All right, maybe Mr. C was going to end up owing me if I survived this.
“It isn’t a little bitty mistake. It’s a big one. I don’t want to argue about it anymore,” I told him, trying to keep my voice calm and my expression light and not like I’d just kicked him in the balls twenty-one times in my head. “Let’s roll it out of here and into the room so you can get started on it, and I can keep going. I need to finish that hood sooner than later, and I still have to tape the lines.”
He didn’t move, and he didn’t respond. All he did was keep giving me that ugly look I had seen too many times by people a lot better at doing it.
Oh freaking well. I pointed toward the wheels. “Let’s do it now.”
His jaw clenched, but he nodded after a moment, and it was only because of that, that I turned my back to head toward the big double doors that took up nearly an entire wall of the booth. They had to be big enough for entire cars to go inside easily.
And it was the second that I turned my back that I heard a mumbled, “Fuckin’ bitch.”
Maybe if he had been a teenager, I could have let it go.
If he wasn’t always a douchebag to me, I could have let it go.
If I hadn’t known he was a liar and a cheat, I could have let it go.
But that wasn’t the case.
I turned around slowly, deciding whether or not I was going to tell Mr. Cooper afterward, when the door connecting my room to the rest of the facility opened. Appearing there was the handsome face that had been pretty freaking nice to me less than twenty-four hours ago.
…and one more person who had a small idea of the mess I had come from. But he would never say anything to anyone. He wouldn’t tell the rest of the guys at the shop who my dad was or that he’d been in jail.
But no one knew that had happened because of me.
Rip held the heavy door open with a shoulder, his coveralls buttoned all the way to the top. His face didn’t reflect that he thought any differently of me. “Luna, you mind staying tonight and helping me with that GTO we found at the auction?” he asked in the same way he’d asked two hundred other times in the past.
I should have said no. After dealing with Jason, I just wanted to go home. I wanted to purge myself of how frustrated he’d already made me. Plus, I really did have things I needed to buy for tomorrow.
But… I still nodded.
That’s what twenty-four-hour stores were for.
“I only need you for a couple hours. I wanna get it flipped as soon as possible,” he went on, his gaze slid to Jason and rested there for a moment.
I wondered if he could sense the lazy-pain-in-the-butt vibe coming off him too, but Jason had worked on the floor long enough that I bet he did just enough for it to not be noticeable. Otherwise… well, otherwise, I figured Rip would have fired him.
“Sure,” I replied.
“’Kay,” he answered. His gaze stayed on the other man, but I could tell that notch between his eyebrows had formed. Maybe he really could sense it too. “Everything good?”
No, but I said, “Yeah.”
Rip swung that gaze back to me.
I gave him a smile that, if he knew me even a little well, he would have seen right through.
“Let me know if anything’s up,” Rip said in a voice that was too calm.
Let him know if anything was up? Could he tell I was seconds away from putting this person on my permanent shit list? I had just literally been thinking about ratting Jason out to Mr. Cooper, but even for me, telling on him to Rip seemed a little harsh.
I wasn’t in that bad of a mood.
I waited until Rip was out of the room before turning my attention back to the imbecile I was going to be stuck with for the near future.
I loved my job. I loved the people here. I was super lucky.
But I still couldn’t stand this human hemorrhoid. “Well, let’s get the wheels out there so you can get started.”
*
“Rip?” I called out later that day as I looked at a small part of a panel of the GTO. There was lead on it, but I wasn’t sure if he wanted me to burn it out—which I didn’t want to do—or if he’d do it.
I got no response.
“Rip?”
Nothing.
Where was he?
I’d swear I had just seen him not even ten minutes ago; his cell phone had beeped, but I hadn’t seen him walk off. I didn’t need to look at the digital clock on the wall to know it was almost eight o’clock. I wanted to get home. Everything hurt today. I was tired. Exhausted, honestly.
But first, I really needed to ask Rip about the car, and the other builder, who had been here until an hour ago, had left. He wanted to eat dinner with his family, and I didn’t blame him. I told him to go.
“Rip?” I called out again, this time even louder.
I listened, but there was nothing. Not a ting. Not a voice. Nothing.
Where the hell was he?
Standing up, with a hand going to the base of my spine because it ached from standing all day, I called out even louder and more annoying, “Rippppp?”
My voice echoed in the big, main room, making me smile.
“Rip?” I called out again, but still nothing.
It didn’t take me more than a few minutes to climb up the stairs and check his office and the break room. Then it only took me a couple more minutes to go to my room, but he wasn’t there either. Opening the door and calling out for him in the bathroom still didn’t get me a response.
He wouldn’t have left me here without saying a word.
At least he never had before. He didn’t give me a hug and a kiss goodbye at the end of the day when we were working together, but he never left first. I doubted he’d start now.
Trying to guess where else he would be, I figured maybe he was outside. My lower back tightened up as I headed to the back door and slowly pushed it open, trying to listen for him. The fence and gate around the building kept out people who shouldn’t be hanging around, but if someone really wanted to get over, they could jump the fence. The shop had automatic floodlights and security cameras all around the building that were triggered with any movement after six in the evening.
I’d barely opened the door a crack when I heard his low, low voice. “....that’s not what I’m talking about.”
I hesitated for a second, not sure if I should wait until he got off the phone, but… it was work.
Shutting the door behind me, more quietly than I needed to if I was going to be honest, I followed where his voice was coming from. The lot was mostly empty except for a handful of customers’ cars waiting to be picked up, three clunkers that were on the list for restorations, my car, and his truck.
“Shorty said they brought you up. All I’m tellin’ you is what he said to me, a’ight?” an unfamiliar voice spoke up, making me pause.
He wasn’t alone.
Should I…?
“Why? I paid my way out. I’m out. I’ve been out. There isn’t a reason for any of them to bring me up,” Rip replied, confirming that I hadn’t been imagining his voice to start off.
“Man, I don’t fuckin’ know. I don’t want shit to do with it either. I got a life now. A real life. I got a kid on the way; I don’t want a piece of it,” the unfamiliar man spoke up. “I knew that shit was gonna blow up in their faces. They’re getting desperate, I bet. It ain’t like they got all that many allies.”
“’Course we knew that was gonna happen. They would’ve too if they’d been paying attention. But it doesn’t matter because there’s no way for them to know where the hell I am. None of ’em knew my name. They know yours?”
“Nah. Why would they? S’not like we filled out IRS forms. Shorty’s the only one who kinda knows I’m still around, and that’s only ’cuz he’s the only one who’s got any business with me. I haven’t seen him since we got out. Only reason he called today was to tell me what he heard. Warn us in case somebody tries to hit us up about coming back, I guess.”
There was a tense silence that seemed to last longer than the two seconds it actually did. “I’m not going back.”