I would remember what he said for a very, very long time.
“I forgive you, Rip, I really do. I can’t imagine the stress you were under, and I appreciate that you feel bad for what you said. You had no idea I couldn’t care less that you knew what I did before I told you. But I never thought you would tell me to leave you alone. That you would push me away, and that’s what hurt me. Because I grew up being told to leave people alone. I want you to be happy, and I want to be happy too. And none of this lately has been doing that. It just makes me sad. So I think we’re better off just keeping things the way they always should have been. Like you’re my boss, and I paint your cars for you, and that’s it.”
Chapter 28
The next morning, I dropped my bags—filled with my food, my phone, and all my extra crap I brought with me every day—on the floor right by the door.
Because sitting there at seven in the morning, on top of my desk in a small glass jar, with a white ribbon wrapped around the stem, was a bright orange rose.
Just… sitting there.
Just waiting.
For me?
There was only one person in the building who could have put it there.
There wasn’t a doubt in my mind.
He’d upped his game from bringing me donuts to… a flower. A flower that made my throat tighten up even as I told myself that I knew why he’d done it.
Because of the guilt.
The first flower anyone had ever bought me was because of guilt.
I had to let out a deep breath at that.
I had told him—hadn’t I told him?—that I wanted to go back to us being what we should have been from the beginning?
I had told him. And here he was making things complicated, giving my brain ideas that I had to throw in the trash before I thought about them. Here he was just… messing with me. Trying to pull me into a place that I didn’t want to be anywhere close to anymore.
I should have let it go, or should have pretended I didn’t see it, but…
I didn’t do that.
I was tired. And worn out. And just… freaking tired.
Just like I dropped my stuff, I left it there and walked right back out of my room. One foot in front of the other. One step in front of the other. Taking me closer and closer. I barely cleared the hallway into the main part of the building when I spotted Rip standing by the tool chest, rifling through the drawers.
I wasn’t sure why my heart started picking up speed, but it did. With each step, it got faster and faster, despite my brain telling it that it needed to calm down. It meant nothing.
It was a nice, but forced and completely unnecessary, gesture.
And I didn’t want him to waste his time doing it again.
“Mr. Ripley,” I called out, knowing I shouldn’t after our conversation yesterday, but also not backing down from the promise I had made myself.
He glanced up immediately, shooting me that laser-like gaze. Today, he had on a navy blue compression shirt, and his coveralls were already on. The thing that caught me off guard was the fact that he didn’t look annoyed at me calling him the m-word. What he did look was too calm. Way too easygoing.
Even though I was positive enough he’d left the flower, I was going to punish myself by asking anyway. “Did you leave that rose in my room?”
He straightened from where he’d been slightly bent over the tool chest. His expression stayed that eerie calm one. He answered in the way I knew he would: directly. “Yeah.”
Yeah.
My heart went even faster, but I ignored it. It wasn’t like this was news. Who the hell else would it have been?
I held my breath. Leave me alone. “Thank you, but you didn’t have to. I told you yesterday—”
“I didn’t forget,” he cut me off.
Hell. “But you don’t have to feel guilty or try to make anything up to me—”
“I’m not trying to make anything up to you,” he butted in again.
That got me to stop talking. Because… why else would he do it? For the hell of it? He suddenly wanted to buy someone a rose, and I just happened to be the only woman he could get one for?
He slammed the drawer closed with his hip. “You liked it?”
Did I like it? Why the hell wasn’t my heart slowing down any? “Yes,” I told him truthfully. “It’s beautiful, but you don’t have to—”
“Good,” he cut me off for the third time.
Oh, man. “Mr. Ripley—”
“Rip.”
We weren’t going there. “Please don’t buy me anything anymore.”
His grunt wasn’t what I would ever call convincing.
“There’s nothing to feel bad about,” I kept going.
He just grunted again, but he kept looking at me, kept that expression on his face too. The one I didn’t know what it meant.
“I need to get started on my day, but all I wanted to do was thank you and tell you that you didn’t have to,” I said.
Ripley’s gaze seemed to shift over my face before settling on my ears. He was looking at my heart earrings. I just knew it.
I gave him a tight smile I was well aware he would know was fake, but oh well. Just as I turned around to head back to my room to start my day like I had said, the man called out behind me.
“What time are you leaving today?”
I stopped but didn’t turn around to look at him. Leave me alone. “The latest I can stay tonight is six. I have plans.” And by plans, I meant a date. With a total stranger.
I didn’t miss how he didn’t explain why he was asking.
But honestly, I went back to my room so fast, I didn’t get a chance to wonder why any longer than I had to.
*
I knew it had been an extra dumb idea to show up to the bar when the second question my date asked was “How old are you?”
He was a decent-looking guy.
My date leaned back in his chair and muttered, “Huh,” his expression funny after I told him.
Something about it didn’t sit right with me, that or I was just picking up on things I should have let go. “Why?”
“Thought you were younger,” the man had the balls to respond with.
I raised my eyebrows, positive I definitely wasn’t liking where this was going, but… I could give him the benefit of the doubt. As much as I had been telling myself I was fine, I hadn’t been. Not really. “What? Am I too old?” I tried to joke.
He shrugged.
Shrugged?
Was he for real?
The partial smile I had on my face just fell right off. “How old are you?”
He was still watching me a little too closely as he said, “Thirty-four.”
Thirty-four? Thirty-four and I was too old?
“You look younger than twenty-six though.”
“Oh.” I hoped I sounded as sarcastic as I felt. “Thanks?” Man, I was grumpy. I wasn’t sure I’d ever been so grouchy before.
His eyes slid around the bar for a moment before coming back to me, looking me over like… well, I wasn’t sure what, but I didn’t like it.
“So,” I tried grasping for straws at that point because all I wanted was to go home. All I had to do was text Lenny a message that said RED and she’d call and save me. The second that option filtered through my brain, I reminded myself that I was supposed to be trying. I had to try. I had to want someone else to buy me flowers, and not because they’d hurt my feelings. “Have you been married before?” I asked him.
The man snickered, his gaze moving around the room again. “For about a minute ten years ago. Dumbest mistake of my life. You?”
I shook my head, not sure how to take his comment about it being a mistake.
“Thank God,” he mumbled, making a face as he said it like there would have been something wrong with me being divorced.
I opened my mouth just as the chair beside mine got dragged backward. My hands stopped, and I looked over, wondering who was taking the chair without asking, when my eyes zeroed in on the knuckles holding onto the back of the seat. I might have been able to recognize his fingers even if l
etters on knuckles wasn’t something everyone had.