Crouching down, I just stayed there, staring at the dark hole. The police would get here when they got here. I wasn’t going to go inside. Not alone.
My hands went up to my cheeks without thinking, wiping at my face slowly. I set my hand on my chest and for some reason thought about the necklace I had put on Rip. He still hadn’t given it back. Just as quickly as that thought came into my head, it slipped right back out as I focused on the front of my house again.
Everything would be fine.
It would.
Chapter 21
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 ha
d 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.
Luna and the Lie Page 34