Because he was my family, because he had gotten to know me so well, I couldn’t hide the fact that something was bothering me—specifically, a person who worked for him.
The same person I had never totally been honest with him about.
“It’s no big deal,” I lied, trying to give him a genuine smile, but I must have failed because the worried expression on his face didn’t change.
The seventy-one-year-old man, in a brand-new olive green collared shirt with COOPER’S COLLISION AND CUSTOMS stitched onto the breast, who stood right around six foot three, just kept on frowning. “Luna,” he said as I walked behind him, setting my hand on his shoulder for a moment before heading to the fridge. “Even if it’s a little deal, what’s wrong? Is it the girls?”
“No, the girls are fine,” I replied, knowing he was referring to my younger sisters.
“Something wrong at the house?”
“No, everything is fine, Mr. C, I promise,” I partially lied, grabbing my lunch bag from inside the fridge, finally wondering for a moment what my little sister had made. I’d worked late the night before, and by the time I made it home and showered, she had already loaded my bag up and set it back in the fridge for the next day.
That was definitely something I could be grateful for today. Thank God my little sister makes me lunch every day. She was the best cook in the family and wasn’t stingy about it. And I wasn’t going to let myself be sad that I had less than two months left of having my own personal chef in the house before she left me.
“Tell me what that face is for.” Mr. Cooper’s quiet, careful voice brought me back from the brink of being sad over something I had promised myself I wouldn’t be upset about. My baby sister was growing up and going to college. I had always known it was going to happen. It was what I had hoped for. I had already gone through it with my other two sisters, and I was proud of her—them—and happy. I was.
But I was never going to tell anyone that I’d cried twice already just thinking about Lily leaving.
And I was definitely not going to get upset about it at work. No, siree.
“Are you sad or mad, Luna? I can’t tell.”
Setting my bag on the table beside the seat Mr. Cooper was in, I started pulling containers out of it, eyeing the plastic Rubbermaids. There were three. One was full of chopped greens. The second one had what looked like rice, beans, and ground beef, and the smallest looked like it was full of pico de gallo. Yum.
“I’m not sad. I promise.” Liar. “The car I needed to start today wasn’t ready is all,” I told him, prying open the lids to take a peek inside of them, trying to ignore feeling like a snitch for even saying that much.
“That looks good,” the much older man commented as I turned around to stick the bean mix into the microwave. His voice was almost a whisper as he asked, “Who was supposed to be working on it first?”
I bit my lip as I pushed buttons on the screen. I wasn’t going to get mad. I wasn’t going to assume the worst. “You know who,” I told him in my normal voice, because I wasn’t doing anything wrong telling him, so I wasn’t going to be secretive.
And he did know. Mr. Cooper might be the boss—one of the bosses—but I rarely complained to him about anything, mostly because there were rarely things to complain about. I wasn’t going to tattle on anyone and get them into trouble. I was never going to abuse my relationship with Mr. Cooper, which was why I was totally fine with us usually being mostly professional at the shop.
But…
I had told him a couple times in the past about a certain coworker that I swear went out of his way to not just be a jerk, but a pain in the ass. But only to me. Because that was my luck.
I didn’t say anything to get the guy into trouble but just to vent. Mr. Cooper was mature enough and professional enough to take my words one day at his house for what they were: his daughter-like figure complaining to her father-like figure about someone who had cheated on someone she loved. Except I had never told him that part.
That “someone” being the middle of my younger sisters. So, of course that was already going to be a strike against the jerk who had made my sister cry. The fact that he wasn’t very nice to me even now didn’t help our relationship.
But in this case, Mr. Cooper, the owner of the business, peeked into our conversation, and I saw his head swing toward me, a frown on his well-loved face. “Again? Didn’t he do something like that a couple weeks ago?”
He had. Two weeks ago exactly. And a month before that, he’d done it too, but on a smaller scale.
But I did the same thing I had done every other time; I sucked it up and did what I needed to do. It was my job, and I wasn’t going to get in trouble because someone didn’t do theirs. The only reason Mr. Cooper had found out about two weeks ago was because he’d walked in to find me putting filler on a car and hadn’t understood why I’d been the one doing it when he knew I had other things on the schedule.
I watched the seconds count down on the microwave screen. “I’ve worked on it for two hours, Mr. C. I still have another two before I can even start priming it. I’m supposed to work on another one after that too.”
Goodbye, my plans tonight.
I was getting aggravated again. Not because I was going to have to stay late, but because I had to stay late because my gut said my coworker hadn’t finished the job on purpose. He would deny it for the rest of my life, but I knew the truth. I’d heard him snickering that morning when Rip had gotten on my case.
“Did he explain why he didn’t finish?” he asked, sounding genuinely baffled.
I didn’t blame him. At the same time, it warmed my heart that he didn’t expect the worst out of people… even if I had a feeling that he should expect the worst out of the person we were talking about. I doubted Jason ever messed up things Mr. Cooper asked him to do.
I bit the inside of my cheek again and kept my voice low as I glanced toward the door to make sure a certain someone wasn’t standing there, listening. “He said something came up with another car and he didn’t get a chance to finish it.”
I wasn’t sure he knew that I’d had the same job as he did at one point. Cars that were on the schedule to go to paint took priority over everything else. There was no reason why Jason, the pain in my ass in question, would have just not gotten to it when he knew damn well I needed him to.
That punk that Mr. Cooper had hired six months ago—without me knowing it was him that had gotten hired until it was too late—would try and give me more work to do. Jason wasn’t technically a body guy. He got stuck covering for whoever was on vacation or had a personal day; he was basically me when I’d been his age, doing whatever anyone asked me to do.
“It’s all right,” I trailed off, reminding myself again of everything I had. I was loved, I had a good job, I had a home. I was happy, and I was safe. Most importantly, so were my sisters. So this was no big deal. “I’ll still get to everything.”
But Mr. Cooper seemed to be hesitating, probably still trying to work out a reason why something like that would have happened that wasn’t malicious. “Do you want me to talk to him?” he asked after a moment.
I blew out a breath as I dumped one container into the other before grabbing the container of pico and putting it in with the rest of my food.
I was a little pissed, but was I pissed enough to get the human yeast infection in trouble?
I hated how guilty just thinking about it made me feel.
“No,” I found myself muttering to him. “I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.”
There I went lying again. I definitely wasn’t going to give him that. I knew he was lying. I just knew it.
But the idea of him getting into trouble because I complained to one of the bosses—a boss that would do just about anything for me if I asked—made me feel bad. He was a lying turd, but you never knew what someone had going on in their life to get them to act like a jerk. Even if the acting like a jerk part had lasted for the last six months—and th
e six months he’d dated my sister before sleeping with some other girl. Maybe he needed money. Maybe I looked like his mom and he had mommy issues. Maybe he was stressed and I happened to be the easiest person to be mean to.
…but probably not.
“You sure?”
I slid him a look. Then I nodded.
Mr. Cooper raised those super thick, gray-white eyebrows at me, blinking bright blue eyes, his face deeply wrinkled and pretty freaking serious.
“I’m sure,” I confirmed as I started shoveling at the food with the fork my little sister had packed for me from home. I didn’t trust the other guys’ cleaning more than mugs at the shop, and she knew that.
My phone decided to ping from the front pocket of my jeans in that moment. “One sec,” I said to him as I pulled it out and glanced at the screen.
Thea: I’m going to stay in Dallas this weekend after all, but I’ll come down for Lily’s graduation for sure. Need to make some $$$.
I typed up my reply to my sister instantly, ignoring the pinch of disappointment I realistically knew I had no reason to feel when I understood why she wasn’t coming down to visit again. It was just that I hadn’t seen her in almost three months.
Me: Okay. Good luck.
A second passed before I got a response.
Thea: xx
“Kyra?” he asked, referring to the middle of my three younger sisters. The same one that Jason, the jerk, had dated.
“No, Thea,” I corrected him. Thea was the oldest after me at twenty-one. I pressed the home button on my phone to clear the app and then set my phone face down on the table between our food. “She’s not coming down this weekend after all,” I told him as I picked my fork back up.
He knew all about the last time she had promised to come and ended up bailing. Just like on this failed visit, I had marked myself off on the schedule so that everyone knew there was no way I was coming in over the weekend. It wasn’t unheard of for me to work on Saturdays. I had bills, no money tree and no sugar daddy; I was all about that overtime life. But I could be honest and say I’d been looking forward to having the time off to spend it with my sisters. Oh well. “I guess they offered her some more hours at the school or something.”
The way he said “Oh” told me he could see right through me. Mr. Cooper knew my sisters almost as well as I did. And because he did, and because I talked to him about them pretty often, he had a decent idea just how often Thea and Kyra cancelled on me.
Even though it was always for a good reason.
I gave him another tight smile before giving my food a poke. “She said she’s for sure coming down for Lily’s graduation next week though, so that’s good.”
“That is good,” he agreed… a lot more softly than he needed to because it really wasn’t a big deal that she wasn’t coming to visit after all.
It wasn’t.
“I can’t believe that girl is finally graduating. I’d swear she’s still eleven.”
That made me smile. “Me too, Mr. C, me too.” Just a few weeks ago, we had gone to scope out apartments for her in Lubbock.
Either Mr. Cooper realized that I didn’t want to think about it anymore, or he understood that there wasn’t anything more to say, because he took another bite of his tuna sandwich before mumbling, “I meant to tell you someone called this morning asking for you.”
I scrunched up my face as I looked down at my food.
“It was a man.”
I blinked.
“I asked a few times for a name, but he wouldn’t give me one,” he went on.
There was no way it was a customer, because I rarely ever met any of them. I might walk through the shop while one or two were inside talking to Mr. Cooper or Rip about a car we were working on for them or a car they wanted to buy from them, but it was rare that they let customers onto the main floor during work hours. But me personally speaking to any of them? No way. The only people I had to listen to were Mr. Cooper and Ripley.
“I wasn’t sure if maybe you were trying to pull a line of credit or if someone was trying to verify your employment—” He let out this adorable chuff like he couldn’t imagine me applying to work anywhere else. “—but I also didn’t want to confirm that you work here. You know, just in case.” We both knew what he meant by a just in case situation. Just in case it was someone I didn’t want to speak to. Just in case it was someone who I wouldn’t mind assuming I was dead. “I asked him who I was speaking to, then he asked again if he could speak to you. We went back and forth before he thanked me, then hung up, but something about it sounded professional.”
Hmm.
There was no logical reason why anyone would be calling looking for me.
At least not anyone that I wanted.
“I’ll let you know if they call again,” he told me. “I’ll do the same thing. I won’t say you don’t work here, but I won’t say you do either.”
“Thanks, Mr. C,” I muttered, trying to think, but also taking a bite of the food my little sister had prepared for lunch. I let my gaze slide over to him, picking up on the tension in his own shoulders. I had an idea what the cause was. “You okay? I was pretty surprised when you announced that Rogelio is leaving.”
The older man grunted as he chewed. The last thing he’d said during our meeting had been that one of the shop’s longtime employees was leaving to start his own mechanic shop. “I’m happy for him,” he finally said, and I knew he was telling the truth. “But you know how hard good workers are to find, and now I need to get someone else before he leaves. We’ll be hurting if we end up short-staffed.”
We were always almost hurting, and with one person less?
He shrugged the shoulder closest to me. “I’ll find someone. I get resumes all the time from kids straight out of school.”
I smiled at him. “If there’s anything I can do, let me know.”
Mr. Cooper put his arm around my shoulders and hugged me to his side.
He rarely ever did that, and it caught me by surprise so much I barely had time to smile over at him.
His quiet laugh had me glancing down at where his eyes were focused: on my wrist. On the bracelet of linked, tiny plastic donuts with colorful icing on my left hand to be specific. “I was wondering what your fun thing of the day was.”
I gave my hand a shake. “Lily bought it for me,” I explained.
“That’s pretty fun, little moon,” the older man confirmed with a warm smile.
“Luna,” came a familiar male voice that had me looking toward the door just as Mr. C’s arm started to retreat.
Sure enough, Rip’s massive body took up the width of the doorframe as he stood there, a piece of grease-stained paper in his hand, his gaze intent on me. Totally ignoring Mr. Cooper sitting beside me, pulling his arm back toward his side. He wasn’t frowning, but there was something about his expression….
“Hey, Rip,” I said, giving him a smile as I straightened.
He tipped his chin up, making my eyes flick to the lines alongside his mouth from all the scowling he did. His voice was gruff and irritated. “You get started on that Thunderbird yet?”
“Not yet.” Should I tell him about what happened? I eyed his shirt once more and thought about how grumpy he’d been at the meeting that morning. Because of Jason’s screw up, it pushed back me getting to the car he was asking about.
“Do me a solid.” His eyes stayed on me so intently it made me feel like I’d done something wrong by letting Mr. Cooper give me a hug. But I hadn’t, and Rip was well aware of the father-daughter relationship I had with the older man. I had invited him to my house twice for Thanksgiving, making it clear that Mr. Cooper and his wife would be there too so that he wouldn’t think I was trying to flirt with him. He didn’t show up either time. “I changed my mind about it and left a new work order for it on your desk. Take a look at it. I know we’ve got the color in the back, so use that one instead, got me?”
I nodded. New work order. New color. He was using that barking, some
thing-up-his-butt voice. All right.
Ripley’s blue-green eyes narrowed as he watched me from the doorway, pointedly still not looking at the man beside me. “Do you need to write it down?” he asked, dipping into that condescending tone just a little.
I let it slide right off me. “No, I’ll remember.”
From the doorway, Rip gave me a nod before walking off. I didn’t need to watch him leave to know what his butt looked like in those coveralls. It was perfectly proportionate in comparison to the rest of his six-foot-four built-like-a-tank body. Big and thick.
Beside me, Mr. Cooper let out a sigh that I’d heard a hundred or two times before. I couldn’t blame him. The less they communicated, the better everyone’s day was.
Especially his.
But at that moment, I couldn’t focus on Rip’s butt, or relish in the fact that I’d gotten to see his face not completely scowling in my direction, even if it was only for a second. Sometimes he’d come up for lunch at the same time I did. Sometimes he’d sit next to me and eat. His elbow would brush mine. Maybe his forearm would touch mine. If it was a good day, he’d give me an eyebrow raise that I would take like it was a smile. If it was a really good day, I could talk to him about the car he was restoring, and we might talk about it for a few minutes.
I had given up trying to ask him personal questions about two months into him arriving at CCC.
But on days when Mr. Cooper and I happened to eat at the same time, none of that ever happened. I’d watched Rip turn around and walk out, noticing how Mr. Cooper sat there and tried not to let it bother him.
On this day, it was impossible not to notice that getting ignored was eating up the kindest man I had ever met.
So I turned my head to my favorite boss and gave him a smile he probably saw right through. “Have I told you that color shirt looks really nice on you? You don’t look a day over sixty-five in it, Mr. C.”
* * *
It was hours later when I realized how bad I’d screwed up.
Luna and the Lie Page 3