While I didn’t love Friday morning meetings, I didn’t hate them on the same level that I did cooked carrots.

But that Friday might have been the exception.

The day before had just been… not the best day of my life, but not the worst either. Even after getting dropped off at home, it hadn’t gotten much better. I’d cried for what I guessed was close to an hour before wiping my face off and reminding myself of how many wonderful things I had.

By the time Lily burst into the house screaming, “LUNA!” at the top of her lungs like she was expecting me not to have made it back home, my eyes had still been red and puffy.

She had run to my room and busted inside. My little sister had taken one look at me sitting on the edge of my bed and crawled onto it behind me, wrapping her arms around me.

“Did it go that bad?” she had asked.

“It was a C minus. It could have gone better, but it could have gone worse,” I admitted to her, sneaking my hands up to rest over the forearms covering my neck.

Lily had just hugged me tighter. “You want to tell me what happened?”

“They were there,” I told her vaguely. “Your mom is still on drugs. Dad looks like hell. Rudy grabbed my wrist, but I got him into an armbar, and Rip pretty much threatened to kick his ass, and then he left me alone.”

My beloved little sister kissed my head at least five times before saying, “You should’ve broken his arm.”

“I know.”

“Kicked him in the nuts.”

“Twice at least.”

“Spit in his eyes.”

“Vinegar would hurt more,” I tried to make her laugh, and I did it. It wasn’t a great, big laugh, but it was something.

“I’m glad Rip went with you,” she kept going, her voice lighter than it had been a minute before.

“Me too,” I told her forearm, resting my chin on it.

She hugged me even closer. “Tell me what your boss likes, and I’ll make it for him. He deserves it for threatening stupid Rudy.”

She didn’t know what I had done and had no idea that we had basically performed a business exchange. I wasn’t about to correct her. She had enough to worry about, so I had just nodded.

Her hand rubbed my back as she said, “Come on. Let’s go to Red Lobster and take advantage of my employee discount before it runs out. My treat.”

That was how we ended up going to Red Lobster for an early dinner and then going to the movies afterward. To keep my mind off things, Lily had claimed, and it had done the trick, at least until I tried going to sleep. Then it had all come back to me. The way my dad had ignored me, like I was dead to him. What my cousin had done. The hundred and one memories I didn’t let myself think about from years ago.

Nothing helped me wind down, and nothing had kept me asleep when I had managed to doze off. I tossed and turned the entire night, thinking about all the things I should have done differently and all the things I wouldn’t have done any differently.

I was healthy. I had somewhere to live. I had people who cared about me.

And I had found a brand-new lipstick in my underwear drawer that I’d forgotten all about.

Lily and I had had some good bonding time.

I managed to leave for work before my sister left her room. I had forgotten all about what day of the week it was and what it meant.

There were our weekly meetings, and then there were our monthly meetings. Our monthly meetings were that one time every four weeks where the employees got to vent, not just Mr. Cooper or Ripley. It was everyone else’s turn.

I hated them.

Maybe it was mostly because of the day before, or maybe it was because I would have rather been in the booth working instead of sitting in a chair in the break room, listening to the guys complain about each other.

Because that’s what the meetings were for: bitching. Lots and lots of bitching. I hated it.

The meetings were a necessary evil though. Over the years, I had seen things get so heated between the guys that fights would break out. I’d worked around this many men for so long that I got that they couldn’t just get over things eventually. The problem was, if anyone got into an altercation, they would get fired.

It had happened before, and I was sure it was going to happen again, monthly meetings or not.

So, for an hour, maybe an hour and a half depending how stressed out and pissed off the guys were, I mainly just sat there and stared off into space so I wouldn’t get called out for having my eyes closed. I’d spent most of my childhood zoning out people arguing; this was nothing.

Nothing but boring.

And annoying.

And honestly a little painful.

With the exception of Jason, I really liked everyone I worked with. I couldn’t get why they didn’t let the petty crap go.

“…and it’s bullshit that I’m stuck doing all the sanding while everybody else pretends they’re busy doin’ somethin’ so that they can jump in and do the filler. My fu—damn arm gets tired too,” Jason muttered from his spot on the opposite side of the table, elbows on his knees, his face looking as irritated as his voice sounded.

Even I rolled my eyes.

It was Miguel who tossed his hands up in the air. “You’re full—”

Mr. Cooper sighed and shifted in the seat beside me. I hadn’t gotten around to telling him how the day before had gone, but he’d given me a hug when I sat down beside him, so I figured he had an idea from my body language that it hadn’t been great.

There was a groan before Miguel continued talking. “You don’t always do all the sanding. Quit exaggerating.”

I kept from making a face and let my eyelids hang low.

“Seems like it. Everybody needs to pull their weight around and do equal work. I wanna do the body filler too. I do bodywork. I don’t just sand.”

“And I don’t just…” my coworker went on while I zoned him out to focus on the man who had held my hands and put his jacket around my shoulders not twenty-four hours before.

My eyes zeroed in on the sliver of tattoos along Rip’s neck. I had brought him his coffee just like normal that morning, and he’d told me thank you just like normal too. There hadn’t been anything that indicated things were different.

That had made me feel a lot better about the day before than I would have expected.

The guys babbled on for a while longer, but I took the time to go through my mental list of what I needed to pick up at the store today for Lily’s graduation before I went home. She didn’t want balloons because she didn’t want us to waste helium on her. I had already called to make a reservation at a restaurant for a late lunch after the ceremony, but I knew that there would be at least a few people who went back to the house with us. So I needed to grab some snacks to feed them. Drinks. Ice. Chips—

“…spend this week in the booth.”

The booth? The words snatched me right out of my head. I glanced over at Mr. Cooper, who had started talking at some point, and focused on my favorite older man.

“You good with that, Luna?” His eyes focused on me like he hadn’t noticed that I wasn’t paying attention.

Shit.

“What was that?”

His expression said he was fine with repeating himself. “Jason will be helping you out in the booth for the next few weeks, starting today.”

Oh, no.

No, no, no, no.

“I’m not that far behind on things.” I smiled, pressing my hand against my stomach subconsciously. “If I need help, I know I can ask.” I made sure to keep my eyes on my boss and keep a smile on my face.

“We talked about Jason learning the booth, remember?”

Everyone in the room turned to look at Jason. Jason, the guy who purposely didn’t finish projects so I would get stuck doing so. Jason, the one who got way too much enjoyment when I got in trouble. Jason, the jerk who had cheated on my little sister.

Jason, the guy who knew I knew he sucked and hadn’t liked me since.

Great.

All I managed to get myself to do was nod and let my smile turn tight.

I didn’t want to even look at him. I didn’t like him, he definitely didn’t like me, and the only way we worked together was by giving each other a ton of room and space.

Double great.

“I know you can catch up, but you don’t need to stay late if you can get some help and knock things out faster,” Mr. Cooper continued, giving me a warm smile like he genuinely thought he was doing me a favor.

I didn’t need to glance at Jason to know why I would rather stay until midnight than have him help.

What was up with me and these jerks in my life? It was like God wanted me to meet the best and worst in extremes. There was no in-between with anyone I met.

“You good with that, Jason?” Mr. Cooper asked him.

From behind me, the guy I honestly couldn’t stand said, “Yup.”

Yup.

Of course this would happen.

I had survived my grandmother’s funeral yesterday. My sister was graduating tomorrow. I guess I could make it through this too.

“Great,” I found myself mumbling.

Today was going to be a good day. Somehow.

I could count on one hand the number of people in my life that I genuinely hated.

Most of the people I could technically call my family.

Honestly, that was pretty much it.

Hating someone for me meant that if they needed a transplant and I was the only person in the world capable of giving them what they needed, I still wouldn’t.

But I would more than likely give a complete stranger a kidney if they were nice and asked.

To me, there was a difference between disliking a person and hating them. There were plenty of people who I disliked for one reason or another—they were selfish, mean, rude, stuck-up, and any combination of all of those things. But if they absolutely needed something that I had, chances were, I would give it to them. Maybe I wouldn’t smile as I did it, but I would do what needed to be done. If it was the right thing to do.

I’d met a lot of assholes in my life—I was related to most of them—but Jason… Jason was in a league of his own.

That was saying a lot.

I was pinching the tip of my nose so I wouldn’t be tempted to pinch him instead that afternoon.

“Why did you do this?” I asked him slowly, trying my best to sound like Ripley, all nice and calm even though I didn’t feel either emotion… On the inside, I’d kicked him in the balls at least four times in the last five minutes.

Maybe even twenty times.

The smirking-shrugging-useless papercut lifted his shoulders like he didn’t know why he had clearly ignored the instructions I had left him to do while I’d been at lunch. They couldn’t have been any more precise.

Two coats of primer. Two coats of primer. Two. Not one. Two.

And what had he done?

One coat.

And in the time it had taken me to go to the bathroom, talk to Mr. Cooper about what had happened at the funeral, and for him to tell me that he was pretty sure he’d found a replacement for the mechanic leaving, Jason had gone ahead and started adding color without giving the primer enough time to dry. I wasn’t even sure where he had gotten the paint from.

It wasn’t even a rookie mistake. It was an idiot mistake.

I had told him at least five times we had to let the primer dry for at least twenty-four hours after the final coat. Not ten minutes. Especially not when one coat hadn’t been enough in the first place.

I could feel my left eyelid begin to twitch already. I took another deep breath through my nose and then let it out of my mouth. He’d done it on purpose. I knew he’d done it wrong on purpose. I’d bet my life on it.

“It looks all right,” he tried to say, turning his back to me to do who the hell knows what.

My eyes took in the wheels and unease slithered right around the collar of my shirt. “Jason, it needed two.”

“But it doesn’t look bad.”

I blew air into my cheeks and let them stay puffed out for a second while I tried to think about what I could—and should—say. “That’s not the point,” I said as patiently as I could, before dropping to a crouch to look at the wheels sitting on top of a thick blanket. I didn’t need a flashlight to see there was a line of uneven color all along the side of it. I could see hints of gray beneath the red, easily. I wanted to tell him he’d screwed that part up too, but… he had messed up enough by just missing the coat of primer in the first place. I had a feeling he hadn’t even agitated the can of paint in the first place.

“I won’t tell if you won’t,” my new—and hopefully very temporary—assistant tried to snicker.

I stood up and sighed. It was done. There was nothing I could do about it now. There was no point in being upset. I wasn’t going to remember this ten years from now, but…. “Everything has to come off, and now we’re going to have to do it all over again from the beginning,” I told him, crushing his dreams.

I didn’t need to look at him to know he had to be giving me a “are you fucking kidding me” face. But what did he expect?

I should have said something to Mr. Cooper the instant he mentioned this happening.

But I hadn’t, and that was my fault.

“And it needs to dry properly,” I explained, walking around the other side of the wheels and leaning back to take in another line of uneven color across the entire thing. He was rushing. That’s why it was so bad. Why he’d decided to rush, why he’d decided to even do this in the first place, was beyond me.

We all had to start somewhere. We all screwed up. I could keep it together. I could give him another chance.

It was just going to be hard when every time I looked at him, I thought about all the times in the past that I was pretty sure he’d tried screwing me over.

“Once it dries, I’ll help you do some of the sanding if I have time, and you can try doing the primer again,” I told him.

He gawked. “Help me do some of the sanding?”

“Yes.” I glanced at him to find him making a face at me… and not doing anything with that face even afterward. “I’ll help you. I can’t fall behind now because of this. If I get a chance, I’ll help you, and I probably can.”

My coworker blinked, and the man who had to be twenty—too old to be such a crybaby—practically squawked. “But that’ll take hours!”

Duh. I gave him the same shrug he’d given me. It was his fault he either hadn’t read the instructions or had decided to ignore them. What was that saying? Measure twice, cut once?

“Mr. Cooper said I’m supposed to help you in the booth,” Jason started, his voice already outraged and surprised.

Here we go.

I nodded. “This is part of it.”

“But what about the body guys? Why can’t they do it?” he tried to ask.

“Because they already have their own work to do.” Which he knew. “They already worked on this. You can ask them if they’ll help if they get a chance, but usually they’re busier than I am, and I’m not going to ask for you. If I was the one who messed up, I wouldn’t want anyone to know. I would do it all myself, but it’s up to you what you want to do.”

Maybe mentioning that I would be embarrassed if I were him wasn’t the nicest thing in the world to bring up, but…

This guy had gotten another girl pregnant while dating my eighteen-year-old sister. In the time he’d worked here, I had never heard anything about him having a son or daughter. But that was none of my business.

I couldn’t find it in me to scrape up any sympathy for him. The other girl, sure. But Jason? Not even a little bit.

“But…,” he started to choke.

I really wasn’t anywhere near being in the mood to deal with him. “Look, Jason, go tell Mr. Cooper or Rip about it if you don’t want to do it. I have too many things to do, to do it for you. I already screwed up this month and had to own up to it. I left instructions and they weren’t followed. I’m not doing it for you. Period.” Sorry not sorry, buddy.

Jason, who was about three inches taller than me at five ten and in decent shape, gulped. I saw the fury in his eyes, and I didn’t like it. I never had. That was why I gave him about as much of a berth as possible.

But… Mr. Cooper, who never asked for anything, wanted me to work with him. I could do it for him. I would.

“I’m not trying to be a jerk. I can’t be okay with you skipping two important steps. I would be furious if I paid thousands of dollars for a paint job that wasn’t done correctly. Mr. Cooper wouldn’t be okay with it either. We have a reputation, and I’m not going to let that come back on me. I’m sorry, but you have to do it again.”

He was still giving me an angry expression and those beady, mean eyes.

Mr. Cooper, Mr. Cooper, Mr. Cooper. I could do this for Mr. Cooper.

“I’ve messed up before too. It happens,” I added, trying to make him feel better. “It’s fine. It can be fixed. It isn’t a big deal.” We didn’t have to tell Rip, so he should be grateful for that.

He wasn’t. “It’s a lot of fuckin’ work for a little bitty—”

All right, maybe Mr. C was going to end up owing me if I survived this.

“It isn’t a little bitty mistake. It’s a big one. I don’t want to argue about it anymore,” I told him, trying to keep my voice calm and my expression light and not like I’d just kicked him in the balls twenty-one times in my head. “Let’s roll it out of here and into the room so you can get started on it, and I can keep going. I need to finish that hood sooner than later, and I still have to tape the lines.”

He didn’t move, and he didn’t respond. All he did was keep giving me that ugly look I had seen too many times by people a lot better at doing it.

Oh freaking well. I pointed toward the wheels. “Let’s do it now.”

His jaw clenched, but he nodded after a moment, and it was only because of that, that I turned my back to head toward the big double doors that took up nearly an entire wall of the booth. They had to be big enough for entire cars to go inside easily.

And it was the second that I turned my back that I heard a mumbled, “Fuckin’ bitch.”

Maybe if he had been a teenager, I could have let it go.

If he wasn’t always a douchebag to me, I could have let it go.

If I hadn’t known he was a liar and a cheat, I could have let it go.

But that wasn’t the case.

I turned around slowly, deciding whether or not I was going to tell Mr. Cooper afterward, when the door connecting my room to the rest of the facility opened. Appearing there was the handsome face that had been pretty freaking nice to me less than twenty-four hours ago.

…and one more person who had a small idea of the mess I had come from. But he would never say anything to anyone. He wouldn’t tell the rest of the guys at the shop who my dad was or that he’d been in jail.

But no one knew that had happened because of me.

Rip held the heavy door open with a shoulder, his coveralls buttoned all the way to the top. His face didn’t reflect that he thought any differently of me. “Luna, you mind staying tonight and helping me with that GTO we found at the auction?” he asked in the same way he’d asked two hundred other times in the past.

I should have said no. After dealing with Jason, I just wanted to go home. I wanted to purge myself of how frustrated he’d already made me. Plus, I really did have things I needed to buy for tomorrow.

But… I still nodded.

That’s what twenty-four-hour stores were for.

“I only need you for a couple hours. I wanna get it flipped as soon as possible,” he went on, his gaze slid to Jason and rested there for a moment.

I wondered if he could sense the lazy-pain-in-the-butt vibe coming off him too, but Jason had worked on the floor long enough that I bet he did just enough for it to not be noticeable. Otherwise… well, otherwise, I figured Rip would have fired him.

“Sure,” I replied.

“’Kay,” he answered. His gaze stayed on the other man, but I could tell that notch between his eyebrows had formed. Maybe he really could sense it too. “Everything good?”

No, but I said, “Yeah.”

Rip swung that gaze back to me.

I gave him a smile that, if he knew me even a little well, he would have seen right through.

“Let me know if anything’s up,” Rip said in a voice that was too calm.

Let him know if anything was up? Could he tell I was seconds away from putting this person on my permanent shit list? I had just literally been thinking about ratting Jason out to Mr. Cooper, but even for me, telling on him to Rip seemed a little harsh.

I wasn’t in that bad of a mood.

I waited until Rip was out of the room before turning my attention back to the imbecile I was going to be stuck with for the near future.

I loved my job. I loved the people here. I was super lucky.

But I still couldn’t stand this human hemorrhoid. “Well, let’s get the wheels out there so you can get started.”

“Rip?” I called out later that day as I looked at a small part of a panel of the GTO. There was lead on it, but I wasn’t sure if he wanted me to burn it out—which I didn’t want to do—or if he’d do it.

I got no response.

“Rip?”

Nothing.

Where was he?

I’d swear I had just seen him not even ten minutes ago; his cell phone had beeped, but I hadn’t seen him walk off. I didn’t need to look at the digital clock on the wall to know it was almost eight o’clock. I wanted to get home. Everything hurt today. I was tired. Exhausted, honestly.

But first, I really needed to ask Rip about the car, and the other builder, who had been here until an hour ago, had left. He wanted to eat dinner with his family, and I didn’t blame him. I told him to go.

“Rip?” I called out again, this time even louder.

I listened, but there was nothing. Not a ting. Not a voice. Nothing.

Where the hell was he?

Standing up, with a hand going to the base of my spine because it ached from standing all day, I called out even louder and more annoying, “Rippppp?”

My voice echoed in the big, main room, making me smile.

“Rip?” I called out again, but still nothing.

It didn’t take me more than a few minutes to climb up the stairs and check his office and the break room. Then it only took me a couple more minutes to go to my room, but he wasn’t there either. Opening the door and calling out for him in the bathroom still didn’t get me a response.

He wouldn’t have left me here without saying a word.

At least he never had before. He didn’t give me a hug and a kiss goodbye at the end of the day when we were working together, but he never left first. I doubted he’d start now.

Trying to guess where else he would be, I figured maybe he was outside. My lower back tightened up as I headed to the back door and slowly pushed it open, trying to listen for him. The fence and gate around the building kept out people who shouldn’t be hanging around, but if someone really wanted to get over, they could jump the fence. The shop had automatic floodlights and security cameras all around the building that were triggered with any movement after six in the evening.

I’d barely opened the door a crack when I heard his low, low voice. “....that’s not what I’m talking about.”

I hesitated for a second, not sure if I should wait until he got off the phone, but… it was work.

Shutting the door behind me, more quietly than I needed to if I was going to be honest, I followed where his voice was coming from. The lot was mostly empty except for a handful of customers’ cars waiting to be picked up, three clunkers that were on the list for restorations, my car, and his truck.

“Shorty said they brought you up. All I’m tellin’ you is what he said to me, a’ight?” an unfamiliar voice spoke up, making me pause.

He wasn’t alone.

Should I…?

“Why? I paid my way out. I’m out. I’ve been out. There isn’t a reason for any of them to bring me up,” Rip replied, confirming that I hadn’t been imagining his voice to start off.

“Man, I don’t fuckin’ know. I don’t want shit to do with it either. I got a life now. A real life. I got a kid on the way; I don’t want a piece of it,” the unfamiliar man spoke up. “I knew that shit was gonna blow up in their faces. They’re getting desperate, I bet. It ain’t like they got all that many allies.”

“’Course we knew that was gonna happen. They would’ve too if they’d been paying attention. But it doesn’t matter because there’s no way for them to know where the hell I am. None of ’em knew my name. They know yours?”

“Nah. Why would they? S’not like we filled out IRS forms. Shorty’s the only one who kinda knows I’m still around, and that’s only ’cuz he’s the only one who’s got any business with me. I haven’t seen him since we got out. Only reason he called today was to tell me what he heard. Warn us in case somebody tries to hit us up about coming back, I guess.”

There was a tense silence that seemed to last longer than the two seconds it actually did. “I’m not going back.”

“I’m not goin’ back either. I’m done,” the stranger spoke calmly.

Rip sighed loudly enough for me to hear. Then he said, “I’m too old for that shit. Liam’s too old for that shit. I got a good thing going here I’m not about to fuck up, messing around with those fools again.”

“Looks like it,” the stranger answered with a quiet chuckle. “No wonder you were so fuckin’ good at fixin’ shit, man.”

The “uh-huh” made me take a step back. “Fuck, man. I don’t need any kind of shit coming back here.”

“It shouldn’t,” the man tried to assure him. “I don’t know why they mentioned you after this long, but Shorty’ll let me know if anything else comes up.”

“I fucking hope so. Say,“ Rip continued talking, “I was in San Antonio yesterday, but nobody saw me. Even if they did, it doesn’t mean shit.”

There was silence, then, “What the fuck were you doin’ back there?”

Another pause. “Nothing. I was there for a couple hours. Don’t worry about it.”

“You’re sure nobody saw you?”

“I’m sure.”

But I could hear the hitch in Ripley’s voice. It sounded different than usual, just a little, just enough for me to know that there was something big-time off about what he’d said.

Was he lying? Who could have seen him in San Antonio that he didn’t want to see? Or be seen by?

I never wanted to see my family. I wasn’t one to talk, but….

I took two steps back. Then I took a few more that got me to the door. I was quiet opening it, and I was even quieter closing it behind me once I was back inside the building.

Rip had paid himself out of what? What the hell was there to pay yourself out of? And why were they both worried about being found and getting pulled back into something? What was there to get pulled back into? And why didn’t people know his real name? Who didn’t have a real name in the first place? In what situation would it be possible to not have a real name? And he hadn’t wanted himself to be seen in San Antonio?

What the hell had Rip been doing before he’d come here?

I couldn’t even remember walking back to the main room of the building. I couldn’t remember crouching down to sit beside the car we had been working on either. All I knew was that the next time I paid attention, I was there, trying to figure out what Rip was trying to keep from coming back to him.

Had he been in jail? Been running from the law? Had he done something… bad?

I had lied for him before, but my gut had said back then, like it did in that moment, that there was nothing for me to worry about. Nothing that could be bad.

Not that bad, at least.

He didn’t have the most patient temper, but he’d never been remotely violent. His expectations were so high that I couldn’t see him being a cheat. He was rough, but he was mostly fair.

“Luna?” the deep voice I could have recognized anywhere called out from close by.

“I’m here!” I yelled back, getting up to my feet just as I slapped what I hoped was a smile on my mouth.

He was already standing four feet away, a confused expression still on his features when I popped my head up. Then that expression went away and the closest to an easygoing expression I thought he was capable of took over that hard face. “Everything all right?” he asked, coming toward me.

I was still smiling at him as I said, “Yeah. I just got a back cramp.”

He didn’t look like he totally believed me.

Then I decided I needed to change the freaking subject. “There’s some lead that needs to get taken care of, but I was hoping you might handle it? I can do it, but you’ll probably do a better job at it.” I forced a smile. “I’m not saying that to get out of doing it either or suck up, but… I would rather not do it if I don’t have to.”

For as much of a hard-ass as he was, he didn’t look even a little put out by me pretty much trying to worm my way out of doing this. “Show me.”

Luckily, I’d already been crouching right by where the spot was, otherwise… Well, I didn’t know what I would have done, but I would have had to lie better about something. Crouching right next to me, I showed him what I was talking about.

“Yeah,” he confirmed what I already knew. “I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry about it.”

That’s what I had figured. I gave him a little smile even as my heart raced over the words that my brain was still stuck on. Paid his way out. Real name. Too old for some shit.

What it all meant, I had no idea.

But my eyes strayed to the collar of his compression shirt and stayed there longer than they should have.

“You all right?” he asked randomly.

That time, my smile was genuine as I nodded.

“Sure?” Rip even went as far as to ask.

“Yeah,” I told him. “I’m just tired is all. I slept like crap last night.”

Those blue-green eyes watched me, and I figured he had a decent idea why that had been the case. Just as quickly, his eyes shifted to the giant clock on the wall. “Get home. I got this, and then I’ll head out too. We got enough done.”

I looked at him, pushing the words I’d heard out of his mouth minutes earlier out of my head. “Are you sure?”

It was his turn to nod.

“Okay. I was—” My phone rang from the back pocket of my pants, and I pulled it out and squinted at the screen. Then I stuck it back into my pocket.

His gaze had followed my hand, and his face was smooth when he tipped his chin up, his eyebrow going in the same direction. “You gonna get that?”

“No.”

The corners of his mouth moved maybe a millimeter.

“My sisters have been calling me for the last two hours, even though they know I’m here,” I explained. “They got to Houston earlier and—” I cut myself off, realizing what I was doing. This wasn’t my other coworkers I rattled my business off to. I waved my hand in front of me and shook my head. “Anyway, I guess I’ll get going then if you don’t need me anymore.”

Rip’s little frown hadn’t gone anywhere, but he nodded.

I took a step back, ready to turn away. “If you want to come by my house tomorrow after all, I won’t let anybody bother you too much either,” I offered him, knowing he wouldn’t commit himself. “If not, I’ll see you Monday. Have a good weekend.”

At least I had invited him, like I always did.

“Luna,” he called out before I got another step.

I stopped, half expecting him to tell me there was something else he needed. “Yeah?”

My boss stood there, hands on his hips, watching me with that gaze that I never completely understood.

I grinned at him. “You all right, boss?”

I watched his whole body exhale before his mouth twitched and he said in that low, grumbling voice, “Decide what you want as a favor.”

“What’s that?”

The next expression he gave me, I did understand. It was his Luna’s an idiot face. Then he repeated himself.

And even after he repeated himself, I had no idea what the hell he was talking about. So I asked him once more. “I don’t understand what favor you want me to decide on,” I told him slowly, like it was him who wasn’t understanding what he was saying.

Because that was the exact case.

I had used it up yesterday. He wasn’t exactly a spring chicken anymore, but he wasn’t that forgetful either.

Swiping at his eyes with the meaty part of his palm, he sighed my name. “Decide on a new favor.”

“What new favor?”

Rip rubbed his face again, shaking his head as he did. “Your other one didn’t count. Pick something new.”

Eh… what?

He must have read the question on my face because Ripley muttered, “Luna, the other one doesn’t count. Ask for something else.”

A memory of Rip coming to stand behind me, of telling my cousin to shut up, filled my brain. The relief of it could still fill my mouth. But I could never take advantage of him. I would never want to in the first place. “Rip, I never wanted the favor. You don’t owe me anything.”

The handsome, stunning man let his hands drop.

“I don’t need a new favor. You did more than I could have asked for. That was what I wanted.”

He gave me that laser-like stare that I loved and hated at the same time. “I don’t care,” he tried to tell me in that we’re not talking about this anymore voice.

“Rip—”

His shot me that Luna is an idiot look again. “It doesn’t count.”

“But I don’t want anything else.”

“And I don’t wanna owe you shit, Luna,” he insisted, watching me closely. “Something else, all right? You can come up with something.”

I opened my mouth but felt my eyes narrow on their own. “Ripley, I don’t want you to owe me anything. It was one thing I said for you. That’s all.”

That hand of his went up to tug at the collar of his compression shirt, showing me the skull there. His breath was deep. “I’m telling you how it’s gonna be. Pick something else. Me going with you to that funeral isn’t gonna be it.” He pinned me with a look that almost might have taken my breath away. “That was nothing. Understand me?”

Of course he thought it was nothing. He was the one who didn’t understand. “It wasn’t nothing to me,” I told him quietly.

My boss, this man standing in front of me, didn’t say a word. He didn’t move. He didn’t twitch. He didn’t flinch.

He didn’t argue.

He just looked at me.

And all I could do was give him a flimsy smile back to show him that it had been more than enough. I didn’t want him to feel like he owed me. He didn’t.

“It doesn’t count, Luna. Not today, not tomorrow. Pick something else or I will. You got me?” he asked me in that calm, cool, steady voice, piercing me with that unflinching gaze.

It was my turn to stare. My turn to watch him. Because I knew that tone and that voice and what it meant.

I might let people get away with a whole lot of things sometimes, but this wasn’t someone with an attitude problem calling me a bitch.

This was my boss feeling indebted to me when he had no reason to. When I didn’t want him to.

But all I could get out was his name before something moved across that hard face.

I definitely couldn’t miss the way his chest expanded as he settled his irises on me mercilessly. “I pay back my debts, and what we did doesn’t count.” He tipped his chin up and started to turn away from me. Done. He was already done with me. “Go home.”

I stood there for a moment and watched as he moved toward the chests, pulling a rag out of his pocket to wipe his hands as he did.

I sighed.

“Night, Luna,” he called out over his shoulder, just a hint louder than a normal speaking voice.

“Night, Rip,” I replied, shaking my own freaking head.

What was going on with him?