Maybe it was my fault that I had left Jason alone, but it wasn’t my fault he had done this. It wasn’t my fault that Rip was in a bad mood and was now being mean.
What was my fault was how betrayed I felt right then. I hadn’t had enough time to build up any expectations between us, but this? This hurt. Just a little, but still.
“Please don’t fire me.” My voice cracked despite the fact I was basically whispering. “I’ll fix whatever needs to be fixed. It’s my fault. You don’t have to pay me, but please don’t fire me. I love working here,” I told my boss—the man who had hugged me and called me baby girl forty-eight hours ago—my voice shaky, keeping my eyes trained on the button of his coveralls that was directly in front of my face, somewhere in between his pectorals.
I was loved. I was fine. I wanted this job, and I didn’t want to lose it.
“Please, Rip,” I added, hearing the hoarseness in my voice and not letting it shame me.
The silence after those words were out of my mouth could have burned the skin and muscles off my bones it was so oppressing.
I wasn’t going to cry, but if it happened, I wasn’t going to be ashamed of it. I’d dealt with enough of that in the past, with my parents telling me to quit being a baby when they’d say something that upset me and then didn’t want to deal with the consequences.
A person gets to pick what constitutes their pride.
I had used to think that my parents stomping my ego to pieces as a kid had been a disgrace, but now… now I thought it had been a gift. I knew what I could take without breaking. Bending hurt. It was uncomfortable. It was terrible. But I knew that bending didn’t kill.
If the fact that it was Rip treating me like this was the reason why I was struggling with keeping it together…
I wasn’t going to think about it.
He was my boss, and I had forgotten that again. That was on me. No one else.
No. I wasn’t going to think about Rip being the cause, because I wasn’t going to feel this way longer than... five minutes. I’d do this for five minutes, and that was it.
That was it.
This ache in my throat… five minutes.
This BS sense of betrayal… five freaking minutes and that was it.
I’d been yelled at enough in my life. Rip was going to get to be just another person who succeeded in making me feel this way.
I didn’t want to start over. I had screwed up. Fine. But I hadn’t screwed up that badly.
“Please don’t fire me,” I repeated myself, hating myself for even being in this position in the first place.
A minute dragged by. Maybe even two minutes. Just as I started to accept that he wasn’t saying anything for a reason, I took a step backward, feeling… nearly as bad as I had Friday night. Then, finally, Rip spoke up. “I’m not firing you,” he claimed in a voice that was pretty damn close to a growl.
It didn’t seem like he wasn’t firing me.
“I’m not,” he repeated himself.
The saliva in my mouth started to taste sweet as I stayed right where I was in every way. “Are you sure?” I forced myself to ask.
Rip’s voice was low as he murmured, “Yes.”
Okay then.
He wasn’t firing me for someone else’s mistake.
Feeling the frustration—and the hurt—in the backs of my eyes, I sucked in a breath and nodded. I could feel my nostrils flaring as I took another step back. Then another.
I’d gotten what I wanted. I had no reason to be upset. Not because this was unfair. Not because he had just hurt my feelings by reminding me that he was my boss and that was all there was between us.
Not because he had held me while I cried over my sister shooing me out of her life.
“Luna,” came my name in that murmured, rough voice that I usually enjoyed, except in that moment.
I ignored it.
“Will you help me carry it out of here?” I asked him instead, my own voice low.
There was a beat of silence, and I had no idea if he was looking at me, doing the sign of the cross, or rolling his eyes. I wasn’t fired, and that was all that was going to matter then.
Lenny had rescheduled my date for that night, and even though I wasn’t super excited over it, it was something to look forward to. That could be the best part of my day, even if nothing came of it. Because at least I was trying to make my life better. Every day, I tried to make my life better, and that had to mean something. It would.
“Luna?”
My heart started beating faster, but I ignored that too and managed to ask, “Can we please do it so I can start?”
There was a pause and then a soft, “Sure.”
I swallowed and kept my gaze on that little button. “Okay. Let’s do it.”
There was a deeper sigh. A longer one. Another “Luna…” that reminded me of a shooting star with a long tail behind it. A dying meteor. That’s what it was in a way. I would forgive him. I would move on, but that Luna wouldn’t change what it really was.
A reminder that he was my boss first and foremost.
A dying little dream that was burning itself out.
“It’s fine,” I told him, noticing how flat my tone sounded and getting frustrated over it. “If you wouldn’t mind helping me move it, please.”
Silence.
There was another sigh.
His gradual “All right” wasn’t what I expected. It was soft. So soft it slid right off me and onto the floor, lost forever.
And then we moved the panels.
Chapter 15
“How was it?”
I set my food on the table beside Mr. Cooper and gave his shoulder a pat. “How was what, Mr. C?” I asked, pretty certain he wasn’t asking about the reaming I’d given Jason again that morning just in case the first one, the day before, hadn’t been enough.
I was still mad about it. Bitching him out the morning before, then refusing to speak to him the rest of the day hadn’t been enough to get the anger out of my system. I had gotten to work that morning, still unable to forgive him, and when he’d decided to go out on a limb and ask me a question about an hour ago, I hadn’t been particularly nice in my response to him.
I only felt like a tiny bit bad about biting his head off.
Then again, I had gotten my head bitten off because of him, so I knew I shouldn’t.
Mr. Cooper smiled at me, not giving me a single clue what he was referring to, as I pulled out the chair next to him. “How was it?” he asked again.
I plopped into it and gave him a smile right back. “Mr. C, I don’t know what you’re asking.”
I hadn’t complained about what had happened the day before. As far as I knew, only Rip, Jason, and I knew about his screwup, and I highly freaking doubted he had found out about Rip going with me to Dallas over the weekend. The only people who knew about that were Thea, Rip, and me. As much as I was willing to share with Mr. Cooper, my sister’s crap was one of those rare things I would rather keep to myself. On top of that, I hadn’t overheard a single argument between him or Rip either so….
He tipped his head to the side. “How did your date go, little moon? I thought you told me you were going on one on Saturday.”
Oh. Oh. That.
I had told him about it. “Oh. It didn’t happen on Saturday, but I did meet up with him yesterday.”
“Did it go well?”
I lifted a shoulder as I pulled the top off my container of food. The noodles were from the batch I had made on Sunday. They were overcooked, the vegetables were soggy, the meat didn’t have enough seasoning, but… I had made it. And it hadn’t given me the runs yesterday, so I could only hope they wouldn’t today either.
“He was… decent,” I admitted.
Mr. Cooper snickered. “It didn’t go that well then?”
I set the lid of my food between us with a sigh. “I went in with zero expectations, Mr. C, and I’m glad I did.”
That was the truth. I hadn’t gone to the bar expecting to meet the love of my life, but I had gone with my hopes up that my day couldn’t get any crappier after what had happened with Rip.
It hadn’t. But it hadn’t made it any better either.
The Out of my League man had been in his forties and very good-looking, just like Lenny had shown me. He had been outgoing and talkative.