Luna and the Lie

by Zapata, Mariana

  And I was sitting in my car, about to go on a date I wanted no part of.

  But…

  I couldn’t find it in me to just be a no-show. Getting stood up wasn’t nice, and neither was telling some innocent person sorry, bud, I’m in love with someone else. But I could live with the latter a lot easier than the first. That was for sure. It was the least I could do. If I could have cancelled without calling Kyra, I would have, but I hadn’t had it in me to do it. The text messages we had sent each other to set up the date had been awkward and painful enough.

  In and out. I’d get this over with as quickly as possible. Then I could go home and figure out exactly what I would tell Rip. I love you and please don’t hurt me didn’t sound good enough.

  It was with that decision in mind that I got out of my car and slammed it shut behind me. I flashed my license at the bouncer as a formality, because we both knew he’d seen it before. Then I headed into the bar where I had met the other guys I had gone on dates with, dates that hadn’t gone anywhere.

  For a reason.

  Who was I kidding? Of course it had been for a reason. Because none of them were built like wrestlers, with a dry sense of humor and a bland look better than any scowl.

  Inside, I looked around the half-filled room for a guy with long black hair…

  I didn’t need to glance at my phone to know I was a few minutes early. Maybe he was running late? If he was, how long was an acceptable amount of time to wait before I left? Three minutes? Five?

  Spotting a table closer to the back, I beelined for it, still looking around at the crowd to make sure the man that Kyra had sent me a picture of back then wasn’t sitting in some dark corner where I couldn’t find him. He was thirty-two and worked on an oil rig. That’s why we’d had to wait a month to meet. I glanced at my phone again as I took a seat.

  Sitting back in the chair, I kept looking around the room, hoping he’d magically appear so I could tell him to his face thank you but no thank you.

  The door opened just as that thought had entered my brain. Coming in, already looking around, was a man too blonde to be the one I was meeting up with. He was tall, lean, and… not Rip.

  He was not Rip.

  He was too young. Too slim.

  But mostly, he wasn’t the man who ran his hands through my hair when I was upset and listened.

  The guy was everything that would have been exactly my type four years ago.

  Before a six-foot-four man with a chest twice the size of this guy’s, with forearms that rippled with muscle, a thick neck, and a lower body that should have inspired sculpture makers into recreating it, strolled into my life.

  Screw it. I was going to hide in the bathroom.

  The thought had barely occurred to me when a man sitting at the bar turned in his stool and stood up.

  I realized I knew that body. That head shape. I knew that height.

  And as the familiar body turned and started heading in the direction of where I was sitting, I stayed there. The lights hid a lot of the nicest bits of him, but I knew who it was. I would always know who he was.

  And he had a pissed-off look on his face.

  What the hell was he doing here? How did he know…

  He didn’t say a word as he pulled out the seat opposite of the one I was in and slid into it. In the dark, I couldn’t see those amazing teal-colored eyes, but I could tell where they were focused. I could see the slant of his eyebrows.

  Yep. He was definitely pissed.

  And honestly, I had definitely never been less pissed.

  Never.

  He was here. Here.

  “What are you doing?” I asked him, feeling the tension in my stomach unraveling slowly.

  He planted his elbows on the table between us and crossed his arms as he answered, “You know what I’m here for.”

  I held my breath, and then I lied… hope and love blooming inside of me so quickly I couldn’t help but want to mess with this man. “No, I don’t.”

  His voice was a low, low growl of, “Yeah, you do.”

  “You’re making sure I don’t get kidnapped again?” I deadpanned as seriously as possible. Why did this feel like the easiest thing in the world now? Messing with him? Giving him crap? “Or are you stalking me now?

  He blinked. Then he took a deep breath… and his cheek went up a millimeter in the blink of an eye. “Not funny, Luna.”

  I couldn’t help the smile that instantly came over my face as I spoke again, not letting this go, not planning on ever letting this go. “I don’t need a babysitter, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  That cheek went up another millimeter. “You’re right there, baby girl. You don’t need a babysitter. ’Specially not when the dumbass you’re meeting up with didn’t look old enough for you.”

  I processed his words… but then processed them right back out and focused only on the important part. “When did you see him?”

  He smiled at me. “Before you showed up.”

  I didn’t need to glance around the bar to make sure the man still wasn’t hanging around. I knew he wasn’t. How he even knew who to look for was beyond me, but it didn’t matter. Not even a little bit. I also had a feeling I knew exactly what had happened, but I needed to make sure. I tipped my head closer to him. “Where did he go?”

  He shrugged a rounded shoulder. “Somewhere not here.”

  Uh.

  “I told him to get the fuck out,” he kept going unapologetically. “Told him you weren’t going to be meeting him tonight or any other night, and he might as well go hit up someone else’s girl because he wasn’t getting mine.”

  My heart shouldn’t have started racing at him referring to me as his. It shouldn’t. I knew that. I definitely shouldn’t have gotten goose bumps all over my arms and back.

  But that was exactly what happened.

  I let the thrill go through me before I decided that messing with him was too much fun. Messing with him would always be too much fun. “Rip, you had no right to do that—”

  “I had every right to.”

  He could say those words to me every day for the rest of my life and they wouldn’t get old.

  He proved it when he leaned forward and slid me the most heated look I might ever see in my life. “Yeah, I did, Luna. You wanna go out to eat? I’ll take you. You wanna go out and get a Sprite? Tell me. You want to watch a fucking movie? I’ll take you to the goddamn movies. If you want to go to beat the shit out of your cousin again, I’ll fucking take you. You want to meet someone to be your best friend and your fucking partner? I’m right fucking here, baby girl.”

  Oh hell.

  Oh freaking hell.

  “How many times I gotta tell you I just like being around you?” he asked, his voice lowering as his gaze roamed over what was my stupefied face. Because what other face could I have when the man I’d liked for years was running off my dates and sitting here telling me he’d take me on any dates I wanted to go on?

  None. There was no other face.

  “I can do this same thing a hundred times, Luna, this running off your dates thing, but it’s never gonna happen. I’ll tell you right now, I’m not going to have a problem telling them off. I’ve got into a lot of fucking fights in my life, and I’m starting to think it was all to get me ready for you,” he threatened.

  I sucked in a breath and just sat there, looking at him, feeling overjoyed and terrified equally. Wanting this more than I wanted anything, but still…

  “What if you change your mind? I’ll have to find another job because I won’t be able to look at you. I can barely look at you now,” I admitted to him, this low-level feeling that might have been terror, but was more than likely adrenaline, running through my veins steadily.

  This beautiful man gave me the most earnest expression I had ever seen. “Luna, why the hell would I do something that stupid?”

  I fisted my hand. “You don’t—you’ve never even had a girlfriend.”

  “So? Want me t
o lie and tell you I’ve had a couple dozen? Or you good with knowing it’ll only be you?”

  Well.

  Hell.

  “You’re too young. You’re too sweet. You’re too good for me. But I’m done standing around trying to suck up all the goodness you make me feel without you even knowing, Luna. You are my girl. Just you. Nobody else ever has or will be.”

  I sucked in a breath and lifted my face to look at his. “I am?”

  He nodded, his expression something different than any other I’d ever seen before.

  “Really?”

  “Really,” he agreed, his smile soft and almost shy.

  I bit my bottom lip and couldn’t help but wring my hands as he centered on me so intensely it made me want to hold my breath. You only miss all the shots you don’t take, Lenny had said. I had always told myself that nothing and no one scared me because I had seen the worst in people.

  But I had also seen the best, hadn’t I?

  “You know everything that matters, Luna. Only thing you don’t is what happened with the cops that day you lied for me. I was with Gio, and he fucked up his sister’s boyfriend because he hit her. I didn’t do shit, but I was there. His family did the same for him. That’s why they came. They needed somebody to try and blame, but I swear I didn’t do shit.”

  There it was, and it was exactly the kind of thing I might have expected if I’d thought about it. “I know, Rip. I don’t know how I knew, but I did.”

  Those eyes penetrated mine as he said, so carefully, “You wanna know something else, all you gotta do is ask, and I’ll tell you. I’ve already warned you about the rest and you’re still here.”

  He made it seem so easy. Could it be that easy?

  “Rip?” I asked him carefully, my apprehension disappearing by the second.

  “Yeah?”

  I swallowed and made myself look him in those blue-green eyes. “Do you like me, or is it more than that?”

  He took a deep breath before responding. “Get out of here with me and I’ll tell you.”

  * * *

  The ride back to his place didn’t take long at all considering the unending traffic even in the evening.

  Rip had offered to drive us over to his home, but I hadn’t wanted to leave my car in the bar’s lot, so I followed behind, watching the road as we turned onto a sleepy street in north Houston with spaced-out single-story homes and driveways filled with cars.

  When Rip turned his truck into an open graveled lot, with a new-ish rectangular home settled right smack in the middle of it, I knew this was where he lived. I parked my car behind his truck, watching as he got out and headed over, pulling mine open too before I really made much of an effort to beat him.

  Rip gave me that one-cheek smile with a dimple in it as he took my hand and led me out, slamming the door shut.

  “You made it seem like you lived in a dump,” I accused him.

  “It’s no pretty purple house,” he tried to explain as he fiddled with his keys.

  I took in the extended sides and length of his home. “Rip, I bet this thing cost almost as much as my house.”

  He shrugged, giving my hand a squeeze as he slipped a key into the lock and turned it. “It’s still no pretty purple house.”

  He was obviously never going to agree, even though I was right.

  But in that moment, I couldn’t find it in me to argue with him over it. That was because… because… connected to the same keychain his house key was on, something dangled from it. Something that looked like an ice cream cone charm. An ice cream cone charm that I’d had on a necklace. A necklace that I had put on him after the car accident.

  He’d kept it? He’d put it on his keychain?

  I was a goner. I was such a goner that no one was ever going to find me again. Ever. It took everything in me to keep my mouth closed. To save the moment for later, since there seemed like there might be a later between us. I hoped.

  He shoved the door open, leading me up the metal steps as he fiddled with a light switch on the wall closest to him.

  Light blazed on inside the trailer just as

  he pulled me in, closing a screen door and a heavier one as I took in the inside of his home.

  I hadn’t been wrong when I told him his place had to be as expensive as mine. It was nice. Patterned tan and rich brown colors were used as the upholstery of two big, comfortable recliners to the right of the entrance. To the side was a table that could sit four. His kitchen, to the left, was way nicer than mine. The appliances were new and shiny, and there was a four-burner stove with an oven and a microwave. He had a nice kitchen island with storage beneath it. If my eyes didn’t deceive me, there were a handful of old-looking cookbooks under there, too. I wondered if they had been his mom’s and couldn’t help but hope he’d tell me someday. He even had a nice fifty-something-inch television on the wall beside a door that had to lead somewhere. The bedrooms? Bathroom? I didn’t know.

  And it was clean.

  Really clean.

  “Are you always this clean?” I croaked, still soaking it all up.

  His laugh was warm and rich and so natural, I had no defense for it. It slid underneath my ribs and settled right over my heart. “Not messy, but I might’ve been taking extra care the last few weeks in case you came over.”

  I sucked in a breath and looked up at him standing right beside me, watching me even then. “Not for every girl you bring over?” I made myself ask.

  He shook his head and fully turned to face me, his hand coming up and sliding across my throat, palming it. Those teal-colored eyes didn’t stray from mine for even a second as he breathed, “I told you I bought this after I moved here.”

  “I know.” Did my voice have to sound so small? “It’s none of my business if you have—”

  “Nuh-uh,” he said, still shaking his head.

  I blinked. “But that was three years ago.”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “But you didn’t even like me.”

  “Oh, I liked you just fine, baby. I’ve always liked you just fine.”

  Yep, I was a goner. “But you were mean to me.”

  His smile was slow. “I was tough on you, not mean, and that shit ate me up for hours and days after.”

  It had? “You could have always been sweet.”

  “I thought I was too old for you. Thought I’d done too many shitty things in my life to have you in it, Luna,” he explained softly. “I didn’t want to care about you, and I fought that shit as long as I could.”

  “Because of the bad things you think you’ve done?”

  His face softened. “Because of the bad things I know I’ve done,” he confirmed, and that too snuck under my ribs.

  I knew all about the guilt that came with doing things that you weren’t proud of. Necessary evils. Unnecessary ones too.

  I took a step closer to him, my breasts brushing just across his chest. I felt his hand slip around my back to land on the small of it, pulling me in even more. “But what if I would’ve started dating someone?”

  Rip tipped his head closer to mine, bringing his mouth just inches from me. “I would’ve made sure there hadn’t been a second date, baby girl. I know you went on seven of them until this bullshit recently. I know you went to dinner on three, to the movies on two, a baseball game on one, and Mickey’s on another. I listened. I know. I was there the night you got your place broken into. I just wanted to make sure you were all right.”

  That was true. That was all true. “How’d you know that?”

  I’d swear I could already feel his lips on mine. “I listen, I told you.”

  “What else have you heard?”

  “Everything.” His head moved, his mouth brushing my throat so lightly it was the best tickle of my life.

  And just as soon as he brushed his pink lips over me, he pulled back.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked him, trying to smile so he would know I was happy… and I hoped he was too.

  One of those b
ig hands went up to the top of his head and he scrubbed it back and forth across the top, still watching me with these eyes that said a dozen different emotions. The only one I could focus on was that uncertain one though.

  “What is it?” I asked him, still holding on to my smile. At least until it hit me. Maybe… “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”

  He blinked those long eyelashes, and I couldn’t miss the way his eyes just kind of sort of squinted at me. “Baby girl, that’s not it at all.”

  “What is it?”

  But he still looked off. His hand came up and moved across his chest, from one massively rounded pec to the other and then going up to the base of his throat, where his fingers curled into the material of his compression shirt and he peeled it away from his neck maybe an inch. “I should tell you something first.”

  Oh, no. “There’s something wrong with your…?” I dipped my eyes toward the lower half of his body.

  That got me a blink. “Excuse me?”

  All right, maybe that wasn’t it. “You have three nipples? Because that wouldn’t be a big deal. I’ve got stretch marks if you—Why are you looking at me like that?”

  Because he was looking at me weird. He really was. “I couldn’t give less of a fuck about you having some marks, and I don’t have three nipples.”

  I wasn’t surprised that my hands were steady as I set them on his hips, feeling the warmth of his body through his shirt. “What is it then?”

  His hand tugged at his shirt again, drawing my gaze down to the inch of tattooed skin I could see… and then it finally settled in my brain.

  Ohhh.

  “You have a girl’s name tattooed on you?”

  That had him rolling his eyes. “Let me tell you, yeah?”

  I widened my eyes, watching as he gave his shirt another tug at the collar.

  “I’ve got some tattoos…”

  “I know. I’ve seen some of them.”

  He shot me a look as he scrubbed at his head again. “Luna, I gotta tell you before I show you, all right?”

  I nodded.

  “I told you what I did with about twenty years of my life.”

  I nodded because he had. How could I forget he’d been in a freaking motorcycle gang… club… whatever it was called?