From the way his body loosened, muscle by muscle, I figured he did too.
So I kept scratching.
Slowly but surely, that big body relaxed against mine, not totally, but it was something.
“You okay?” I asked when the only movement I felt come out of him were deep, deep breaths.
Part of me expected him to snap at me, to shove me off his lap, to tell me to fuck off.
But none of that happened.
One of the arms he’d had at his sides came up and his hand settled at my hip, giving it a light squeeze. His forehead dropped to that spot where my shoulder met my neck, and I could feel his soft puffs of breathing on my collarbones and chest. His hand squeezed my hip again. And my heart… it didn’t know what to do.
“Tell me what you need,” I asked him.
He shook his head against me.
It was the sound of footsteps coming that had me glancing over my shoulder to see a police officer walking around the cars, heading straight for us.
Rip must have too because he tensed. Everywhere. From the thigh under me to the bulk up against my chest, Rip became granite. I took a sniff that told me he smelled lightly of a clean-scented soap and the crispness of a sporty deodorant.
“Nothing hurts?” I whispered the question.
Rip shook his head again.
“I’m sorry about your truck.”
“It’s just a truck,” he replied quietly, surprising me. The weight at my hip moved up until his fingers spanned around my lower ribcage, his fingers molding themselves around my bones.
“The cop is coming,” I warned him, letting my hand drag down his spine once more. I gave him one last hug before loosening my hold, beating him to it. I pulled back, his hand still on my ribs, and met his now bright blue-green eyes. I smiled at him, this knot in my chest forming when I thought about how pale he’d been. “You saved our freaking faces installing those seat belts, boss.”
The body under mine grew hard, but not in the same way it had a moment before. The hand on my rib didn’t move, and the arm connected to it didn’t loosen up either. Rip sat there, letting me stay on his thigh like we had done this a hundred times in the past—me sitting on his lap.
“I’m glad you’re okay and you’re not mad about your truck. I’ll help you fix it if we can.”
The hand on my ribs decided to give me my own squeeze.
He got the next words out of his mouth before the cop interrupted, quietly, gently, and more earnestly than I ever would have imagined. “I’m glad you’re good too, baby girl.”
Chapter 16
Lily had warned me I was going to be hurting. She had been in a car wreck two years ago. Her friend, the driver, had blown right through a stop sign and gotten T-boned. My little sister had gotten a face full of airbag, two black eyes and a swollen nose, but in all the ways that it mattered, she had been fine.
So when I had texted her the day before to tell her that I’d been in a wreck—because she would have found out somehow and I would have rather been the one to tell her than some other way—she had warned me. Before that, she had chewed me out for texting her something so serious. What happened? She had basically shrieked at me.
To give them credit, Kyra had texted me immediately afterward too, and Thea had sent me a message just an hour later. She didn’t bring up anything about the weekend, and I hadn’t had the heart to bring it up either.
But going back to Lily, she had said, It’s gonna hurt, sugar tits.
Yet I was still surprised when I woke up that morning and felt like what I’d imagined a person who had gotten run over would feel like. My neck hurt so bad I couldn’t turn my head in either direction. My shoulders ached. Honestly, everything hurt, even the spot right in the center of my chest where Rip’s hand had been.
It took me twice as long to shower and get dressed, twice as long to even go down the stairs, because I swore even my knees had taken a hit. I felt like a robot as I made my breakfast and thanked everything in the world that I’d made enough lunch to last for a few days, even if it wasn’t the tastiest thing I’d ever eaten.
Two painkillers later, I headed toward the door, grabbing the rest of my things and keys.
For one second, I thought about calling out of work. Mr. Cooper knew we had been in an accident. I had called him while the cop had talked to Rip to get his statement. He’d been the one to drive to where we were and pick us up. He had given me the biggest hug ever, giving me the opportunity to feel a faint tremor that shot through his body.
I had seen the long, long look he had cast Rip’s way, as the man made it a point not to look at Mr. Cooper once while I had been around. His eyes had been trained on the tow truck that would be taking his pickup to the shop.
Afterward, the older man had dropped me off at my house and sworn to have someone drop off my car later, giving me another hug and telling me he was glad I was fine after walking me to the door.
But as soon as I thought about calling out, I told myself no.
I wasn’t dying. There was nothing I could do at home to make it worth staying. If I had to go slower, no one would complain.
Except Jason, but I wasn’t going to waste my time or patience on him. Today was not the day for him to give me a hard time. Not with his two strikes. I opened my front door and took a step out, only to stop dead in my freaking tracks. Because parked in my driveway, behind my car, was a brand-new black double-cab pickup truck.
Sitting clearly in the driver’s seat was Rip.
I blinked. Then I blinked some more, making sure my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me.
I mean, I knew I wasn’t imagining things. This wasn’t some déjà vu, I’m-in-an-oasis-seeing-a-mirage moment. This was real.
Rip was in my driveway.
Fortunately, I managed to keep it together enough to lock my front door and make my way down the steps, eyeing my car sitting there after one of my coworkers had dropped it off about an hour after Mr. Cooper had walked me to my front door. Rip was already watching me as I headed toward him, and I couldn’t help but feel even more surprised when the doors were unlocked, and instead of the window being rolled down, he leaned across the seats and shoved the door open.
I wasn’t sure why I smiled exactly, but I did and I said, “Morning.” Only barely not asking what are you doing here?
Rip, who had sleek black sunglasses on, tipped his head to the side away from me. “Get in, Luna.”
Get in. Not good morning. Not I’m here to pick you up or anything like that.
Just… get in.
I managed to stare at him for a second before snapping out of it and taking in the height of the pickup. It had a lift kit on it for sure. Tucked into the sides were retractable running boards to give passengers a boost. Black leather covered the passenger seat.
It was literally brand new.
And I just stood there.
Because Rip was in my driveway.
Again.
Because he wanted to make sure I got to work.
“Not that I’m not happy to see you, but whatcha doing here?” I threw the question out before I could stop myself, sure I was giving him a loopy smile.
“Here to get you,” he replied like it was obvious.
I didn’t need to point out that my car was right in front of the truck, but I still slid my eyes to the side anyway. Because yep, my car was definitely there. It hadn’t adapted camouflage technology randomly overnight.
Behind his glasses, my boss’s eyebrows rose slowly, and his question came out at the same speed, marked with a little more sarcasm than I knew what to do with. “Need a boost or not?”
He was my boss, and under no circumstance was I about to throw myself into his car like I was desperate.
“I can drive myself.”
Those thick, dark eyebrows stayed up, and that was definitely sarcasm in his tone. “Bet you can’t look over your shoulder,” he tried to dare me, surprising me even more.
Like the sucker I was
, I latched onto his unexpected playfulness anyway as I asked back, “But you can?”
“Uh-huh. I didn’t have time to tense up.” His eyebrows dropped, and he gestured me into the truck. “Get in, I’m giving you a ride to work, and we’re already running late.”
I guess I hadn’t thought about it in that light, but he did have a point. I couldn’t turn my head, not well enough to be a safe driver at least. And was I really going to be stubborn over not wanting a ride to work from the man who might have been a jerk to me two days ago but who I knew in my heart would have behaved the same way with any of the rest of my coworkers? The same man who had let me hug him and comfort him after he’d had some strange breakdown after the accident? A breakdown that I didn’t understand, but one I had thought about last night while I lay in bed and had only managed to come to one conclusion.
That wasn’t the first accident Ripley had been in.
I wasn’t going to ask what the first had been. I wanted to know, but I also knew that someone didn’t react the way he had for no reason.
I sighed but couldn’t hold back the smile on my face as I told him the truth. “I can’t raise my arm up over my head, boss. I can’t get in.” I started to raise my arm up so I could show him, only getting a few inches in before I had to stop with a groan. “Yeah, that’s not happening.” How I was supposed to work, I had no clue, but I’d figure it out.
The expression he gave me, a slight frown and a tiny head shake, said, “that’s what I thought.” But fortunately he didn’t rub it in my face as he touched a button somewhere by the steering wheel that had the running boards dropping into place. Then his door opened and he got out, circling around the front of the truck before I had a chance to realize what exactly was happening.
The next thing I knew, Rip was behind me and those big hands were high up on my thighs, just below my butt, and he was lifting me up. Not straining. Not grunting, nothing. Just a lift up until my feet were over the running board, and then, and only then, did he let me go.
I didn’t need help ducking into his car, barely suppressing a moan at the movement that shot pain around my neck. If Rip noticed, he didn’t make a comment as he let go and took a step back, slamming the door closed. In the time it took him to get back into the truck, I had run through all the reasons why this was happening.
Then I accepted there was only one reason that should matter, and we needed to get it sorted out as soon as possible.
I waited until he’d reversed out of my driveway and started heading toward the shop before I shifted my body into the corner of the seat to get a view at him that didn’t require me to turn my neck. He looked fine to me. And it was a navy shirt day.
“How bad’s your neck?”
Luckily, he wasn’t watching my face twist up into a grimace every time he drove over even a tiny pothole, because he would have known I was full of it. “Bad enough,” I told him, fighting the urge to reach up and try and massage my neck.
His nod was a slow tilt forward of his head.
That was when I knew I needed to strike. “Say, Rip?”
“What?”
What. I wasn’t sure why that amused me so much. “I’m all right, okay? My neck hurts and so does my shoulder, but it’ll go away. You don’t have to come get me from home because you feel guilty.”
He cut me off. “I don’t feel guilty.”
“Oh,” was the super smart thing out of me. Well. Okay. “All right then.”
Then I thought to myself liar, because why the hell else would he show up here to get me? Because he wanted to? Because we were friends and he cared about me? Nah. I flip-flopped almost daily on the signs he gave me that he might be a little fond of me. Then he would do something like what had happened on Monday and make me rethink it all.
“It was the other asshole’s fault,” Rip stated after a second. “I know you’re gonna be fine, just like I knew you’d come to work today even though you’ve gotta be in pain and probably won’t be able to work long before it gets too bad.”
I made a face to myself. “I can work the whole day.” I had worked with the flu before. I could survive a day with a little strain.
A little strain that had me hiding a groan when he went over a speed bump a little too fast.
One glance at his face had me wondering if he’d done it on purpose to prove a point.
Those teal-colored eyes slid toward me, and I’d swear one corner of his mouth went up a fraction of a millimeter. “I know.”
He had done it on purpose. I wasn’t sure how I knew, but I did. Fine. He didn’t want me to suck it up? I wouldn’t. What I would do was continue being a decent person. “I’m glad then that you don’t feel guilty, because there’s no reason for you to be. But I promise you didn’t need to come get me. I can drive myself.”
Rip waited so long to say “Luna?” that I half expected him to change the subject.
That didn’t happen.
“Yeah?”
“If I want to come get you, I’m gonna come get you. Deal with it,” he stated, or more like told me. “You wanna stop at that donut place you like or what?”
I jerked a little in place, telling myself to not take his first comment too seriously. “We can go to the donut place if you want.”
“All right.”
I faced forward again. “Okay.”
“Sure you’re not mad anymore?”
“I’m sure.”
He glanced at me. “Do you even know how to sulk?”
I gave him a little smile. “No, not really.”
I heard Rip take a breath before his voice filled the cab. “Luna?”
“Hmm?”
“My mom died in a car accident when I was eighteen. I was with her when it happened,” Rip said, making me freeze in place as his words settled in. “That’s why I… that’s what happened yesterday. Just wanted to say thanks for what you did.”
His mom had died in a car wreck? The mom who scratched his head and bought him ice cream to make him feel better?
Then he kept talking, and I didn’t know what to say. “Add that to our secrets, all right? Just thought you deserved to know.”
* * *
As much as I tried telling myself that I had made the right choice coming in to work, the truth was, it turned out to be a terrible decision.
I was in pain. Physical pain, if you wanted to be specific, that had nothing to do with the ache that Rip’s confession earlier had given me. The confession that I purposely wasn’t going to think about until I got home and could ponder it in private. I wasn’t sure I could handle thinking about Rip basically losing it after the accident because of a traumatic experience in his life.
So, later. Later I would think about it. For now, I was going to focus on how bad I physically hurt.
I had learned real quick that there was no such thing as looking over my shoulder or looking down. I had to turn my entire body one way or the other to do any of those things, and even then, I still hurt. I had murmured “fuck you” to myself when I’d bent over to tie my boots earlier. The pain must have been so apparent on my face that not even Jason gave me the slightest bit of a hard time. Either that or he knew I still wanted to kick his butt after my Monday incident with Rip.
The over-the-counter painkillers I’d taken hadn’t done a single freaking thing. By the time lunch came around, I had resigned myself to the idea of visiting the doctor to make sure I wasn’t ignoring a bigger issue.
I left Jason in the room as I headed down the hall with the intention of going up the stairs to eat my overcooked, total crap lo mein.
I almost ran into Miguel by the bathrooms when he burst out of the men’s room.
“You’re a damn ninja, Lu—” he started to say before cutting himself off with a blink and followed that up with a wince. “You look like hell.”
Well. “Thanks, Miguelito.”
He didn’t even crack a smile at my response. Instead, he looked me over in a way that someone would a turned-over trashcan
. “You okay? Mr. Coop said you were okay yesterday, but you look like you’re ready to die.”
Oh, Miguel. “Everything hurts,” I told him. “It’s making me a little nauseous.”
The wince turned into a grimace as he wrapped up his inspection by wrinkling his nose. “Looks like it.”
I couldn’t help but laugh, even as it sent sharp pain shooting up my neck and had me cutting myself off with a groan. “Oh, my God, don’t make me laugh.”
His disgust at my nausea instantly turned into concern. “Take something. For real. You look like shit.” He went thoughtful for a second before dropping his voice. “I know where there’s some vodka if you want to take the edge off.”
I only barely managed not to laugh but gave him a smile instead. “That’s okay. I might see if they’ll let me leave early and go to one of those urgent care places.”
My coworker patted my shoulder. “You know they will. But you know I know where the vodka is. You need a ride, tell me,” he offered. “I didn’t see your car in the lot. Mr. Coop will let me take you.”
I kept my face neutral. “Rip picked me up.”
“He doesn’t look like anything happened to him,” Miguel confirmed, back to watching me too carefully like he was expecting me to projectile vomit all over him suddenly. “The devil’s not taking him back.”
I shook my head. “Don’t be mean. But I’ll let you know about a ride to the doctor if I go.”
He gave me one last pat. “You feel like you’re gonna vomit, aim at Jason.”
I snickered as I ducked into the bathroom and quickly did my business, ignoring the ache that shot through my quads as I squatted to pee. Finishing up, I kept walking down the hallway.
“Luna!” Mr. Cooper’s familiar voice boomed from just up ahead, where he was standing just on the other side in the main room. There was a man I didn’t recognize beside him in jeans and a T-shirt.
I lifted my hand only about waist level and waved as I approached them. “Hi, Mr. C. Hello, other person.”
Luna and the Lie Page 27