“You’re dead,” I laughed at Miguel as we walked toward the
booth.
“Why do you think I brought the car with me?” he asked.
“She’s going to kill you either way. I’m still surprised she didn’t do it on her birthday,” I confirmed, referring to his wife’s car at first. We had just spent the last ten minutes looking it over and setting up a plan for fixing it. Apparently, he’d backed his car into hers that morning, and he hadn’t had the guts to tell her, so he made up a lie and drove hers to work today so that we could repair it without her finding out.
The thing was, we both knew she was going to find out anyway. Now or later.
“I know, but if I buy her some flowers and some conchas from the bakery by our house, I think I can get her to take it easy on me,” he stated with a laugh.
I shook my head just as we stopped in front of the door to the booth, and he reached forward to open it for me. “I’ll call my guy right now since I have the code for the color, and he should have it. It’s a standard stock color. I might be able to go pick it up for you on my lunch break.”
I had been expecting to see Jason in the room when I walked in, but I wasn’t expecting to see the new guy too. Between the two of them, they were carrying a panel into the booth. Jason, to no surprise, pretended like he didn’t see us walk in.
Little jerk.
He’d been surprisingly tame lately—at least with his words, eye rolls, and griping—but he couldn’t hide the fact that I could sense he still wanted to do those things. I knew I had Rip to thank for that.
“You’re an angel, Luna,” Miguel said, giving my head a pat, since that was the way all the guys showed me affection. Like I was a puppy. A very loved puppy. I’d take it.
I smiled at him. “I know.”
“Tell me if you can get the paint pen. I was going to skip my lunch and buff out the scratches.” The older man did something that made me feel like he was fluttering his eyelashes. “Can you do the paint?”
I grinned at him. “You know I will.” He patted my head again. “An angel.”
“I’m just your friend, and I don’t want you to die.” Miguel laughed. “Thanks, Luna. I owe you one.”
I shrugged him off. “You’re welcome. Let me call and find the pen first, and I’ll come bother you when I get an answer. If he doesn’t have it, the dealership should. I’ll find it somewhere.”
Miguel started to back out of the room with a grin on his face, like he thought he was getting away with his accident. “I love you more than my own sister,” he called out.
I laughed. “I’m gonna tell her you said that next time I see her.”
“I’ll tell her you’re drunk,” he called back before opening the door and sliding back out of my room.
I snorted as I turned around and headed toward the booth to see what exactly was happening. Inside, Jason and Ashton were setting the panel they had been moving onto some old tubs we used to prop things up. “Need help?” I asked.
The new guy grinned up at me. “No.”
While the other pain in the ass muttered, “Not anymore.”
And that’s what I got for jumping the gun and thinking he’d been behaving better.
I just ignored him.
“How’s your day going?” Ashton asked right as they set the panel down.
It was only nine in the morning, but I thought it was nice of him to ask. “It’s great so far. How’s yours?”
“Good,” he replied, brushing his hands on his pants. “My day is going great too,” Jason mumbled.
I didn’t even bother giving him a glance. “You liking the shop so far?”
“Yeah,” he agreed, in the middle of shooting the human wart a confused look for his little comments. “It’s great.”
I smiled. “Thank you for helping Jason,” I said like he was my child who needed assistance.
Which I guess in a way he kind of was. He was my little shit, spoiled kid that I was still trying to mold into a decent person.
You know, without talking to him more than I needed to.
And he was twenty years old instead of an impressionable three. “Sure,” the new guy said.
I’d swear on my life that Jason snickered as he turned around and left the booth. I really just wanted to smack him sometimes.
“Do you know any good places to eat around here?”
“Yeah. There’s a food truck about a block down with really good burgers, but I thought I saw you with a bag from there already. There’s also a Mexican place about four blocks down that a lot of us really like; it’s a little hole in the wall place, but it’s great. If you go between eleven and one, there are lunch specials. And two blocks away, there’s a barbecue place that’s pretty good.”
He shifted on his feet. “The Mexican place is your favorite?” “Yeah. I don’t go there that often, but it’s the best around here.” “You doing anything for lunch?”
“She’s gonna be busy,” a deep male voice answered from somewhere behind me.
A deep male voice that could have belonged to only one person.
As I looked over my shoulder, sure enough, Rip was there, standing at the entrance into the booth with those giant biceps crossed over his chest and a bland, bland look on his face.
I was going to be busy? Since when? I had just talked to him that morning when I brought down his coffee, and we hadn’t talked about any kind of projects he needed me for.
But he had given me that smirk I liked and asked, “Did you fuck up your lunch?”
And I had smirked back at him, remembering the two hours we had spent at the bar on Friday and mocked him with, “It’s only a little burned, thank you.”
He had let that smirk stay on his face as he shook his head and went back to work.
And that had been that.
More than anything before. And maybe I didn’t understand why he was being, at times, so much friendlier, but I wasn’t going to complain.
So, when Rip said I was going to be busy, all I could do was stand there and wonder what I was going to be busy doing.
Ashton was a good sport because he smiled at me and said, “That’s all right. Maybe tomorrow.”
Over my shoulder, Rip spoke up again. “Luna’s gonna be busy tomorrow too.”
Uh.
I saw Ashton make a funny face before he shrugged, easily, and said, “All right. I should get back to work, but I’ll come back later and see if you need more help.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell him that if I did need help, he would be the last person I would ask. I would always bother the guys who had been here longer first. But it was nice of him to offer.
And nice to invite me to eat, if that’s what he’d been about to do.
Even if I had a feeling that maybe it wasn’t as friendly as I thought it would be. Especially not because of that blush.
I thought he was cute, but that was the beginning and the end of that. Hector at the paint store was one of the hottest guys I had ever seen in my life, and that didn’t mean I wanted to date him. My eyes liked him. My brain liked him. But my heart wasn’t in it in that way.
“See ya, Luna,” Ashton said. Walking right by our boss, he dipped his chin toward him. “Rip.”
I blinked and followed Ashton on the way out. The second I couldn’t see him any longer, I looked back at Rip, who had moved his gaze back toward me by then. “What am I busy doing at lunch?” I asked. “Did you want to go pick out some more paint? Because I thought you were still working on the GTO and the SS.”
“No,” he answered, not moving an inch, but instead, just watching me. “I brought you fucking lunch.”
He brought me—did he just say lunch?
“There’s a thing in the fridge with your name on it,” Rip kept going, watching me steadily. “I could use your help later if you’ve got time.”
All I heard was something about him needing my help if I had time, but what I really focused on was the container in the fridge with my name on it.
“Come get me if you do,” he said, taking a step back like he hadn’t just surprised the crap out of me.
But I could still get a few thoughts together, at least enough to call out, “What am I going to be doing tomorrow?”
He was still walking backward as he told me, “I’m bringing you lunch tomorrow too.”
What was happening?
What was happening?
“You don’t have to bribe me to be your friend! I’ve been waiting for this for years, Rip,” I hollered after him, ignoring the way my stomach had just felt like we’d started a descent from a steep roller-coaster ride.
I’d swear I heard a chuckle as he answered, “Get to fucking work and come get me if you’ve got time to help me out.”
We were friends.
We were.
Favor or not, you didn’t bring someone food who you weren’t fond
of.
I really didn’t want to smile, but I couldn’t freaking help it as he
walked back out of the room. I was still smiling as Jason went to stand exactly where Rip had just been and asked, “If you’re done flirting, can I get started on those panels?”
That wiped the expression right off my face. “Say something like that to me one more time, Jason, and I will go rat on you, all right?”
The younger guy sneered, apparently back to freaking normal. “What I do with my fucking life is none of your business.”
So that’s where we were going today. “What are you talking about? I’m not bringing up what you do with your life, Jason. You said something rude, that’s what I’m talking about.”
“I’m talking about you not liking me and now he doesn’t like me either,” he tried to argue.
It was my turn to sneer at him. “If he doesn’t like you, it’s not because of anything I’ve said to him. Maybe it’s because you hung up on him that one time you called me, buddy, or you doing things you had no business doing. Have you thought about that?”
His mouth pinched, and he rushed out, “I didn’t hang up on him.”
I freaking knew he was going to lie about that. I hated to call people dumb, but he really was dumb. I didn’t feel like arguing with him over it. What I did instead was shrug at him. “I know you know why I don’t like you—and I’m sorry for saying that because I’ve never said that to anyone before, but you have never been nice to me. But I’ve never gone out of my way to be mean to you because of it. I don’t have to like you to work with you, but I wouldn’t whisper about things you did two years ago to make Rip not like you.”
“Look, you don’t even know what was happening between me and Kyra.”
I raised up both my hands between us and said, “I don’t care. You don’t have to explain anything to me.” Even if it made perfect sense, I still wouldn’t like him. “I wouldn’t like anyone who made my little sister cry, for whatever reason.”
“I’m not an asshole,” he tried to claim. I stayed quiet.
“I’m not—”
My phone ringing from my desk had me shaking my head as I walked way around him and out onto the floor. “Start on the panel, Jason.”
He cursed, not loudly enough for me to hear clearly, but I ignored him and pulled my keys out to unlock my desk and pull out my still ringing phone, hitting the Answer button.
That was where I screwed up.
I was so riled up by Jason that I didn’t look at the screen first before I hit answer.
“Hello?”
I heard the “Don’t hang up” just as I was turning back around to make sure Jason’s annoying butt wasn’t flipping me off behind my back. “Luna, don’t you fucking hang up,” a semi-familiar male voice spat on the other end.
And maybe my brain didn’t automatically recognize it, but my instincts did.
It was my dad.
“I already told you not to call me,” I whispered into the receiver as I made sure Jason wasn’t close by.
“You heard from Thea?” Had I heard from Thea?
I pulled the phone away from my face and ended the call.
Fisting my free hand, I didn’t hesitate dialing my sister’s number and trying to call her. Again. Like I hadn’t already called her every single day since the first time this man had contacted me.
I shouldn’t have been surprised when she didn’t answer, but I was. Screw it.
I dialed Kyra’s number and fortunately at least she did. “Luna-face, what’s up?” my middle sister answered.
“Your sister’s what’s up. Have you talk to Thea?” I asked her straight out, hearing the tremble in my voice. Because, this again? Dad calling again? I didn’t need this. I didn’t want it.
“Yesterday actually,” she replied a little uneasily. Maybe she heard the shakiness in my tone. “Why?”
Did I want to tell her about our dad? Hell. I had no choice, did I? “Dad just called me.”
There was a pause and then, “Why?”
“He was asking about Thea, Kyra. He told me to tell her to quit her job.”
There was another pause. “Ah…” Something hard hit me in the chest.
“I know that she had talked to him…” I held my breath.
“Luna?” she said a little too sweetly, her voice a little too high. “Yeah?” I muttered, trying to tell myself to calm down. To not get
riled up. To not get mad.
I was going to be patient. I was going to be calm. Whatever it was wouldn’t be the end of life.
“Don’t get mad,” was what she decided to start with, and of course my body decided to react the exact opposite way of what she was asking. My blood pressure was already starting to climb. “We both thought it was a bad idea if we told you about the calls.”
They had both been keeping it from me. Both of them.
That’s what she was trying to hint.
Two of my sisters had been hiding this from me.
I must have sucked in a breath or something because Kyra made a sound that sounded strangely like a gulp. “Oh, Luna. I promised her I wouldn’t say anything about her job. But about Dad… Don’t be mad. It’s no big deal. He calls her sometimes and they talk. I’ve talked to him a couple of times—”
What?
And I stopped listening. I stopped listening because my ears were buzzing, and genuine freaking fury and hurt like I didn’t think I was capable of feeling filled my chest.
Kyra said something about how it had been going on for only a year or two.
She said something else about how they both loved me and how it had nothing to do with me.
Told me not to worry about whatever it was that Thea was doing for work that even our dad disapproved of.
It had nothing to do with me.
I wouldn’t say it was fury that stole the words from my soul. Wouldn’t say it was anger that made my heart break even further. But I lost something then. Something I wasn’t sure I could or would ever be able to put into words.
Somehow though, I managed to ask the one other question that had been eating away at me lately. “Kyra, what else is she hiding from me?”
The silence was a better response than any of the words she might have used could or would ever be.
Even though a part of me didn’t want to ask and was honestly scared to pry… I couldn’t help myself. I was tired of the secrets. Tired of so much stuff I wasn’t ready to think about everything. “Did she tell you her place got broken into? Because I didn’t even know she moved, and if she needs help, you all should know I will always help you. I just want to know what’s going on, okay?”
What I got was another dose of a pause.
Another response that said that the trust I thought was between us was just in my imagination, and her next words changed everything between us for the rest of our lives.
“I’ll tell her you called and that she needs to call you back,” Kyra went on, ignoring my question, but the only thing I was aware of was hanging up eventually. Of standing there, numb and pretty much shattered by the knowledge they had gone behind my back to talk to someone who had treated me worse than trash. Someone who would have let them starve if it hadn’t been for me. Someone who had never washed a single load of their clothes ever in their lives. Someone who had never, ever bought them a single birthday present or Christmas present. Who had never supported them in school or much less encouraged them to go to college.
And if I would have been the kind of person who smashed their phone, I would have done it.
What I did instead was take a deep breath that included that part of me that I had lost, then turn around and kick an empty five-gallon bucket across the room.
I made a decision right then, as I pulled at the bracelet of unicorns at my wrist. I wasn’t going to let my dad ruin this day for me. Not when he had already ruined my relationship with my sisters in the two shortest phone calls of my life.
I told myself that I wasn’t in a bad mood even as I slammed the
door closed to my car.
I wasn’t mad.
I wasn’t.
Not even a little.
Nope, not me.
But I must have been the only person to believe that because even Hector asked me what was wrong.
Nothing was wrong, I had told him.
It was just that two of my sisters were talking to the one man in this world who I hated. That the two girls I helped as much as I could with their college expenses had gone behind my back to do something that they knew would wound me. That they had kept it to themselves so that I wouldn’t get mad.
No. I wasn’t mad over that at all. Not even Hector’s niece’s lollipop took the edge off my anger.
So it was because of that, that I wasn’t paying even a little bit of attention as I walked toward the building, holding the paint pen for Miguel’s wife’s car in one hand and clutching my purse in the other.
And it was because I wasn’t paying attention that when someone hollered, “Hey!” I froze.
Turning in the direction of where the voice was coming from, I spotted a man standing just on the other side of the fence, right by a lowered red pickup truck. Forty-ish with a handful of tattoos spotted across one arm, I blinked and said, “Hey.”
The man grinned. “Can you do me a solid?”
I took a step forward. I had no reason to be mad at him or take it out on him. “Depends on what it is.”
His grin spread wider. “Can you get, ah, Ripley out here?” I dropped my pleasant expression. “Who?”
“Ripley,” the man repeated, that grin going nowhere.
Never, not once, had Rip ever had anyone come over. Well, except for that one guy who I had caught him talking to, but… I hadn’t gotten a good look at the man. Was this one standing in front of me the same one as before?
I didn’t know, but if it wasn’t…
“I don’t know a Ripley,” I told him quickly.
His grin was this gap-toothed thing that magically got even bigger. “All right. Well, my name’s Gio, and I’ll be sitting out here for another
—” He glanced at his watch. “—twenty minutes.” He winked.
I raised both my eyebrows. “Nice to meet you, Gio.” He smiled and said, “Nice to meet you too, Luna.”
I was pulling open the door of the shop when I realized what exactly he’d said.
He’d called me by my name. I didn’t wear coveralls with my name on them, and even if I did, I wouldn’t have left the shop with them on. I was too paranoid for that.
How did he know my name?
Inside, I looked around the main floor for the biggest man at the shop but didn’t see anyone with the height or the right hair color. I didn’t need to look at my watch to know that I had twenty minutes to eat—eat whatever Rip had brought me—before I needed to get back to work. Or at least, should get back to work. I worked so much overtime it didn’t matter if I took another fifteen minutes, but as lonely and quiet as my home was, now that was where I would rather be.
Up the stairs, I heard two voices coming from the break room. Sure enough, Ashton was in there talking to one of the other guys, and right at the end of the table, sitting there quietly by himself, looking through a magazine, was Rip.
I smiled at the other two guys and watched as Rip lifted his head, watching me in return.
I kept the smile on my face as I opened the refrigerator and immediately found a glass container sitting on the top shelf with my name scrawled on a Post-it. Through the side, I could see what looked like noodles, beef, and vegetables—exactly what my lo mein should have looked like when I had made it.
Grabbing one of the plastic forks from a drawer, I pulled out the seat right beside Rip and took it. Popping the top off the container, I lowered my voice as quietly as I could, knocked my knee to the side until it hit Rip’s, and whispered, “There’s someone named Gio outside asking for you. I told him you didn’t work here, but he said he was going to wait out there for another twenty minutes five minutes ago.”
I could feel Rip freeze.
Then I saw him out of my peripheral vision lift his head and give me a funny expression that had his cheek going up that millimeter. “You told him I don’t work here?”
I picked up my fork and speared a piece of beef with it before whispering, “Yup.”
You couldn’t trust anybody these days, hello. Not even your own—
Stop.
Rip shook his head before he shoved his chair back and got to his feet. I flashed him a closed-mouth smile that I was pretty sure he recognized as not being totally authentic.
But he lifted his hand up, and before I could even blink, his fingers pinched a loose strand of hair off my cheek and tucked it behind my ear, the pad rubbing against the sensitive skin right behind it.
And just that quickly, his hand dropped. “Watch my food for me, yeah?” he asked.
Had he just tucked my hair behind my ear or was my anger making me delusional?
I managed to get out a nod before he disappeared through the door. I only sat there for maybe five seconds staring after him before I turned my attention back down to my food and stuck a piece of beef in my mouth.
It was just as delicious as the chicken last week had been.
