I stopped trying to be sneaky with my glances and just stared. “I’m not being a pain in the ass. You are.” I flexed my fingers, remembering this was my boss. “I say that with all the respect of you being an owner of Cooper’s and me being your employee, by the way. Please don’t fire me.”
He shook his head, and I wasn’t sure if it was because he wasn’t going to fire me or if I was just getting on his nerves.
Knowing Rip, it could be either.
“Look, I do appreciate you coming with me. I really do, Rip. I like your company. You know that.” I didn’t miss the way he turned to glance at me, just for a second, just for one single split second, but I didn’t miss it. The thing was I didn’t know what to think about the wary expression on his features when he did it. “But I told you, you don’t owe me. Honestly, I would have probably called my best friend to go with me if you hadn’t… volunteered.” I wasn’t sure I would call him telling me to get my shit as him volunteering, but close enough. “I really do appreciate you coming with me, but I don’t want to be an inconvenience.”
Those long fingers flexed again, but his attention stayed forward then. “You’re not.”
“You’re screwing up at least some part of your weekend off driving me to Dallas.”
“I’m not screwing up shit, Luna.” He flicked his gaze toward me and shook his head again. “Who told you that you’re an inconvenience?”
I didn’t mean for my body to get tight, but it did. “No one,” I tried to tell him as brightly as possible.
The look he gave me said he thought I was full of it.
He would have been right, because I was, and as much as I didn’t want to admit it, I didn’t like that he got that idea, especially so quickly.
“I don’t like to bother people, that’s all. I don’t like asking anyone for a favor, and if I can….”
Dear God.
I realized what the hell I had just said.
I didn’t like asking anyone for a favor. It was the truth. I would rather go without than ask anyone for anything.
And for three years, I’d been holding this favor that Rip felt he owed me, over his head.
No wonder he wanted to get it over with. It made total sense.
Hell.
“I’m sorry you feel like you owe me, and I get why you want to get this favor over with,” I muttered, feeling my face heat up as I accepted what I had done and why it was stupid of me to keep arguing with him over a favor that he was never, ever going to forget about. No matter how much I might try and talk him out of it, he’d gotten it into his thick head and nothing was changing.
“You’re not asking. I offered,” he suggested like I would really look at it like that.
I shifted my gaze out the window and nodded. “You’re right.”
There was a sigh, then, “You’re not gonna give me a hard time anymore?”
“Nope.”
His “huh” had me side-eyeing him.
“I appreciate your commitment and how… patient you’ve been with me over this,” I told him, a little more grudgingly than I needed to.
Rip hummed.
“I’m not sure how long this is going to take. If you want to drop me off and then—”
“What is with you always trying to get me to drop you off?” he snapped all of a sudden.
I made my eyes go wide at his freaking attitude. “Because, I told you, I don’t want to bother you. I don’t like to bother anyone. Don’t take it personal, okay?”
I wasn’t 100 percent sure, but I was pretty freaking positive he frowned at me.
Rubbing my hands against my pants, I decided to mess with him some more by muttering, “At the rate you’ve been going lately, I’m going to start to think that I don’t get on your nerves as much as you make me think I do, boss.”
The laugh that burst out of him literally had me clutching the door I was leaning against. It was so sharp, so out of the blue, like a freaking firework going off right inside the cab.
I jumped. Then I grinned.
And I kept it going, because why not? I’d made him laugh. Rip. Laugh. “Next thing I know, we’re going to be friends,” I kept muttering, barely able to keep from laughing.
His reply was a shake of that handsome head and a chuckle that continued on.
“But really, thank you for coming with me. And taking me home. And for having enough pride and honor to keep your word when you insist on doing me a favor that I really don’t think you owe me,” I told him, smiling even though he couldn’t see it.
The deep inhale of breath he took was loud and clear. That time for sure, I knew without a doubt he did look at me. “I don’t have that much honor, Luna. Don’t give me that much credit.”
I watched him, seeing he meant it. “Well, I think you do. Most people would have just given up and pretended like they forgot if someone told them a thousand times that they didn’t need anything.”
His “hmm” didn’t sound that convinced, but I knew I was right. There was no point in me forcing it down though.
Bringing out my phone, I pulled up my messages with Lenny and sent her one.
Me: Hey, going to Dallas. Thea’s place got broken into. Can you ask Out of My League if we can reschedule? Not sure if I’ll make it back in time tomorrow.
I couldn’t even say I was really that heartbroken about missing my first date in… six months? Maybe even a little longer? I doubted I’d be that disappointed if he couldn’t change the date either.
Lenny texted me back not two minutes later as Rip fiddled with the radio.
Lenny: She okay? I’ll send him a message. Sunday work for you?
I knew there was no way I would stay until Sunday with her. I was definitely going home at some point tomorrow. Unless she insisted, but I wasn’t going to hold my breath. She was busy. At least that’s what she always said. It would take all of my fingers and Ripley’s to count the number of times I had asked her over the years if she wanted me to visit with the answer always being the same: it wasn’t a good time for her.
Lenny: Don’t answer that. Sunday is good. Let me see what I can do.
Dang it. That’s what happened when someone knew you too well.
Me: She’s fine. And yeah, sure, Sunday is good. The earlier the better.
Lenny: :-)
At least that was done with.
Music played softly in the background the entire drive to my sister’s, now that Rip and I were done arguing at least. I dozed off a couple of times, but he didn’t complain or give me a hard time. I’d left my phone between us with the navigation going. When I checked the arrival time and saw that we were only five minutes away, I sat up straight and started paying attention.
I hadn’t realized that my sister had moved.
When I had first trailed her up to Dallas three years ago, I had just followed her.
The place I had been to was a decent apartment complex that hadn’t looked too sketchy. It hadn’t been anything fancy by any means, but it had been all right. It had basically been the same kind of place that we had lived in after moving out of Mr. Cooper’s.
But this place, this place was nice.
Too nice.
Way too nice if the Mercedes and Audis and BMWs that were on the other side of the gate meant anything.
I gave Rip the code for the gate—Thea had texted it to me along with her address— and I couldn’t help but feel really weird about everything that I saw. Every single car was a late-model luxury car, with a handful of Hondas and Kias thrown in. Now that I thought about it, Thea hadn’t driven herself to Houston in forever. She usually met up with Kyra in Austin and rode with her.
Why wouldn’t she have told me that she moved?
“I thought you said your sister was in college,” Rip said as he slowly drove past one building and toward the other, following the complex’s signs.
I spotted a Range Rover just as I told him, my own voice sounding off and weird, “She is.”
“This is the nicest complex I’ve ever been in.”
“Me too,” I muttered, feeling really uneasy and maybe even a little hurt that she wouldn’t have told me. Did she think I’d be jealous or something?
But really, how the hell did she afford something like this? She had a job at the university. She took summer classes. She had an internship and loans.
I paid for her meal plan at school.
There had to be a reason she hadn’t told me she was living somewhere else.