I wasn’t at all surprised when I got zero sleep that night.
I figured it wasn’t unheard of when the only thing keeping your front door closed was a console table you had dragged over. If I’d had anything heavier that I could have pushed on my own, I would have. But there was only so much I could do alone, and I didn’t have that much furniture.
So, I hadn’t slept. I’d been too paranoid, lying in bed and listening to make sure no one pushed the door open. When I wasn’t worried about that, I laid there thinking about my sisters talking to my dad.
It hadn’t exactly been the greatest night of my life.
So when the alarm clock went off, just as I had barely started to sort of doze off, I had almost cried. Almost.
Why did things like this always have to happen to me? Why? Why couldn’t I catch a break every once in a while?
I knew I was being dramatic. I knew there were worse things in the world than having your home broken into and your things stolen and broken. At least I had a place to call home. At least I had insurance. But… it all still felt like a donkey kick to my freaking soul.
You get one step ahead and then have to take five back. That was life sometimes, wasn’t it? For everyone, not just me.
I was just sulking, and I didn’t know what to do with myself or how to wear it right.
I didn’t cry as I dragged myself off my damaged mattress—because they had even messed with that. I hadn’t even had the heart to fix the fitted sheet so it would serve as a barrier between me and the bed that had been the first bed I had ever bought, so I’d been all about splurging a little. And now, it was seriously injured. Someone had taken a knife to it, dragging that blade from one end to the other.
Because some asshole had broken into my house and torn it up for no reason.
Did I look like I was rich? Or some spy with secrets I had stitched into the mattress? It just seemed so… senseless. Even the cops had agreed. They had gone as far as to ask if there was anyone who could be upset with me.
I told them, no, but I knew there were. Just not anyone I figured would be upset enough to do something like this. Trip me? Slash a tire? Kick me while I was down? Yeah.
But break into my house? I wasn’t that bad of a person—at least I didn’t think so.
Getting dressed and ready for the day took longer than it should have, and when I went to check the door and couldn’t because it had been kicked in, I’d almost cried again. I did what I could to secure it from the inside, and then snuck around to the back door and went out the through the yard. I headed to work, trying so hard to focus on driving and not what was waiting for me back home and… failing.
My heart, and every part of my body, felt heavy as I walked into CCC. I put my things in the desk, then headed up the stairs to make the coffee I didn’t really feel like drinking. If I was going to be honest, I didn’t really feel like doing anything. Sure as hell not working. But I knew I was going to need money and the only way to get it was by going to work. Even if only for a few hours. A small paycheck was better than no paycheck.
I made coffee and was relieved there wasn’t any arguing in the room next door. When I heard noises coming from downstairs, I sighed and prepared the other mug of coffee, because no matter how crappy I felt, not making Rip his would be like… not putting on deodorant—even if I was pretty sure I might have forgotten to put on deodorant that morning once I thought about it.
I wasn’t going to cry.
Losing my things wasn’t a big deal because at least I was okay.
I went down the stairs, making faces so I wouldn’t lose it. I could make it through the day. I would. During my lunch break, I could call around to some handymen and see if any of them could go by the house once I got off work and fix the door for me. I was pretty sure there were a decent number of projects on the schedule, but Mr. Cooper would let me leave once I told him. I knew he would.
I swallowed and would have pinched the tip of my nose if I’d had a free hand.
Down on the main floor, I looked around and found Rip standing by one of the tool chests, opening and closing drawers as he looked for something. Thankfully. Maybe I could get away with making it back to my room without him glancing at me. That happened often enough, didn’t it?
I needed to quit. What had I told myself about things out of my control? There was no reason to get hung up on them.
But my luck decided to remind me it was never that great.
Because I had barely set the mug down when Rip muttered, “Thanks, Luna,” then he happened to flick his gaze in my direction.
I could tell it had meant to be fast. Just a glance. But no sooner had his eyes gone back to what he’d been looking at, that they returned to me. Rip straightened as a frown took over his mouth and his eyebrows drew together.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded, those incredible eyes moving over my face quickly.
I tried to give him a smile but only got about half of it on my face before I gave up. “Nothing.”
His eyes stopped moving, and I’d swear his voice got deeper as he asked again, “What’s wrong, Luna?”
My mouth strained in its weak position as I repeated myself. “Nothing.”
He shut the drawer he had opened without looking down and turned that huge body toward me. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
“Nothing is wrong.”
“I can see it on your face,” he claimed in that rough voice, taking a step forward.
I pressed my lips together and let myself blink twice, quickly. When my voice came out like an almost whisper and it was huskier than normal, I tried not to let the frustration show on my face. “It’s nothing you need to worry about,” I tried to tell him.
And just like that, his face clouded over and he took another step toward me. “I wanna worry about it. Tell me what’s wrong.”
He—
I felt my nostrils flare. Felt myself press my lips tighter together, and I blinked even more. Keep it together. Keep it together. “Rip, it has nothing to do with work. I didn’t mess up.”
His eyes moved over my face even more, and he took yet another step closer, that frown not going anywhere. “What happened?”
With my free hand, I reached up and did pinch my nose that time, letting myself close both my eyes briefly before they decided to betray me like everything and everyone else in my life, apparently.
Stop.
I was fine. None of this was worth crying over. I was okay.
“I didn’t get any sleep is all,” was all I could get out, and even to me, it sounded like I was full of it.
Rip breathed, and I didn’t need to look to know he was even closer to me than he had been a moment before. “Why?”
He wasn’t going to drop this. Okay. All right.
I wasn’t going to cry. I could just tell him. Quick like a Band-Aid. Rip it off. “My house—”
And, I was going to cry. Yep. There was no denying it. “What happened to your house?” he asked slowly.
My voice wavered like a flag on a windy day. “It got broken into.” There. I said it. I had survived it. “They stole some things, tore up other things…” I had to stop again after that. My nostrils flared, and I pinched my nose again, opening my eyes. “I’m a little upset about it.”
I tried to smile, but it immediately toppled over.
One of Rip’s hands went to scratch at his forearm through the material of the coveralls he had on, but his eyes stayed on me. His Adam’s apple bobbed, and even his voice was off as he asked, “They fucked up your things?”
I nodded, keeping my lips together.
A nerve in his cheek started to tick. “Bad?” All I could do was shrug and hold my breath. “How bad?”
I bit the inside of my cheek and didn’t bother curbing my croak of, “Bad.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed again, and his head ticked to the side. His hand came up and he scrubbed his cheek with the back of his hand. Rip’s voice was tight. “How’d they get in?”
Tension filled my entire soul as I thought about all the things those jerks had taken from me, not physically but… “They kicked in the door.”
“You call the cops?” I nodded.
One teal eye narrowed, and I couldn’t miss the low anger in his voice as he asked, “Who went into the house for you?”
“The cops.” The more I talked about it, the worse it got. How had I thought I would get through the day?
Maybe I should ask him to give me the day off. Or at least the morning. Or the rest of the week.
“You clean up already?”
A frog seemed to take up residence in my throat because what came out of my voice next was for sure a croak. Don’t you, cry, Luna. Don’t you do it. “I didn’t. I got home late and the cops took so long to come…” I was going to cry. I was going to cry and there was no stopping it. I just needed to hold it in a little longer. Just a little longer until I was home alone, or at least in my room by myself. I was fine, I was fine, I was fine. “I should have tried cleaning since I couldn’t fall asleep in the first place, but I’m going to get started on it tonight. I was going to call some handymen about coming to fix the door—”
I saw his face cloud over before I heard the change in his voice. “You slept there?”
“It was late,” I kept on croaking. “I tried calling my best friend and Mr. C, but neither one of them answered.”
And, oh, my God, wasn’t that another reminder that I was alone. I could have tried Lydia’s cell or Mr. Cooper’s home, or Grandpa Gus’s number. Hell, I could have even called Miguel. But I hadn’t wanted to bother anyone. It was my house. My things.
Rip pierced me with that intense gaze, giving me no preparation for his next question. “Why didn’t you call me?”
Call… him?
That time I was able to shape my mouth into a smile but only because it wasn’t a happy one. “I wasn’t going to call you because my place got broken into. It has nothing to do with the business—”
“Luna,” he growled through his teeth, taking another step forward. That big body seeming to expand before my eyes. “It’s my business. You are my business.”
What?
“You slept in that goddamn place with your door not properly locked?” he asked, but didn’t wait for my response. “Christ, what were you thinking?”
What had I been thinking? “I didn’t want to bother anyone,” I managed to get out, shrugging just one shoulder at him, feeling embarrassed, but mostly… overwhelmed. “I was upset, Rip. All of my stuff—” My voice got higher and higher until I forced myself to stop because…
It had been all of my stuff. Mine. For the first time ever, everything had been mine. And someone had—
I didn’t realize I’d made this squeaky noise, and I definitely didn’t realize that at the tail end of it the tears were just going to burst out of my eyes.
It wasn’t just stuff. They had been my things. Mine.
Right there. Standing right there, with a cup of coffee in one thermos, with Rip in front of me looking like thunder, I started bawling. Bawling. My shoulders hunched in and I started shaking. My hands went up to my face, and even though I told myself to stop, told myself that it wasn’t the end of the world, reminded myself that a billion other people in the world had problems that made mine seem absolutely insignificant… I still cried. Tears dripped over my fingers and down the palms of my hands.
And I cried.
Because I had worked so hard for what I had only for someone to come in and screw everything up.
Because I was tired. Tired of getting shit on time after time.
I had my place where I had felt happy and proud and safe, and someone I didn’t know had decided to take that away from me.
Take, take, take. That’s what people did to me. Because I let them.
Because they were greedy.
And it was so fucking unfair. It was bullshit.
“Ah, fuck,” I heard muttered as I stood there, feeling so sorry for myself, so hurt, so frustrated….
What had to be two hands covered my own for a moment before moving to cup my ears, framing my face. I didn’t need to look up to know it was Rip. Who else would it be? But I kept on crying, because not even having Rip right there, being nice to me, was enough to ease how crummy I felt.
Why?
“Why would someone do that to me?” I asked him, sure my tears were probably going down his wrists as he held my face, his thumbs going over the little bones on the backs of my hands. “I don’t have anything worth stealing. I haven’t done anything to anybody lately. I don’t know why this would happen.” My voice broke. Broke, broke, broke.
Why did anyone do this kind of crap?
“It’s just stuff, but it’s my stuff, and somebody just broke in like it’s nothing. And it just feels like… some people have bad days, but it’s like
I’m having twenty-six years of bad days, and I hate feeling helpless, and I’m sorry I’m taking it out on you. And crap, I hate crying. I’m sorry.”
Shaking, I curled in on myself even more, trying to retreat. Trying to protect that part of me that didn’t feel like it had gotten beat with a bat because it was all I had left that held hope. Foolish. I was so damn foolish.
Two big arms wrapped around me, cutting my thoughts off. The next thing I knew, my face was at a very warm neck and my chest was against a broader one… and I did the only thing I knew how. My hands went to hips that weren’t my own and my fingers curled into the coveralls he had on.
And I kept on crying.
Whether it was because of my things, or the idea of someone coming inside my place, or I didn’t freaking know. I had no clue. Maybe I felt like life was unfair and this was BS, but I wasn’t positive.
All I knew was that I felt like crap and I was tired of things not working out, and I was even more tired of people taking their mess out on me. Life was unfair, and it was total BS sometimes, and even though I had known that fact for a long, long time, it didn’t make it any easier. If anything, it felt even harder.
“I don’t know what I did in another life to deserve this,“ I coughed and choked into his chest, pressing my nose as close as possible to that warm, familiar-smelling column of a throat.
Heat touched the top of my head lightly, and what I knew had to be a palm spread across the space between my shoulder blades, pulling me in even closer to that coverall-covered body. Rip’s voice was low, as he said, “S’all right, Luna. Don’t cry.”
The hand on my spine moved up and down, up and down. “I’m sorry.”
“You got nothing to be sorry about,” he said into my hair, his arms strong. “Not a single fucking thing.”
I didn’t say anything. I just stayed there, inhaling and exhaling him… mostly on accident, but on purpose too. Like medicine but for all the other little hurts. The big hurts too. And the medium-sized ones…
Days from then, maybe I’d remember how his skin smelled like Irish Spring. How he smelled like the shop somehow too but better. I’d remember how he smelled so good in this way that had nothing to do with cologne or aftershave.
But for then, for that moment, I’d take him in for what it was. Just a man I trusted, who cared about me at least a little bit and made me feel
better. At least, he made me feel less alone.
“Wanna take the day off and deal with it?” he asked my hair.
I shook my head and barely got out, “Not right now.” Thinking about everything I’d need to do… “I can wrap some things up this morning and maybe this afternoon…”
Everything was ruined. I needed to call my insurance. Needed to call a handyman. Buy trash bags…
Don’t cry.
Too late, wasn’t it?
I felt myself put my face back into Rip’s neck and heard myself make a desperate noise into his skin.
Damn it. Damn it.
“Go when you wanna go, Luna,” he whispered, his hand stroking up my spine and staying between my shoulder blades even as I let out a shuddered breath. “Everything’s all right, baby girl.”
I nodded.
“You’re gonna be good.”
I was going to be good. He was right. So I nodded again.
His hand slid higher up to palm my neck, and his voice was soft as he said, “You should’ve called me.”
No, there was no reason to. He knew that, he was just being nice. Just like he was being right then, by holding me.
But I was going to take it because who knew when the next time I would get held again would be.
Unfortunately, I knew it wouldn’t be Rip doing it.
I had been standing outside in my yard, staring at the front door
for the last ten minutes, trying to talk myself into going back in.
I’d been freaked out enough last night but had managed it, mostly because there hadn’t been any other option and the cops had been with me. But now there wasn’t anybody to do it with me.
You can do it, Luna. You can do anything.
And I could. I just didn’t want to.
The thing was, I didn’t want to call Lenny or Grandpa Gus or Mr. Cooper, or anyone else to go in. I wasn’t their responsibility. I could do this. I could.
I was in the middle of pumping myself up to climb the stairs onto the porch when I spotted the black Ford pickup pulling into my driveway and parking behind my car. I didn’t need to look through the windshield to see who was behind the wheel. I knew it like I knew my own freaking name.
It was Rip.
Who must have left work five minutes after me.
I knew that massive body. I knew the man slamming the door closed to the truck before stomping around, his gaze sweeping across the front of the house. Back and forth, behind him and in front of him. Looking.
His gaze landed on me just standing there, holding my hands to my chest. I could see his eyes narrow. See the great big breath he puffed out of his mouth. I could tell his shoulders dropped, his hands going loose at the same time.
“You didn’t tell me you were leaving.”
Something inside of my freaking soul stuttered. My throat seemed to choke on every letter in the alphabet, and all I could do was press my lips together and, after a second—after that thing inside of me stuttered then stuttered some more—I nodded.
But I managed to get the words out. “I didn’t want to bother you.”
And Rip… Rip blinked. His nostrils flared. His chest went in and out, and he said with all the calmness I had never witnessed out of him before, “How many times I gotta tell you that you’re not a bother?”
I held my breath.
He made sure to look me right in the eye. “You need me, you call me. Any time. Any day. It’s that easy.”
Why did that make me uncomfortable? “You don’t gotta do everything alone.” “I’ve never wanted to, Rip.”
And something on that striking, handsome face seemed to splinter. Ripley’s chin dipped down once, and then one of those long, massive thighs went forward. One size twelve or thirteen foot set down on my grass, and then Rip was stalking toward me. His hands at his sides, his nostrils wide, and that gaze locked on me.
And before I knew it, before I could process where he was going, he was there.
Standing directly in front of me, so tall I had to tip my head back to look up at that face that was easily eight inches taller than me.
I didn’t realize I was tearing up until I felt the tears pooling in the corner of my right eye and then felt something brush them off just as
quickly.
It wasn’t my hand that did it though. It wasn’t my fingers that swept beneath that eye and then swept beneath the other eye.
It was Ripley’s fingers that did so.
Before I could get another word out, and before I could blink at that, that huge hand slipped into mine like it was nothing and he tugged me toward the side of the house.
I opened my mouth to tell him I appreciated him coming out here, but that he didn’t have to stay. But even though I opened my mouth, nothing came out of it. I wasn’t dumb or stubborn enough to tell him to let go of my hand. I needed it. I wanted it. So even if it was for these crappy circumstances, I’d take what I could get.
I could more than likely remember everything that happened afterward if I bothered trying hard enough to. But when something feels more like a terrible dream than reality, most of the time, some things go into your memories forever and other things, you just decide to live through.
Sometimes you have enough shitty things in your life you’re forced to remember without adding more. I was picking and choosing at this point. It was all I could do.
Going through my house, room by room, with trash bags was one of the single most painful things I had ever done before. Worse than packing up my things when I was seventeen, shoving what I could into a duffel bag and two plastic grocery bags, and leaving my parents’ house without a single clue what I would do or where I would go.
But what I could and would remember was how Rip stood with me, his hand holding mine the entire time we threw things away.
It was all some weird memory I wasn’t going to pick up and go through any time soon, or ever if I didn’t have to.
My whole body tightened as I took in the television I had saved three months to buy that now had a massive crack through the center of it. That was only the beginning. Broken dishes, four flipped dining room chairs, my mattress, and drawers that had been ripped out and gone through.
I didn’t let myself cry as I realized hardly anything had been stolen with the exception of about one hundred dollars in cash I’d hidden in my drawer and two hundred under the bathroom sink. My laptop was missing and so was my tablet. There was just so much… destruction. What was the point?
My chest ached, and it felt like I couldn’t breathe for a long time.
It was enough to remember the night before when I’d kicked my clothes aside on the floor, trying my best not to imagine some stranger going through them, putting their hands all over things I had bought with a whole lot of love.
And so much of it had been destroyed.
My safe place had been ruined, and I didn’t know what to do.
Hours and hours later, after filling up ten contractor-sized
bags, after cleaning the hell out of everything while Rip went to the home improvement store to buy the things he needed to fix my door, after ordering Vietnamese food while he fixed the door because I had to feed him for doing all these things for me… when I was exhausted and wanted to go to bed, a hand went for my wrist and Rip gripped it.
“Come on,” he said in that voice that wanted to lull me to sleep. “If you’re still hungry, I can order some pizza.”
“I’m not hungry.” He tugged again. “You can’t stay here tonight.”
I didn’t want to stay there tonight. Or the next night. But I didn’t want to leave it either.
“You’re coming with me.” I was?
I was what?
“Come on. I’m not in my twenties anymore. I’m usually in bed by now.”
What? I glanced at my watch and saw the time. It was almost midnight. Holy crap. How had this taken so long?
How was I even awake?
Rip tugged at my wrist again. “You’re not staying here. Don’t give me that face.”
Me making a face? Was he serious?
I didn’t want to stay, but I didn’t want to leave either. He’d already done enough. He had already done so much more than a boss should do for his employee, which only reminded me that I hadn’t told anyone what happened yet. Not even Mr. C. And man, that made me feel guilty. What had Rip told him as the reason why I left?
His thumb swept over the back of my hand, and his voice was genuinely really tired. “Come on. I’ll get you a hotel room if you don’t wanna stay with me.”
All I could do was stand there and blink.
He blinked back. “Now, Luna. I’m too tired to give you shit.”
I wanted to tell him that I was fine. That I didn’t need to go home with him or stay at a hotel, but my mouth didn’t move.
God, I was such a wuss. It was pathetic. I could sleep here. There was a lock on the door again.
It would be fine.
I would make sure it was fine. I wasn’t—
“Luna. I’m tired, baby.” Rip sighed, giving me a gentle squeeze.
I looked up at him, exhaustion weighing down my eyelids. I watched as his hand came toward my face and his finger slipped across the bottom of my eye. There weren’t tears there. There couldn’t be. I had already done enough crying for the next decade. But his finger didn’t go anywhere else; it stayed there, under my eye.
“Let’s go.” He was still speaking softly, his face genuinely exhausted. “You’re not staying here. You’re going to be fine. You don’t want to stay at a hotel? Stay at my place. You don’t want to stay at my place? We’ll get you a room.”
I stared.
“It’s nothing nice, but I got a bed you can take, and a lock on my door, and some food in my fridge.”
I didn’t say anything.
The hand around my wrist loosened and he slipped his fingers through mine once more. “Let’s go,” he tried insisting again.
But I didn’t “go.” I just stood there, trying to imagine what his place looked like, what his bed looked like… and I still didn’t go anywhere. I didn’t want to stay at a hotel, and for some reason I didn’t understand, I didn’t want to stay at his place either. He was my boss first and foremost. My boss.
But Rip was even more tired than I was or wanted to go to bed earlier because he sighed, “All right, baby girl. We’ll stay here.”
Looking around my bedroom, I blew out a breath that felt like
it would have weighed a ton if it had any mass to it, and I wrapped my arms around all the blankets I’d managed to collect from around the
house. Lord, I could finally feel every hour I’d been awake in every inch of my bones.
Making my way to the living room, I held everything as tight as possible. The blankets, two pillows… I was going to sleep on the floor, I’d decided. Luckily, the couch was a pull-out sofa, and the assholes who had broken into my house hadn’t bothered doing more than stabbing at a few cushions.
But the same question I’d been wondering over since last night remained. Who the hell would do this to me? Why would they?
The idea of it made me want to throw up. It was so mean… It’s just stuff.
It was just stuff.
And I had insurance. That was something. I had called them while Rip had gone to the store, and it had taken almost an hour to get everything sorted and in motion.
Something was better than nothing.
I found Rip sitting on my couch with his arms crossed over his chest, staring at the television sitting on the small entertainment center across from it.
If he looked exhausted, I didn’t want to know what I looked like. “I’m sorry, Rip,” I said, really feeling like a thoughtless ass right
about then. How many times had he brought up how tired he was? “If you want to go home…” I’ll survive alone.
He simply shook his head, and I’d swear on my life his eyes drooped for a moment. “I’m staying here,” he repeated for what had to be at least the fifth time since he’d brought up that option.
“Yeah but…” I made myself say it. “You can go if you’d rather go home.”
“I’m staying.”
Did I really want to beg him? Not really.
“Okay.” I swallowed. “Thank you then.” Focus. “Let me help you make up the sofa bed then—”
“No sofa bed. I can sleep on the couch.”
I eyed the ruined cushions and the length and then weighed the chances of him actually getting any sleep on it.
“Eh, Rip, you’re size ginormous and my couch is size normal.”
He slid me a look that under any other circumstances might have made me laugh. Without another word, that long body unfolded itself from the furniture, getting up to feet that I knew were long, and he turned
to me, that handsome face aimed right at me. “Couch is fine, Luna. I’ve got it.”
He had it.
With a nod that I wasn’t completely feeling, I walked up to the couch, beside him, and dropped the mound of sheets and blankets, and extra pillow on the end. I watched as Rip got to his feet as I shook out the sheet and then tucked it into the cushions.
But he didn’t say a word as he watched what I did for long moments before finally asking, “You wanna sleep here too?”
Did he…?
Numbly, at least that’s how I felt, I thought about his question for all of fifteen seconds—if that—and said “Okay” before I could stop myself.
Okay. To sleeping on the couch too.
Who does that?
Me. That’s who. Someone was going to feel really dumb and needy later.
But I’d worry about that afterward. Way afterward. My pride wasn’t so big that I’d try to be tougher than I really was.
Because the truth was: I didn’t want to be alone. And I was a dummy for thinking that.
But oh well.
“All right,” Ripley said softly… so softly, I couldn’t help but glance at him, wondering where all this tenderness was coming from.
He just feels bad, my brain whispered.
“Come on,” Rip kept speaking, and I looked up to see him dropping onto the couch and leaning back with a big sigh. His arm was up on the back of the seat as he let out a deep, exhausted sigh. “Stretch out here, I can sleep in this corner.”
I blinked, the exhaustion hitting me hard. He wanted me to lie down while he slept sitting up?
“I can sleep anywhere. Come lay down. I need to get some rest.” I didn’t say anything.
“Everything will be fine,” he said.
Pressing my lips together, I nodded. He was here. I was going to lay down beside him. Okay.
God, how I wished that was true.
It wasn’t, but for tonight, I would take it. Rip patted the spot beside him. “Come on.” I did.
I took two steps and plopped down on the couch, one cushion down away from him.
He yawned, watching me the whole time. “You all right?”
“Yeah,” I told him pretty half-heartedly, toeing off my boots. I had forgotten I’d put on Pac-Man socks that morning. It was the most fun I’d wanted to go. That, and all my jewelry had been strewn all over the place.
Before I could realize what he was doing, he reached across the couch and grabbed my hand, pulling it—and me—toward him. I stopped what I was doing and blinked at the sight of his big hand, those long fingers, perfectly short nails, engulfing mine. Then he pulled again, making me stretch out on the couch.
Rip got to his feet, grabbing the pillow and blankets from the armchair. He shook out the blanket right before throwing it on top of me. I just watched him as he stood over the couch, kicking off his shoes, his hands going to the top button of his jeans and undoing it. It was my turn to yawn as he walked to the end of the couch, directly beside where I was laying and plopped down. I could feel the heat of his thigh and the weight of him make my couch sink.
What I wasn’t ready for was the hand that snuck beneath my head and lifted it—Rip lifting my freaking head—, before effortlessly sliding the pillow under my head before his fingertips touched my forehead. “Go to sleep. I’m here,” he said to me.
I looked up, or tried to look behind me, and I saw him stretch out from upside down.
Rip was too busy yawning to notice I couldn’t take my eyes off him. “Sleep, Luna. I’m not going anywhere.”
I didn’t say a word. I didn’t know what to say. Mostly though, I felt exhausted.
Stretching out on the couch, I thought about telling Rip that he should lie down and that I should be the one to sleep upright. I could have slept on the floor.
I rolled over to my side, tucking my hands beneath the pillow under my head. I didn’t think of anything. I just… lay there, listening to Rip’s deep breaths. But I still couldn’t wind down.
When the clock had changed to tell me that ten minutes had passed, a low groan came from the man beside me, and a moment later, fingers settled right in front of my face, palm up. “Nothing’s gonna get you,” he rumbled quietly, his voice rough and mellow.
I stared at those big fingers, taking in the calluses all over them and the palms. They were strong hands. Solid hands. And they made my own itch.
“You think I’d let that happen?”
I rolled onto my stomach and propped my hands under my chin, so I could look up at him. I mean, if he wasn’t falling asleep yet either… “No.”
His head was back against the couch, his eyes heavy and low. “Good, ’cause I wouldn’t.” Those impressive fingers squeezed mine. “You talked to your sister?”
I knew exactly which one he was asking about and couldn’t play stupid. “No. She’s still ignoring my calls.”
“Anybody else heard from her?”
Lord, he was digging that dagger deep when I felt like I’d already gotten the crap kicked out of me. “Yeah, it’s just me she’s ignoring.” I took a deep breath through my nose and slid that dagger in deeper myself.
He made a grumbling noise. “I thought you all left that house because your dad was a piece of shit.”
That made it worse. “We did, but my dad was at his worst with me.
He just didn’t give a crap about my sisters. That was the difference.” This pause hung in the air in between us. Then, “What’s that mean?” “I told you things are complicated. My dad used to tell me that he
should’ve pulled out. Him and his wife… even though now that I think about it, I’m not even sure they were legally married… they were the worst people I’ve ever met in my life. They were mean and unhappy and selfish. I don’t… I don’t know why they were together in the first place. Misery invites misery or whatever that saying is.” I took a breath, thinking about them. “And my brother never did anything. He was never really around in the first place. He never defended any of us. I know he hated them as much as I did; he left the second he graduated high school and never looked back.”
I didn’t tell him the rest. About all the times my dad told me I was stupid and worthless. About that woman saying those same, exact things. About all the rest of the things I didn’t want to remember. Not ever.
Those eyes locked on mine and his grip tightened. “I thought you only had sisters.”
“No, I have an older brother too, same mom and dad. I just never talk about him. I haven’t seen him in eleven or twelve years now. I couldn’t even make it until I turned eighteen, you know. I left a couple months
into my senior year of high school.” But I didn’t leave my sisters. That part I didn’t tell him.
“They kicked you out?” he asked in that quiet voice. I sighed. “Not exactly.”
“What’s that mean?”
I scrunched up my toes beneath the blanket. “I mean, they had been counting down the days until I turned eighteen since I was like three. And one day they gave me no other reason but to go. So I left.”
“What happened?”
I squeezed Ripley’s hand and thought about that time in my life. “I did something,” I told him in a very small voice.
There was a pause. “What’d you do?”
I scrunched them again. “I don’t know if I want you to know.” “Why?” he asked relentlessly, lowly.
“Because I don’t feel bad about it. I don’t even feel a little bad about it,” I admitted.
His breath was soft as he said, “I’ve done some bad shit too, Luna.
I’d be the last person to judge you for anything you did.” I held my breath.
Then he added, “Tell me another time, whenever the hell you want, yeah? Put it in our… what do you call it? Box of secrets?”
I didn’t think twice about it, or the fact he was acknowledging our box of secrets. I just agreed. “Yeah, okay.”
“Where’d you go after?”
I almost sighed in relief. I could tell Rip this at least. “I had made a plan with my grandmother that she would take my sisters since we both knew their mom couldn’t and wouldn’t want or be able to take care of them.” Oh, Grandma Genie. “She gave me some money, and I had some too, and I took the bus to Houston right after I left that house. I think I told you that. I stayed in just about the shittiest hotel in Houston. It was the dirtiest, crappiest place in Houston probably, but they didn’t ask for ID or a credit card or anything. I was so scared that I had to shove the dresser in front of the door the entire time I stayed there.”
I swore my heart started beating just a little faster thinking about those days when I worried so much about getting caught and sent back to San Antonio. Of not knowing how long I could really stretch the money my grandmother had left me. “I applied at just about every job opening I could find on Craigslist. About two weeks after I got to Houston, I applied here for a job as a receptionist, actually. Mr. Cooper had decided
to take the listing down the day I showed up, but he didn’t tell me until I got there.”
“He told me he changed his mind about needing a receptionist and would be better off hiring another mechanic instead. I started crying in his office, you know. He asked me if there was something he could do, and I told him I really needed to find a job and asked if he knew anyone hiring. I didn’t tell him that no one would hire me for a full-time job because I wasn’t eighteen. I hadn’t even told him I was seventeen, but I’ve always looked pretty young so….”
There was a pause and then, “He found you a job?”
Thinking back on him taking on some random person to do a job that didn’t really need doing, was a risky business decision. Mr. Cooper hadn’t needed me, but he had taken me anyway. So I nodded at my newest boss. “He warned me that I might not like a lot of the things I’d have to do around the shop, and he said he wasn’t going to treat me any differently because I was a girl, but if I was fine with that, that he’d take me on as kind of a community assistant instead of hiring a mechanic after all. But I told him that I learned fast and that I’d do just about anything he or anyone else asked, and that he wouldn’t regret it.
“I literally would have scooped up crap with my hands at that point. I didn’t care what he asked me to do as long as it didn’t involve something weird. He asked when I wanted to start, and I told him I could start right then. He found me the smallest coveralls he could find, and I started cleaning up the shop.” I scratched my upper lip remembering that day, taking in the confused looks from my new coworkers who wondered what I was doing.
“That day, at six, when everyone was going home, Mr. C told me it was a tradition for new employees to go eat at his house… He promised me he was married and that it really was for dinner and that his wife would be at the house. I’d been eating off the dollar menu and those noodles in a cup every day at that point. So I went, and Lydia fed me. They said they would give me a ride back to my hotel, and even though I told them they didn’t have to, they did anyway. They took one look at that motel and both of them went into the room with me, got my things, and told me I was going to be staying with them until I decided to move out.”
I swallowed thinking about how they had lied about the tradition for new employees to come over and eat. He had to have known I needed a meal. He had to have known something was wrong. And Mr. Cooper had stepped up to the plate. “I stayed with them for four years. I could have
stayed longer, they told me, but my sisters had already been living with them for a while too by that point, and I didn’t want to take advantage… and I moved out afterward. Mr. Cooper begged me not to, but I did. We lived in a two-bedroom apartment for the next few years, and then I bought my house. And now I’m here.”
Rip’s big chest went in and out as I spoke, and stayed sucked in while he said, “I can’t see you ever taking advantage of anyone.”
I smiled at him. “That’s nice but I wouldn’t. I’ve had too many people try and take advantage of me to do that to someone else.”
Rip let out a breath so deep and slow, his chest reminded me of a balloon that had been pierced with a needle, slowly losing all of its air.
I didn’t expect the next question out of his mouth. “Why do you still work at Cooper’s? And don’t give me some bullshit answer about owing Cooper or liking your coworkers either.”
It only took me a second to think of the truth. “I like fixing things and making them look nice again.” I bit the inside of my cheek, not sure how that sounded, but at this point, I was beyond worrying what impression Rip had of me and the things that came out of my mouth. He should have been used to it by now. “Like… it’s no big deal they aren’t perfect anymore—you know, if they were in an accident—because they’re still going to run. The cars I mean. They’re going to look and run better than before and still have a long, perfectly good life ahead of them. It’s like we’re giving them a second chance.” Well, hell. “I can relate to it a lot, I guess.”
He watched me for a long, long moment.
So it surprised me when he asked slowly, “What’s up with you and wearing your fun shit everyday?”
Oh. “I read a book a long time ago about being happy.” I didn’t care how that sounded or came across. “One whole chapter was dedicated to self-care,” I explained with a little smile. “Wearing something I think is fun everyday reminds me that things are all right. That I deserve to be happy. That I get to choose how I handle things. It made sense to me. I’ll take what I can get. I’m not going to die sad and miserable if I can help it.”
Rip didn’t say a word, but he watched me so closely then I didn’t know what to say.
And in the time it took him to form his mouth into a shape that words could come out of, I had sat up. His arm burned against mine. I didn’t know if he minded me sitting beside him, practically plastered to him, but he didn’t tell me to move away either.
“I know that face. Don’t feel bad for me,” I told him, carefully.
He was looking me right in the eye as he said, “I don’t. Not even a little, baby girl.”
Well. I smiled. “Okay then. Thanks for helping me today.” Then I went for it because why not? “You know, I think you’re pretty freaking wonderful when you aren’t mad at me.”
He didn’t smile back. His voice was warm as he said, heavily, “You’re welcome. Go to sleep, Luna.”
I looked at him for a second, as he looked right back at me with that face and voice I had no clue what to do with, and I said, “Go to sleep, Ripley.”
