While I might have told him everything a week ago… I didn’t want to do it then.
I looked forward and stopped myself from frowning. “My grandmother’s the only person I would still call family here, and I haven’t seen her in years. I just found out about the funeral on Monday right before I asked you to come with me.”
His eyebrows did that thoughtful thing again, and some more guilt filled my stomach.
Should I tell him? At least warn him? If I was in his position….
I should tell him. I had never been good at playing games. I had never liked other people playing games with me either. It was the right thing to do.
“Rip?“
“Hmm?”
I could do it.
“Look, I want you to know that I have people I’m related to that might be at the funeral and… things are complicated with them… and I asked you to come with me because you’re the biggest person I know, and I don’t think anybody would willingly mess with you, and I don’t think you’d let anyone mess with me too much if you were around, even if… you know… you didn’t think you owed me one…,” I rambled, trying to think of my words and not sure what the hell else to say that wouldn’t be me admitting just how much my family sucked.
I squeezed my fingers again. “My plan is to mind my own business, go to the funeral, and head back home. I just want you to know why we’re sitting by ourselves. I don’t want to talk to any of them if they are there,” I told him, leaving out the part that warned him that half the people in the room might end up looking at us like they wanted to kill me.
There. He couldn’t say I hadn’t warned him. That’s what I was going to tell myself at least.
The last thing I expected was the smirk-like quirking way the corner of his mouth went to the side.
Then I waited until he let out a sigh that wasn’t unhappy exactly because… because he was still doing that smirk thing.
“What?” I asked him slowly.
He was still making that facial expression when he said, “I didn’t think you invited me to go somewhere because you didn’t want to go alone.”
I pressed my lips together before grumbling in an almost-whisper, “But you thought I wanted you to pretend to be my boyfriend.”
That had that smirk of his going away real quick, and I definitely didn’t imagine the harshness in his voice when he replied, “No, I didn’t.”
I burst out freaking laughing, remembering, remembering him asking if we were going to pretend we were getting married.
Married. Me and Rip. Pssh.
Rip, on the other hand, decided to ignore me there in the seat beside him cracking up as he went back to the original topic. But nothing could hide the color on his cheeks or the way his spine went straighter after I’d started laughing. “I figured there was something else you wanted, all right? If it was something important, I figured you would’ve said something.”
And that had me shutting my mouth. Then it had me biting my cheek.
The sigh out of his mouth went straight to my heart. “I didn’t, and I don’t give a fuck what you want, Luna. If I could do it, I would.”
Because of the favor.
“I’m sorry—” I started, feeling guilty all over again, because no matter how much he might deny it, I could still sense he was put off about something with this entire situation. He was here because of his pride and that white elephant wasn’t going to let him admit anything.
“Don’t,” he cut me off. “It’s not a big fucking deal. It ain’t even a little fucking deal.”
Somehow I managed to hold back a sigh. I hoped he still thought that when we were heading back to Houston. I hoped he thought that when we were sitting in the funeral home to begin with.
“Okay.” I still felt bad regardless of what he said.
Maybe to him, this wasn’t a big deal, but to me, it was, and regardless of why he was here, I really was grateful this was the case.
In no time at all, Rip was pulling his truck into a funeral home that looked faintly familiar. From what I could remember, my grandmother hadn’t lived too far from this side of town. Twice, I had ridden my bike—something I had bought by slowly stealing small bills from my dad’s wallet over the course of six months when he’d pass out around the house—to her house when I couldn’t stay at my house a minute longer. While she hadn’t lived on a nice side of town, it had still been way better than where we had lived.
Then again, at a lot of moments, Hell would have been a better place than where I had lived.
I swallowed down that memory and did the sign of the cross inside of myself. The lot was only about halfway filled, mostly with late-model cars. I didn’t see the beat-up Voyager my nightmares had memorized, but then again, I wasn’t expecting to.
Rip pulled the truck into a spot and parked it, his body shifting toward mine, all broad shoulders and huge chest contained within that beautiful dress shirt, before he asked the same question as before. “You good?”
No. “Yeah,” I lied, hearing it sound weak and full of shit even to me, but you had to fake it till you made it, or something like that.
He blinked, and at that point, he definitely knew I was full of it. But he watched me with those eyes for a moment longer before he turned off the ignition. “Ready then?” he asked, calling my bluff.
Now or never, Luna.
“Ready,” I agreed, giving him a cheerful smile that inside felt way more like a grimace.
I opened the door a second before he opened his and we both slammed them shut at about the same time.
I was fine. I was loved. I had everything and more than I had ever wanted. I was choosing to be happy for the rest of my life.
None of this was going home with me. I wouldn’t let it.
I swallowed as I made my feet take me one step closer and then another step closer toward the brick building.
My heart pounded in my chest, and honestly, part of me felt like if I would have really wanted to, I could have passed out. Passing out would have been a perfectly acceptable excuse for not going into the building.
But that wasn’t going to happen.
When Rip’s tall, beefy body caught up to walk beside me, closer and closer to the building, I forced myself to let out a deep breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.
I could do this. There was nothing to be scared of. I had survived living in a house with these people for seventeen years.
Nothing was going to happen.
I didn’t have a single word to share with Rip as we approached the doors. He opened one and motioned me forward, his face grave but focused on mine when we made eye contact. I managed to give him a tight smile as I stepped inside.
The foyer was cool and open, and immediately I found a huge photo of my grandmother in a gaudy gold frame with her name on a plaque along with the years she had lived on it. I had seen the blown-up picture before. She’d gone to one of those Glamour Shots what had to have been twenty years ago at least, I guessed… She looked the way I remembered her the best: with her blonde-brown hair that I shared with her styled into short waves, her face full and highlighted by the brightest pink lipstick I’d ever seen. I had gotten my love of lipstick from her. She had never been afraid of some crazy fun color, and she never left home without it.
The thing that struck me the most though was that she wasn’t smiling. She had never been one to smile, but her lips were pressed together into something resembling one. She looked proud and even a little snobby. It was weird to think that this successful hair salon owner, a single mom who had raised two children on her own, would also be related to two sons who would grow up to be mean, violent men. I had overheard her once say she was ashamed of them. I had been too.
How could I have gone the last six years without seeing her?