“Luna?”
My heart started beating faster, but I ignored that too and managed to ask, “Can we please do it so I can start?”
There was a pause and then a soft, “Sure.”
I swallowed and kept my gaze on that little button. “Okay. Let’s do it.”
There was a deeper sigh. A longer one. Another “Luna…” that reminded me of a shooting star with a long tail behind it. A dying meteor. That’s what it was in a way. I would forgive him. I would move on, but that Luna wouldn’t change what it really was.
A reminder that he was my boss first and foremost.
A dying little dream that was burning itself out.
“It’s fine,” I told him, noticing how flat my tone sounded and getting frustrated over it. “If you wouldn’t mind helping me move it, please.”
Silence.
There was another sigh.
His gradual “All right” wasn’t what I expected. It was soft. So soft it slid right off me and onto the floor, lost forever.
And then we moved the panels.
Chapter 15
“How was it?”
I set my food on the table beside Mr. Cooper and gave his shoulder a pat. “How was what, Mr. C?” I asked, pretty certain he wasn’t asking about the reaming I’d given Jason again that morning just in case the first one, the day before, hadn’t been enough.
I was still mad about it. Bitching him out the morning before, then refusing to speak to him the rest of the day hadn’t been enough to get the anger out of my system. I had gotten to work that morning, still unable to forgive him, and when he’d decided to go out on a limb and ask me a question about an hour ago, I hadn’t been particularly nice in my response to him.
I only felt like a tiny bit bad about biting his head off.
Then again, I had gotten my head bitten off because of him, so I knew I shouldn’t.
Mr. Cooper smiled at me, not giving me a single clue what he was referring to, as I pulled out the chair next to him. “How was it?” he asked again.
I plopped into it and gave him a smile right back. “Mr. C, I don’t know what you’re asking.”
I hadn’t complained about what had happened the day before. As far as I knew, only Rip, Jason, and I knew about his screwup, and I highly freaking doubted he had found out about Rip going with me to Dallas over the weekend. The only people who knew about that were Thea, Rip, and me. As much as I was willing to share with Mr. Cooper, my sister’s crap was one of those rare things I would rather keep to myself. On top of that, I hadn’t overheard a single argument between him or Rip either so….
He tipped his head to the side. “How did your date go, little moon? I thought you told me you were going on one on Saturday.”
Oh. Oh. That.
I had told him about it. “Oh. It didn’t happen on Saturday, but I did meet up with him yesterday.”
“Did it go well?”
I lifted a shoulder as I pulled the top off my container of food. The noodles were from the batch I had made on Sunday. They were overcooked, the vegetables were soggy, the meat didn’t have enough seasoning, but… I had made it. And it hadn’t given me the runs yesterday, so I could only hope they wouldn’t today either.
“He was… decent,” I admitted.
Mr. Cooper snickered. “It didn’t go that well then?”
I set the lid of my food between us with a sigh. “I went in with zero expectations, Mr. C, and I’m glad I did.”
That was the truth. I hadn’t gone to the bar expecting to meet the love of my life, but I had gone with my hopes up that my day couldn’t get any crappier after what had happened with Rip.
It hadn’t. But it hadn’t made it any better either.
The Out of my League man had been in his forties and very good-looking, just like Lenny had shown me. He had been outgoing and talkative.
I didn’t mean to laugh as I thought about how the night before had gone, but it happened.
I lifted a shoulder as I shot Mr. Cooper a look and snorted then shook my head. “It wasn’t total crap. Maybe 50 percent.”
The expression on his face was so overprotective it warmed my heart about a hundred degrees. “That bad?”
Well...
I didn’t want to bother with all the details. I had called Lenny on my way to work that morning to let her know that the man Grandpa Gus had set me up with had spent the entire time telling me all about how he had just gotten divorced and how he was so excited to move on with his life and do all the things he hadn’t been able to do for all those years.
I took it as: I’m single and not looking forward to reliving marriage any time in the next decade.
I had only been in one actual relationship in my life. I had dated one other man for a little while but didn’t count that. Since then, I had gone on another handful of one-off dates. I had even tried the online dating app that was more of a hookup site, and that was where I had met the Daddy guy. So, I thought I was pretty good at recognizing the look in a man’s eyes when he wasn’t ready for commitment.
At least not commitment with me.
The man who had sat across from me hadn’t been looking forward to settling down in any way in the near future. Not even close. None of his words had given me the impression he felt otherwise either. He’d said all the right words and told me just how “cute” he thought I was, but that had been it.
“Nothing bad happened?” he asked carefully. A little too carefully, really.
Honestly, I loved it. It was a nice reminder after yesterday.
I shook my head, my ears picking up on the sound of two familiar, heavy footsteps coming from down the hall. Nothing had happened except for the fact he kept trying to get me to agree that I was basically looking for a booty call, but I wasn’t about to tell Mr. Cooper that, at least in those words. I lowered my voice just a fraction. “No, he just wasn’t looking for something serious, and I could tell. And I’m not… trying on clothes that I don’t want to buy, you know?”
Mr. Cooper’s smile was gentle as he nodded. “I don’t envy you this adventure, little moon.”
“I wish I didn’t have to do this, Mr. C, trust me, but hey, maybe the next guy will sweep me off my feet and treat me the way you treat Lydia.” I took a bite of my food and ignored all the things that were wrong with the taste of it. “Maybe my luck will finally take a turn for the better,” I covered my mouth and told him.
Bad dates happened. I’d heard about them enough from the guys at the shop. I’d heard it enough from my sisters. I wasn’t going to give up after the first one.
I was just not going to trust Grandpa Gus again to fix me up any time soon.
I’d only gotten one more bite in when a voice I was too familiar with spoke up. “Luna, you got time to go with me to the store and pick out some paint?”
Go to the store and pick up some paint with Rip? For the first time ever? After the partial weekend we had spent together?
After he had given me so much crap yesterday?
I chewed the rest of the lo mein I had in my mouth and turned my attention to my other boss, finding him standing there with his hands on his hips over his coveralls, his undershirt a navy color today. Heading into the kitchen, he moved that big body behind the chair I was in to grab something from the fridge, before he kept talking. “I wanna pick out some paint for the GTO and the SS you found, but I don’t like anything in the catalogue or the samples you got.”
To give him credit, he hadn’t been even a little weird with me that morning. I had brought him his coffee, muttered a “Hi, Rip” that was more out of good manners than anything. He had been working and had called out behind me, “Luna.” Like nothing had happened. Then I had said, still grumbling, “Leaving your coffee on the bench.” And he had replied, “Thanks.”
And that had been that. Normal. Fine… as if yesterday hadn’t happened.
So it was with that, that I told him, sounding pretty freaking nonchalant, “I can get you the address to my fa
vorite shop.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mr. Cooper glance between the two of us—probably surprised I didn’t immediately say yes—but I pretended like I didn’t see his movement.
What neither one of us could ignore was Rip saying, “I want you to go with me.”
He wanted me to go with him.
Mr. Cooper eyed both of us again, and I wasn’t sure who was more surprised by Rip’s words. Me or him. He was always such a stickler for people getting paid to actually work. Two people going for paint? That was unheard of. Him inviting me twice to go somewhere with him in less than a month? It was practically a miracle.
My gut said he was doing it because he felt bad.
“You want me to go with you?” I echoed, still trying to process his invitation and why he’d even extended it.
His “Yeah” came out more like “duh.”
I picked up some more noodles with my fork and shoved them into my mouth. Because I was hungry, not because I was at a loss for words.
Definitely not because a part of me wanted to be petty and tell him that no, I didn’t want to go anywhere with him because he’d been so mean the day before.
Not me. I was better than that. Yup.
He was still hanging out by the fridge when he kept going. “You got time, don’t you?”
If I said I was just busy enough, it would sound like I didn’t have enough to do. If I said I had time, it would sound like I didn’t have enough to do. And if I told him I was barely catching up after the crap with the Mustang, then I would sound like I was harboring some resentment toward him.
So…
How was I supposed to answer him?
Did I want to go?
I didn’t have to think about it too long. The answer was: not so much. Normally, I wouldn’t mind going. I really wasn’t very busy, and I didn’t want to be around Jason more than I needed to since we were on thinner ice than usual. On top of that, I didn’t want to talk to Mr. Cooper about the day before and cause another argument between him and Rip, because that’s what would happen. I had already planned on going to bother the guys on the floor to see what I could help them with.
But if I insisted I didn’t want to go, he would know I was butt-hurt, and I was almost never butt-hurt. If he thought that, he would know he had gotten under my skin.
Rip had just been my boss. He did to me what he would have done to any of the guys. I had no logical reason to take it personally.
But it was really hard to know that and accept it.
It was hard to tell your heart what your brain was smart enough to understand.
“Nothing’s pending?” he asked when I still hadn’t replied.
There was always something pending, technically.
He didn’t wait for me to answer. He didn’t give me a chance to give him an answer. “Finish your lunch, and then we’ll head out.”
I didn’t need to go with him. I actually wasn’t even sure why he wanted me to. He might listen to me sometimes, but not that much.
But…
I was better than this. I wasn’t going to let him get to me. I wasn’t going to let him know that he had.
“Okay,” I finally got out, shrugging. I had made myself let Jason do what was on the schedule for the day since it had only been small projects, and I’d watched to make sure he did it right. I hadn’t wanted to, but that’s why Mr. Cooper had stuck him with me. To learn. Me leaving would be good, for both of our sakes. There were only a couple things left the rest of the day that needed to be done.
I could be a mature, reasonable person and put the day behind me.
I was loved. I had a good job. I had everything I needed. I’d had a decent date the night before, but I had another one coming up.
Every day was a new day that gave you the opportunity to have your entire life ahead of you.
And that was what I was going to keep telling myself.
* * *
“What do you mean you’re leaving?”
I tried to control my temper—a temper that I didn’t normally have unless it was provoked, a temper that this guy seemed to stoke like a snake charmer, like it was his superpower, while my superpower was that I was easygoing and didn’t get mad that often.
But I guess even Superman had his kryptonite.
Mine was a coworker with an attitude problem who had cheated on my sister. An attitude problem that I had unfortunately noticed mostly only flared up in my company.
That seemed to be a running theme throughout my life for some reason that I wasn’t about to focus on.
“I’m going with Rip to pick out paint,” I said again as I unlocked the cabinet in the desk that held my purse. I’d only started doing that since Jason and I had gotten stuck with each other. I didn’t trust him to not eat the snacks I kept in there or rub my toothbrush along a toilet rim if he had the chance. The booth was mine. I wasn’t sure what I would end up doing if they tried to put him with me permanently, like I had been Mack’s assistant for years, but I’d make sure it didn’t happen.
Somehow.
“Why?” he had the nerve to ask, like the last time we’d exchanged words, I hadn’t wanted to strangle him.
Did I need to give him an answer? No, but I did anyway. “Because he asked me to,” I responded as I locked the cabinet back up. He didn’t need to know that I had tried to get out of it.
“But now I’m stuck here doing your work,” Jason complained, like he wasn’t paid to do just that. He’d been acting like an abused puppy since yesterday. All meek and whiney, but not in a cute or likable way.
I made sure my back was to him as I made a face that couldn’t hide how much he was getting on my nerves. “Going with him is part of my job. You also get paid hourly, so you’d either be in the booth or out there helping out the other guys. If you would rather go back out there, go tell Mr. Cooper. He won’t force you to do something you don’t want to do,” I told him, not able to totally hide my irritation.
But man, I hoped, I hoped, I hoped, I hoped he would go tell Mr. Cooper he wanted out.
If he wasn’t out of here by the time my birthday came around, I knew exactly what I was going to ask for.
There was a moment of silence and then, “I can go with him.”
Oh, boy.
I was choosing happiness and patience.
I was choosing happiness and patience.
I was choosing happiness and patience.
So I bit my cheek. “Ask Rip. I’ll stay if he’s fine with you going.” I mean, I was going to get paid anyway. I didn’t care if I’d end up staying instead of him.
Then again, I was also 99 percent sure Rip wouldn’t say yes even if Jason had the balls to invite himself. I had seen the way he took him in, and I’d bet he’d heard him complain enough on the floor to know what he was like. After yesterday, he had firsthand experience of the mess that was this turd.
I hoped that, if he hadn’t already, he would eventually chew him out. Or even fire him. I had been more than a little disappointed he hadn’t yesterday.
The lack of response he gave settled that he either saw the point I wasn’t making or understood that maybe he shouldn’t try and change the boss’s mind.
“Can’t you ask for me?”
“No, she can’t, and you’re not coming,” came a voice we both recognized.
A voice that startled both of us, because somehow we’d both missed the door opening. Missed getting eavesdropped on. But only one of us was embarrassed by it, and that person wasn’t me.
“Luna’s going with me,” Rip confirmed, sounding bored.
Fortunately, unlike with his conversations with me, Jason managed to actually shut his mouth and not argue or beg or be a passive-aggressive jerk. His head had snapped over to Rip’s direction the second we’d heard him speak up, but at our boss’s decision, he dropped it.
Sucker.
But had Rip given him a hard time yesterday after giving me one? I wondered.
“You ready?�
�� that deep voice asked.
I nodded, gripping the strap of my purse tight.
He stood there, holding the door open.
I didn’t say anything to Jason as I walked by him, but I did smirk.
Like usual, neither one of us said a word on the way out of CCC. Rip didn’t ask if my sister had called to check in with me—she hadn’t—and he didn’t comment about anything else this past weekend, which all worked for me. The only words out of my mouth on the way over were the instructions on how to get to the business, which wasn’t far, but it was still a nice twenty-minute ride away in Houston traffic. It wasn’t until we were only a couple minutes away that I asked Rip what he had in mind.
Because I wasn’t going to give him the idea that he’d hurt my feelings. Staying quiet would do just that. Fortunately, it worked.
The problem was, he didn’t have anything in mind. He wanted to look and see what could be mixed for him in person. Fine by me. We had never gone to the store together, but there was a first time for everything, from the looks of it. I enjoyed going to pick up paint. It was one thing I didn’t mind leaving the booth for, even though most of the time it got dropped off in our weekly deliveries.
Rip parked his truck in the nearly empty lot and we both got out. I was busy thinking about what colors he might be interested in—trying not to think about the day before too, if I was going to be honest—that I just barely managed to tell him “thank you” when he held the door open for me.
Once we were both inside, I finally asked, “Are you feeling a light or a dark color?”
His eyes seemed to scan the shop, and I had to ask myself if he’d ever actually been here, period. I didn’t think so. He usually just chose colors from samples. It was Mr. Cooper who had come with me in the past if he wanted something custom, but even then, that was rare. Custom paints were a lot more expensive than the thousands of options you could choose directly from a catalogue, but sometimes with certain types of cars they bought, it was worth doing something really custom. The two cars he had bought at the auction were totally worth it, so I didn’t blame him for wanting to do something original.
Luna and the Lie Page 24