“So then, you don’t have to keep buying them, okay? I told you already, I’m over what happened, if that’s why you’re doing it.”
Now that had him straightening, his head just barely missing the hood of the Corvette.
“You can stop. I get that you’re trying to make it up to me, but you’ve done enough. It’s just messing with my head and confusing me, and I would rather you stop now than stop a month from now or six months from now or a year from now when you decide you don’t want to do it anymore, okay?”
That had him turning around slowly to meet me. He waited until he was fully facing me, that giant body tuned into mine, as he said, “I’m not trying to make anything up to you. I told you that already.” He set down the wrench in his hand and took a deep breath, watching me closely. “I’m getting you flowers because I want to. Because you said nobody has ever given them to you, and I’m not about to let anyone else do it. This isn’t some boss shit, baby. This doesn’t have shit to do with Cooper’s. This is Luna and Rip. This is me trying to get you to give me a chance. Understand me?”
Oh hell. He was being serious. Luna and Rip.
He was trying to… what? Win me over? I wasn’t being delusional. Just stubborn. And scared.
You only miss the shots you don’t take, Lenny had texted me. Was that what I was doing? Not wanting to take a shot because I didn’t want to miss? Was it so bad to want to protect myself from getting hurt?
I wasn’t sure, but some part of me must have been because I asked, “You’re not?”
His smile grew slowly. “No, baby, I’m sure as hell not.”
“Why?” I asked him as slowly as his smile had grown.
“Because.”
My heart was beating fast. When did it start beating so fast? Damn it. “You don’t get to just decide all of a sudden you want me to… to…” What was I going to say? Have a crush on him? I had no experience on how to talk to people, men specifically, without sounding worse than a teenager. “You don’t get to decide all of a sudden that you want me to like you—”
“This isn’t me wanting you to like me. That’s not what I want. That’s the smallest part of what I want, Luna.”
For some stupid reason, I took a step back and bumped into the car right beside the Corvette. “What do you want then?”
Rip took a step forward, and then his hand came up toward my face. The backs of his fingers grazed my cheek… and they stayed there, just touching my skin, just barely. “I want what I should’ve been taking from you from the moment you started being sugar sweet to me. From the first time you went out of your way to make me feel good... made me feel better than anyone has for the first time in a long fucking time.”
He licked his lips, and I watched every second of it as his hand stayed exactly where it was. On my cheek.
His fingers trailed down my jaw and lingered on the side of my neck. “You calm me. You know that? You do to me what all that jewelry you wear does for you. Just looking at you makes me feel better. And not just fucking better but better. Different. Like you look right through me and my bullshit and you know what’s in there better than I do.”
I stood there with my mouth open, not knowing what to say.
“Lady at the flower store said orange means admiration.”
My brain and nervous system decided all I was going to be capable of doing right then was blinking and, even then, that seemed almost like too much for me to handle.
Because… excuse me?
“Pink’s happiness… gratitude… appreciation. Those purples are desire… love at first sight… Yellow is affection. Red is love. I owe you a couple of white ones, but I was going to wait a while more because I know I fucked up.” He dropped his hand. “But I’m not going anywhere. Not today. Not tomorrow. I thought you were the most beautiful fucking girl I’d ever seen when you walked into that tiny-ass office three years ago being all cocky and shit. And I think about that girl every single night as I go to bed, Luna. I know I’ve walked away from some shit in my life, but the last thing I want… last thing I could handle is going through you not talking to me anymore. You spoiled me, Luna, and I know I’ve been a real piece of shit a lot. I know you deserve better than somebody like me. I’ve told myself that a thousand times but it hasn’t changed a single thing. I fucking miss you, and my greedy ass needs you around.”
Chapter 30
“What’s that troubled look on your face for, little moon?” Mr. Cooper asked later that day.
Sitting across from him at his dinner table, I took a second to finish chewing the lightly seasoned chicken breast that Lydia had made that night. The same piece of chicken breast that I had more than likely been chewing for the last two minutes while I’d been busy thinking about the first part of the day. Specifically, the part of the day that involved my interactions with Ripley.
The part where he told me he wanted me in his life in a way that had nothing to do with work.
That entire conversation that had left my heart pounding, my brain confused, and my entire existence uprooted.
That was what I’d been thinking about all day. Even right then, while I ate with the Coopers and spent time with them… until my date in two hours.
My date.
What the hell was I doing?
“Problems at work? Ripley said Jason never came back,” Mr. Cooper kept picking, his face genuinely concerned, which pulled at my heart.
Finally swallowing the chicken, I shook my head, not sure what I should say. Sir, your estranged son of twenty years that was in a motorcycle club says he needs me. I love him, but I’m scared he’ll change his mind and won’t care about me someday, or he’ll tell me to leave him alone again.
That wasn’t going to happen.
“Yeah, he never came back. He probably knew the guys would kick his butt if he did,” I told him with a smile that was mostly genuine, at least beneath the confusion screwing up the rest of me into Gordian knots.
That had Mr. Cooper grinning. “Doesn’t surprise me. I’m too old to be fighting with boys young enough to be my grandchildren, but I have to say, I would’ve put a world of hurt on that boy if I were ten years younger. Gus”—he was referring to Lenny’s grandpa—“called me after he found out what happened and tried to talk me into doing something about it.”
The smile I gave him that time was totally genuine. I could already imagine Grandpa Gus’s crazy self wanting to do something about it. He hadn’t gotten the memo he was in his seventies.
“What is it then, honey?” Lydia asked from her spot across the dining room table from me.
It comforted me. They comforted me. Living with them had been the first time ever I’d sat around a dining room table to eat. We had done it every night after work unless we all went out to eat, or they went out and I stayed at the house. It had been one of my favorite things about living with them. The sense of family.
It had made me want that for my own someday.
They deserved more than me keeping things from them, even if those things revolved around a man who they both had strained relationships with. But I guess life was just one big complication any way you looked at it.
Life wasn’t easy or black and white.
And I really did need to tell them the truth.
Because if Rip wasn’t lying….
“It’s…,” I started to say before lowering my fork and knife to the plate. “It’s Rip.”
Both of them blinked and stayed very, very still.
“Did he finally decide to get his head out of his ass?” Mr. Cooper asked with a wary smile after a moment.
“What?”
He repeated himself. “Did he finally get his head out of his ass and tell you to save those dates for him?”
My mouth gaped open, and I was really, really glad that I had set down the knife and fork. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the cautious little smile on Lydia’s face as she bent toward her food and started cutting her chicken while Mr. Cooper and I made eye contact.