I was getting aggravated again. Not because I was going to have to stay late, but because I had to stay late because my gut said my coworker hadn’t finished the job on purpose. He would deny it for the rest of my life, but I knew the truth. I’d heard him snickering that morning when Rip had gotten on my case.
“Did he explain why he didn’t finish?” he asked, sounding genuinely baffled.
I didn’t blame him. At the same time, it warmed my heart that he didn’t expect the worst out of people… even if I had a feeling that he should expect the worst out of the person we were talking about. I doubted Jason ever messed up things Mr. Cooper asked him to do.
I bit the inside of my cheek again and kept my voice low as I glanced toward the door to make sure a certain someone wasn’t standing there, listening. “He said something came up with another car and he didn’t get a chance to finish it.”
I wasn’t sure he knew that I’d had the same job as he did at one point. Cars that were on the schedule to go to paint took priority over everything else. There was no reason why Jason, the pain in my ass in question, would have just not gotten to it when he knew damn well I needed him to.
That punk that Mr. Cooper had hired six months ago—without me knowing it was him that had gotten hired until it was too late—would try and give me more work to do. Jason wasn’t technically a body guy. He got stuck covering for whoever was on vacation or had a personal day; he was basically me when I’d been his age, doing whatever anyone asked me to do.
“It’s all right,” I trailed off, reminding myself again of everything I had. I was loved, I had a good job, I had a home. I was happy, and I was safe. Most importantly, so were my sisters. So this was no big deal. “I’ll still get to everything.”
But Mr. Cooper seemed to be hesitating, probably still trying to work out a reason why something like that would have happened that wasn’t malicious. “Do you want me to talk to him?” he asked after a moment.
I blew out a breath as I dumped one container into the other before grabbing the container of pico and putting it in with the rest of my food.
I was a little pissed, but was I pissed enough to get the human yeast infection in trouble?
I hated how guilty just thinking about it made me feel.
“No,” I found myself muttering to him. “I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.”
There I went lying again. I definitely wasn’t going to give him that. I knew he was lying. I just knew it.
But the idea of him getting into trouble because I complained to one of the bosses—a boss that would do just about anything for me if I asked—made me feel bad. He was a lying turd, but you never knew what someone had going on in their life to get them to act like a jerk. Even if the acting like a jerk part had lasted for the last six months—and the six months he’d dated my sister before sleeping with some other girl. Maybe he needed money. Maybe I looked like his mom and he had mommy issues. Maybe he was stressed and I happened to be the easiest person to be mean to.
…but probably not.
“You sure?”
I slid him a look. Then I nodded.
Mr. Cooper raised those super thick, gray-white eyebrows at me, blinking bright blue eyes, his face deeply wrinkled and pretty freaking serious.
“I’m sure,” I confirmed as I started shoveling at the food with the fork my little sister had packed for me from home. I didn’t trust the other guys’ cleaning more than mugs at the shop, and she knew that.
My phone decided to ping from the front pocket of my jeans in that moment. “One sec,” I said to him as I pulled it out and glanced at the screen.
Thea: I’m going to stay in Dallas this weekend after all, but I’ll come down for Lily’s graduation for sure. Need to make some $$$.
I typed up my reply to my sister instantly, ignoring the pinch of disappointment I realistically knew I had no reason to feel when I understood why she wasn’t coming down to visit again. It was just that I hadn’t seen her in almost three months.
Me: Okay. Good luck.
A second passed before I got a response.
Thea: xx
“Kyra?” he asked, referring to the middle of my three younger sisters. The same one that Jason, the jerk, had dated.
“No, Thea,” I corrected him. Thea was the oldest after me at twenty-one. I pressed the home button on my phone to clear the app and then set my phone face down on the table between our food. “She’s not coming down this weekend after all,” I told him as I picked my fork back up.
He knew all about the last time she had promised to come and ended up bailing. Just like on this failed visit, I had marked myself off on the schedule so that everyone knew there was no way I was coming in over the weekend. It wasn’t unheard of for me to work on Saturdays. I had bills, no money tree and no sugar daddy; I was all about that overtime life. But I could be honest and say I’d been looking forward to having the time off to spend it with my sisters. Oh well. “I guess they offered her some more hours at the school or something.”
The way he said “Oh” told me he could see right through me. Mr. Cooper knew my sisters almost as well as I did. And because he did, and because I talked to him about them pretty often, he had a decent idea just how often Thea and Kyra cancelled on me.
Even though it was always for a good reason.
I gave him another tight smile before giving my food a poke. “She said she’s for sure coming down for Lily’s graduation next week though, so that’s good.”
“That is good,” he agreed… a lot more softly than he needed to because it really wasn’t a big deal that she wasn’t coming to visit after all.
It wasn’t.
“I can’t believe that girl is finally graduating. I’d swear she’s still eleven.”
That made me smile. “Me too, Mr. C, me too.” Just a few weeks ago, we had gone to scope out apartments for her in Lubbock.
Either Mr. Cooper realized that I didn’t want to think about it anymore, or he understood that there wasn’t anything more to say, because he took another bite of his tuna sandwich before mumbling, “I meant to tell you someone called this morning asking for you.”
I scrunched up my face as I looked down at my food.
“It was a man.”
I blinked.
“I asked a few times for a name, but he wouldn’t give me one,” he went on.
There was no way it was a customer, because I rarely ever met any of them. I might walk through the shop while one or two were inside talking to Mr. Cooper or Rip about a car we were working on for them or a car they wanted to buy from them, but it was rare that they let customers onto the main floor during work hours. But me personally speaking to any of them? No way. The only people I had to listen to were Mr. Cooper and Ripley.
“I wasn’t sure if maybe you were trying to pull a line of credit or if someone was trying to verify your employment—” He let out this adorable chuff like he couldn’t imagine me applying to work anywhere else. “—but I also didn’t want to confirm that you work here. You know, just in case.” We both knew what he meant by a just in case situation. Just in case it was someone I didn’t want to speak to. Just in case it was someone who I wouldn’t mind assuming I was dead. “I asked him who I was speaking to, then he asked again if he could speak to you. We went back and forth before he thanked me, then hung up, but something about it sounded professional.”
Hmm.
There was no logical reason why anyone would be calling looking for me.
At least not anyone that I wanted.
“I’ll let you know if they call again,” he told me. “I’ll do the same thing. I won’t say you don’t work here, but I won’t say you do either.”