth went so tight, it was edged in white. “I was messing with you,” he insisted, seriously.

He was messing with me.

Those long fingers flexed again. “You that mad at me?” he asked.

“I’m not mad at you.”

“Upset with me?”

I didn’t look at him as I said, “No.” I wasn’t. I wasn’t. “I just…” What could I say? “You don’t ever joke around with me. I’m just surprised.” I started to crack my knuckles but stopped. “Okay, maybe I am a little upset with you, but I’m almost over it.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched him glance at me again, and I could barely hear his voice when he spoke again. “I joke around outside of work,” he said softly.

I wasn’t going to overthink it.

Did that come out defensively, or was it my imagination? “That’s good.” I was such a sucker. I really was. He was trying, and I didn’t have it in me to brush him off. “You can joke around with me whenever you want,” I replied just as softly as he had. “I wouldn’t tell anybody. I know it doesn’t mean anything, and I’m really good at keeping secrets. It can be another one of ours.”

I doubted I would ever forget the way he turned his head to look at me, slowly, so slowly, those eyes like hot freaking coals, raking me over. Seeing me. His eyebrows were knit, like he was deep in thought, and he just—

“RIP!” I shouted the second I spotted the car pulling out in front of us all of a sudden.

The brakes he slammed were instant. So instant, so unexpected, so forceful, I barely had time to suck in a breath and throw my arms up over my face. I closed my eyes just as the seat belt jerked across my chest, and I felt something slap me right between my breasts as someone’s brakes screamed in the background. But I knew I hadn’t made a peep.

I couldn’t have.

My entire brain just… shut down.

My upper body went forward…

And the truck made contact.

I wouldn’t be able to describe the sound of metal meeting metal. Of the truck careening into the car that had pulled out of what I would figure out later was a gas station. Even if someone had played me samples of crashes, I wouldn’t have been able to pick out what I had heard. It had just been noise.

But I felt my body jerk. Felt the seat belt dig into my shoulder. Felt what I didn’t know until seconds later was a big palm right in the middle of my collarbones.

Later, I would feel the painful fucking ache across my neck and shoulders.

And just like that, it was over.

The truck had stopped moving, the brakes had stopped squealing, and nothing but panting filled my ears.

My panting.

It was mine.

“Rip?” I sucked in a breath as I opened my eyes and found a totally intact windshield in front of me.

The weight across my collarbones moved, making me look down to see it had been a hand—his hand—there. Holding me back. There. Just there.

Dragging my eyes up his wrist, to his elbow, to his shoulder and then his face, I noticed his cheeks were flushed. That not-thin but not-full mouth was parted. But it was the thin red slice across his upper eyebrow that held my gaze.

“Are you okay?” I panted, not sure if I’d even be able to hear him above the roaring of blood and adrenaline and who the hell knew what flooding my ear canals as my brain registered that the danger was over and I was pretty sure we were okay.

Rip blinked. Those curly black eyelashes just dropped, once and then twice to cover his eyes briefly. His nostrils flared.

“You okay?” I asked again, the hand closest to him—which I’d tucked into my body by reflex—reached out. I set my palms and fingers on his forearm, only briefly feeling the goose bumps under them. “You all right?”

He let out a sharp exhale and then nodded.

I squeezed his arm again, just barely noticing that it was shaking. “They just pulled out of nowhere.” I sucked in a breath, trying to slow down my heartbeat. “I didn’t see them until it was almost too late,” I admitted, hearing that shaking in my voice as my brain refused to slow down and instead said you were in a car wreck in case you didn’t know.

We had been in a car wreck.

Shit.

I sucked in a breath through my mouth and let my head fall back against the headrest, moving my eyes forward again to see that the truck’s front end was smashed up against the driver and rear side doors of a late model BMW. I’d detailed them enough over the years to recognize the body frame.

“Holy shit,” I hissed, everything about me starting to tremble. We had been in a freaking car wreck. My heart was going to beat right out of my damn chest, it felt like. “Holy fuck.”

I swallowed. Tried to take a deep breath. Then I swallowed again.

I was fine.

Rip was fine.

That was all that mattered.

Glancing down at the seat belt across my chest and waist… it hadn’t clicked until right then that Rip had done some restomodding, which meant he’d modified his truck. Which meant he’d added safer seat belts since his truck had been made before the age of airbags. And based on the screeching, he’d updated the brake system too. If he hadn’t….

That wasn’t a nice thing to think about.

Movement inside the sedan told me that the driver of the other car was fine too. The door seemed to be jammed from the way the person inside was moving, but by the time I managed to think clearly enough to decide to get out of the car, that driver had managed to get the door opened and thrown a leg out.

The sound of a seat belt clicking had me glancing to my side to see Rip’s hand lingering over that part at my hip. He looked a little pale, and his hand wasn’t what I would call steady as it hovered there. I wasn’t sure what the hell I was thinking as I slid mine over and set it on top of his, everything going up to my elbow not much less shaky than his.

He was watching me, and all I could muster up was a smile that was probably just as wonky and off as the rest of me was.

“Son of a bitch!” a voice outside the truck yelled, and I didn’t need to look out to know that it had to be the driver of the BMW, who I had seen out of my peripheral vision circling his car.

My heart hammered away inside of me. I was shaking a little. My shoulder was starting to ache, but I was okay, and so was the man next to me. That was all that mattered.

“Motherfucker!” the driver outside yelled. I didn’t notice that Rip hadn’t answered me.

But somehow, I managed to focus enough to say, “I’ll—I’ll call the cops, but let’s get out of the truck first.”

Still, he said nothing.

Pulling the seat belt off from around me and letting it fall to the side between the seat and the door, I tried my best to get my arms under control enough so that they would stop trembling. I had goose bumps everywhere too, but I ignored those as well.

That had been close. Too freaking close.

“Luna, get out of the truck,” Rip finally managed to say, his voice soft and… off.

I nodded.

I was fine. My adrenaline was just crashing. I was pumped up, and now I was falling. We were safe. Everything was okay.

Not looking over at the man to my left, I got myself together enough to push open the door to the truck and climb out, only barely managing to remember my purse from where I’d left it right next to my feet. Luckily, I had zipped it, so nothing had fallen out and gotten strewn all over the floor. It only took a moment to fish my phone out and hit 911.

It took all of me to pay attention and answer the dispatcher’s questions, watching as Rip stood at the front of his mangled truck, talking quietly to the owner of the BMW, a man in a heather gray suit who looked around the same age as Rip. The guy in the suit looked pissed, and Rip, he just stood there, a couple inches taller and a lot broader, with his arms crossed over his head, palms cupping the back of his skull. A few cars had pulled over, the drivers getting out to make sure everyone was fine, but a couple lingered, those people saying something back to the man in the suit.

In the background, I could hear the wail of a police siren, but I kept talking to the dispatcher who wanted me to wait until the police got there to hang up. My shoulder didn’t ache worse than it had a few minutes before, but it felt stiff.

Deep breaths. Calm down. Everything was okay.

The driver of the BMW started talking louder, and I heard him say something like “stupid-ass!”

Rip didn’t even bother replying. He took a step to the side and walked away. Even with the sun blasting all over the road, I could see his eyes moving around the wreck, not lingering, but continuing to slide from one direction to the other until he spotted me off to the side, one hand holding the phone to my face but both my arms tucked in close to my sides and chest.

Those long legs ate up the concrete as he headed in my direction, as the other driver kept raising his voice to argue with the three other people who had more than likely seen what happened and were telling him that he was in the wrong.

Because he had been.

I didn’t feel like putting in my own two cents and telling him that I’d seen the entire thing happen and that he was the one who was at fault.

All I could do was stand there, watching as my boss stalked toward me with flashing blue and red and white lights somewhere in the distance, beyond the busy street we were on. When he was maybe ten feet away, I finally gave him a weak smile as I held the phone to my face. When he was five feet away, I noticed the frown that had taken over his features.

It was right then that I noticed the muscles in his arms jumping, the twitching at his wrists, the veins popping at his temple and throat.

Rip was shaking.

Not kind of trembling like I was—and had been—but full on shaking. He was pale. Even his lips had lost their color.

I said something to the person over the phone that I hoped at least included a “thank you,” but I would never know for sure, because the next thing I was aware of was ending the call and shoving my phone into my purse, which was sitting against my hip.

That entire six-foot-four, two-hundred and something pound body was literally shaking.

He looked like he hadn’t just seen a ghost, but a hundred of them.

I didn’t intentionally set out to grab his hand or pull him toward me, but I did. Once, I had shaken the same way he was doing right then, and all I had wanted afterward was someone to hold me.

And for me, there had been no one to do that.

But I could be that person for someone else now.

I led him to the curb I was standing on and watched as he sank onto it, those long legs bent at the knee, his hands loose at his sides, his nostrils flaring with deep, deep breaths that could have passed for pants on anyone else. He scared me. Right then, watching his normally tan face go so freaking white, watching the biggest and most no-nonsense man I had ever known shake, scared the hell out of me.

“You’re okay,” I told him, ignoring everything else around us.

His eyes were straight forward, on me but not on me, and I just barely noticed it.

I squeezed his hand and got nothing but another bone-rattling shake.

“Rip, you’re okay. That guy’s an idiot,” I said softly.

He still just stared straight ahead, right at the top hem of my leggings since it was what was directly in front of him.

Dropping into a crouch, my worry kicked up threefold, and I took his other hand, giving both of the much bigger palms and fingers a squeeze. He still didn’t react.

I let go of one of his hands and raised mine to his face, only letting my fingertips graze his stubbly chin. “Hey, you’re good. Nothing happened.”

Nothing.

Even knowing I had no right and no business to touch him, and that he probably wouldn’t like it, I palmed his cheek, tiny whiskers grazing my skin. He was clammy and too cool. “Rip?”

Nothing.

I let go of his other hand and cupped his face between both of mine, trying to catch his eyes, but they were still straight ahead, unfocused and zoned out.

What was I supposed to do?

I could still hear the sirens coming from a distance, but I knew that other than the cut on his face, he was probably physically fine. The worst he’d have were some bruises and possibly his shoulder hurting just like mine was.

I tried again. “Rip?”

Nothing.

“Hey, you’re okay,” I told him, still holding his cheeks. “I’m okay. Take a deep breath.”

He didn’t. He didn’t do anything.

I tried to think about what I would want if I was in his shoes, and I hesitated. But it only took one glance at his zoned-out face to know I was going to do it even if he pushed me off and cussed me out later.

At least I’d be ready for it.

So before I could talk myself out of it, I swept my hands from his cheeks toward the back of his head, then moving one hand to do the same gesture over the top of it too. When he didn’t flinch, I dropped to my knees, ignoring the shooting pain that the concrete sent through them, and I wrapped my arms around his neck, and I hugged him.

I pressed the side of my cheek against his, and I hugged him even tighter, not letting go.

But it still wasn’t enough. He still shook, these shivers that flowed from the center of his body down toward his fingertips.

“You’re okay. Everything is fine,” I repeated, still hugging him. I swept my hands from the nape of his neck, across his trapezius muscles, over his shoulders and down his arms, applying light pressure. Then I did it again and again, before moving them right above his chest, starting there before going up to continue the route up to the base of his neck, across and down his arms.

The shaking only got a little better.

Screw it.

My knees creaked as I got back up to my feet and then did something I had never done before. Nothing I had ever even dreamed of doing with Rip, ever. But desperate times called for desperate measures.

I took a step closer to him and settled myself, my butt, my entire body, high up onto his right thigh, pulling his opposite leg in so that I forcefully made him sandwich me in between him, and I wrapped my arms and hands and as much of my body around him as I could. My palm went straight to the top of his neck and dragged my hand down his spine, making circles at the base while my other one held the back of his head.

“Rip,” I whispered right beside his ear since I had set my cheek a millimeter away from his. “Everything is fine.”

My hand circled his back again, and I hugged him tighter to me, his own shakes moving me too.

“It’s me, Luna,” I told him. “You’re okay. Everything is okay.”

I grazed my fingertips through the short, soft hair at the back of his head like he’d done for me outside of my sister’s apartment.

“Talk to me, Rip,” I asked him. “You’re safe. You’re okay. Nothing happened. I need you to take a deep breath.”

Nothing. He still gave me nothing.

I ran my fingers through his hair again, hearing the near-desperation in my voice. “You’re scaring me. Talk to me, please. I don’t like you shaking like this.”

I rubbed his back. I promised him he was fine. I told him I’d take care of him.

Over and over again until the big man in my arms settled… a little more, but it was more than nothing. At least we were getting somewhere.

“We can go get ice cream after this if you want.” I kept talking to him, not sure if that’s what was helping. “That sundae this weekend was pretty good, but I know this really good place close to the shop with the best ice cream. They make it in small batches every day. If we can’t go today, I’ll bring you some on my lunch break soon.”

I slid my hand back up to rub the back of his cool but damp neck. The thigh under me flexed and tensed, and I put a little more force into rubbing the hard muscles on his nape. “You know, I always imagined that if my mom had been around, she would have hugged me and rubbed my back when I needed her. I tried looking up information on her a few times, my mom, I mean, but there are so many people with the name Teresa Ramirez, it was like searching for a needle in a haystack. That’s why I’m on top of you right now in case you’re wondering. I bet she would have made me flan too.

“One time, I bought those little packages of flan when I lived with my dad, and he found them and lost it. I figured my mom probably liked it and it set him off, but I don’t know. Everything used to make him mad. Maybe he just hated flan, but I think it was more than that. I don’t know,” I kept rambling, not even sure what the hell I was saying in the first place, but sensing it was doing something.

“If you haven’t had flan before, I’ll bring you some from this bakery I go to sometimes. I’d say I would make it for you, but you really don’t want me to even bother trying. It would probably end up burning the pot and my entire kitchen down.” I dragged my hand up his spine and rubbed his neck, alternately. “Oh! Wait a sec.”

I dug inside my T-shirt and undid the clasp of the necklace I had on. I’d seen it that morning and had a feeling about it. How about that? Even with my fingers still a little shaky, it only took a second to slip the chain around Rip’s neck and redo the clasp to keep it on him. I pulled back just enough to see the ice cream charm on it fall right on top of the notch of his throat. It looked ridiculous there, but I patted it down in place anyway. “Look. See? It has a little ice cream cone on it. To make you feel better.”

His whole body tightened for a moment before a loud burst of a noise exploded from his chest. And in the time it took me to process the sound, it was gone, and his muscles had relaxed even more. I’d swear his breathing slowed too.

“There we go,” I told him, putting pressure on his back and neck again. “You’re good. You’re all right.”

For some reason, that only made me want to hug him tighter. He was so big, it was hard to try and wrap him up; my arms could barely reach. I palmed the back of his head and lightly scratched at his scalp the way Lily used to like when she was little. She had done it to me too every once in a while when she’d been falling asleep, and I had loved it too.

From the way his body loosened, muscle by muscle, I figured he did too.

So I kept scratching.

Slowly but surely, that big body relaxed against mine, not totally, but it was something.

“You okay?” I asked when the only movement I felt come out of him were deep, deep breaths.

Part of me expected him to snap at me, to shove me off his lap, to tell me to fuck off.

But none of that happened.

One of the arms he’d had at his sides came up and his hand settled at my hip, giving it a light squeeze. His forehead dropped to that spot where my shoulder met my neck, and I could feel his soft puffs of breathing on my collarbones and chest. His hand squeezed my hip again. And my heart… it didn’t know what to do.

“Tell me what you need,” I asked him.

He shook his head against me.

It was the sound of footsteps coming that had me glancing over my shoulder to see a police officer walking around the cars, heading straight for us.

Rip must have too because he tensed. Everywhere. From the thigh under me to the bulk up against my chest, Rip became granite. I took a sniff that told me he smelled lightly of a clean-scented soap and the crispness of a sporty deodorant.

“Nothing hurts?” I whispered the question.

Rip shook his head again.

“I’m sorry about your truck.”

“It’s just a truck,” he replied quietly, surprising me. The weight at my hip moved up until his fingers spanned around my lower ribcage, his fingers molding themselves around my bones.

“The cop is coming,” I warned him, letting my hand drag down his spine once more. I gave him one last hug before loosening my hold, beating him to it. I pulled back, his hand still on my ribs, and met his now bright blue-green eyes. I smiled at him, this knot in my chest forming when I thought about how pale he’d been. “You saved our freaking faces installing those seat belts, boss.”

The body under mine grew hard, but not in the same way it had a moment before. The hand on my rib didn’t move, and the arm connected to it didn’t loosen up either. Rip sat there, letting me stay on his thigh like we had done this a hundred times in the past—me sitting on his lap.

“I’m glad you’re okay and you’re not mad about your truck. I’ll help you fix it if we can.”

The hand on my ribs decided to give me my own squeeze.

He got the next words out of his mouth before the cop interrupted, quietly, gently, and more earnestly than I ever would have imagined. “I’m glad you’re good too, baby girl.”