That had added some coloring to his face. “The same ones you ordered for Owen last month?”
I nodded and got a nod in return. This wasn’t the first time the same thing had happened with one of the guys at the shop. I had half the guys’ credit card information saved on my phone. I usually helped them buy Christmas presents for their wives and girlfriends too since they were such slackers.
“What are her favorites?” I asked him.
Silence.
“Miguelito, what flowers does she like?”
He was back to staring blankly.
We both laughed.
“What do you like?” he asked me like that was help.
It wasn’t. “Oh, I don’t care. Don’t ask me.”
Miguel blinked. “Luna, what have your boyfriends sent you?”
Boyfriends. Like that was really plural. I gave him a funny face before pulling my phone out of my pocket and looking through the contacts for the florist that some of the other guys had used before. “They didn’t. Thanks for reminding me,” I said, trying to say it lightly and playfully, like it wasn’t a big deal.
Because it wasn’t.
If I wanted flowers, I could buy them myself.
“None of them?” my coworker asked, not letting it go.
I found the contact and set my phone on the table between us. “Nope.”
“Not even the old one?”
I snickered and shook my head. “Stop.” I pointed at the phone. “Call and order the flowers.”
He grinned and brought out his phone too, dialing the number quickly and then, putting his phone over the receiver, asking, “What about your sisters?”
I wasn’t exactly sure why I shot a look at Rip, but I did, and luckily his attention was down on his food. So I shook my head.
“Your high school graduation?” he threw out next.
“Ah, I got my GED. I didn’t… finish high school the… normal way.”
Miguel blinked, and fortunately the florist answered, because he started rattling off a request and then an address.
I managed to eat the rest of my steak by the time Mr. Cooper made his way into the break room, one hand rubbing his stomach like he was starving, his eyes sweeping across the room. He shot me a big smile. “Looks nice.”
I smiled back at him just as Miguel hung up the phone and let out a big sigh.
“He said he can drop them off at her job by three.”
“See? She’ll only kill you a little now.”
Miguel slapped me on the back twice. “Thank you, Lunita. You’re a lifesaver.”
“You would have figured it out yourself.”
But freaking Miguel wasn’t done. “Luna?”
I tipped my chin up at him as I ate some more mashed potatoes.
He took a bite out of his own sandwich. “I think we need to find you a boyfriend.”
I stopped chewing at the same time that Mr. Cooper started laughing and set what looked like a chicken salad sandwich in the spot in front of where I was sitting.
I shook my head. “Ignore Mr. C, Miguel.”
Unfortunately, this conversation interested the man who had known me for five years. “What? Why you laughing, Mr. C? You think she needs to find a boyfriend too?”
I jumped in before Mr. Cooper could. “We had this conversation on the weekend. All I agreed to was maybe going on a few dates. Maybe. That’s it.”
Miguel nodded thoughtfully, popping a chip into his mouth. “I know five—no, three—”
“Oh, no. I’ve been to your family reunions.”
The other man started laughing.
I was going to use that moment to change the subject. “Anyway, what ended up happening with the guy you interviewed that you liked? Are you hiring him?”
I regretted the question the second it was out of my mouth.
Especially when Mr. Cooper’s eyes slid to Ripley’s direction. The much older man smiled anyway, his nostrils flaring just enough to tell me it wasn’t totally genuine. “He came in today. I think it went well, but we’re going to talk about it.”
“Is he nice?”
Mr. Cooper’s smile turned into a genuine one. “You think I’d hire somebody who wasn’t?”
I grinned at him, but all I could think about was that the only reason I was having a decent day was because Jason had a sore throat and wasn’t talking as much as usual.
But I kept my mouth shut on that topic.
*
I had just finished giving Jason instructions for the rest of afternoon, my purse and keys in hand so I could leave for my gynecologist appointment, when I heard the yelling coming from upstairs.
Crap.
Really?
Everyone should have gotten a slice or two of cake. It should have been a pretty decent day. None of the guys in the shop had even come to my room to complain about anything either.
And Jason had barely annoyed me. Considering I was dreading going to an empty house, it had still been an okay day. We had made it through lunch without an issue. The rest of the day should have been free of issues too.
I made my way down the hall toward the main part of the building and found all of my coworkers there, busy, but two of them had stopped and were looking up, like they could see through the ceiling and into the office over our heads.
I stopped there with my bag over my shoulder and looked in the same direction.
“You gonna go do something about it?” Miguel, one of the ones looking up, asked.
I glanced at him. “Why me?”
He scoffed. “I’m not their favorite.”
I blinked again, ignoring the way Owen, the other guy who had been looking up, snickered.
“I don’t have your magic touch,” Miguel added.
“I don’t have a magic touch.”
He looked at Owen, and they both nodded and agreed at the same time, “Yeah, you do.”
“I need to go. I have a doctor’s appointment in—” I glanced at my watch. “—thirty minutes.”
The yelling got louder for a brief moment, making us all focus up at the open staircase and the landing that fed off from it.
“Do something, Luna,” Owen said. “It’s Rogelio’s last day. I don’t want today to be my last day. Miguel doesn’t want it to be his last day. Nobody else but Rogelio wants it to be their last day, either. You know how they get.”
I wanted to argue, I really did, but I knew when to pick my fights, and in this case, this wasn’t one I had any chance of winning. I already knew none of them were going to go upstairs and say anything.
“Chicken shits,” I groaned and couldn’t help but smile when they laughed.
I shouldered off my bag and dropped it on the floor by my feet. “You guys owe me,” I mumbled under my breath as I ignored my coworkers and headed up the stairs, shaking my head.
“I’ll buy you a Sprite tonight!” Owen shouted up.
“What’s going on tonight?” I stopped and called down to him.
“We’re getting together at Mickey’s. I told Jason to tell you hours ago,” my coworker claimed.
That freaking fart face. Man, he sucked.
Shoving that aside, it kind of answered my predicament for being home tonight, so I gave him a thumbs-up. “I’ll see you there then,” I told him before continuing up the staircase, listening.
The voices stopped for a second, yet still managing to be a loud, muffled buzz of anger, but right as I got to the top of the stairs, it started up again, less of an unidentified mumble and more individual words laced together.
“—so goddamn disrespectful!”
“I’m fucking disrespectful? Are you fucking with me?”
“No, I’m not fucking with you, Ripley! You hurt Lydia’s feelings! We went because she told me I should go.”
Ooh. I winced at that. I thought it had been long enough that they wouldn’t bring up Rip walking out on them during his birthday celebration. I was wrong. I took one step forward and then another. Still listening.
“I don’t give a fuck why you went or why you took her with you!”
“Because she’s my wife, and she has been for almost twenty-three years!” my favorite boss shouted back.
I took another three steps, passing the break room and approaching the office door when the words got real.
“Yeah, the wife you married a year after your last one died. You want to talk about fucking disrespectful.”
Mr. Cooper had been married before?
I blinked at the door, feeling… I don’t know. Shocked? Taken aback?