Sitting clearly in the driver’s seat was Rip.
I blinked. Then I blinked some more, making sure my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me.
I mean, I knew I wasn’t imagining things. This wasn’t some déjà vu, I’m-in-an-oasis-seeing-a-mirage moment. This was real.
Rip was in my driveway.
Fortunately, I managed to keep it together enough to lock my front door and make my way down the steps, eyeing my car sitting there after one of my coworkers had dropped it off about an hour after Mr. Cooper had walked me to my front door. Rip was already watching me as I headed toward him, and I couldn’t help but feel even more surprised when the doors were unlocked, and instead of the window being rolled down, he leaned across the seats and shoved the door open.
I wasn’t sure why I smiled exactly, but I did and I said, “Morning.” Only barely not asking what are you doing here?
Rip, who had sleek black sunglasses on, tipped his head to the side away from me. “Get in, Luna.”
Get in. Not good morning. Not I’m here to pick you up or anything like that.
Just… get in.
I managed to stare at him for a second before snapping out of it and taking in the height of the pickup. It had a lift kit on it for sure. Tucked into the sides were retractable running boards to give passengers a boost. Black leather covered the passenger seat.
It was literally brand new.
And I just stood there.
Because Rip was in my driveway.
Again.
Because he wanted to make sure I got to work.
“Not that I’m not happy to see you, but whatcha doing here?” I threw the question out before I could stop myself, sure I was giving him a loopy smile.
“Here to get you,” he replied like it was obvious.
I didn’t need to point out that my car was right in front of the truck, but I still slid my eyes to the side anyway. Because yep, my car was definitely there. It hadn’t adapted camouflage technology randomly overnight.
Behind his glasses, my boss’s eyebrows rose slowly, and his question came out at the same speed, marked with a little more sarcasm than I knew what to do with. “Need a boost or not?”
He was my boss, and under no circumstance was I about to throw myself into his car like I was desperate.
“I can drive myself.”
Those thick, dark eyebrows stayed up, and that was definitely sarcasm in his tone. “Bet you can’t look over your shoulder,” he tried to dare me, surprising me even more.
Like the sucker I was, I latched onto his unexpected playfulness anyway as I asked back, “But you can?”
“Uh-huh. I didn’t have time to tense up.” His eyebrows dropped, and he gestured me into the truck. “Get in, I’m giving you a ride to work, and we’re already running late.”
I guess I hadn’t thought about it in that light, but he did have a point. I couldn’t turn my head, not well enough to be a safe driver at least. And was I really going to be stubborn over not wanting a ride to work from the man who might have been a jerk to me two days ago but who I knew in my heart would have behaved the same way with any of the rest of my coworkers? The same man who had let me hug him and comfort him after he’d had some strange breakdown after the accident? A breakdown that I didn’t understand, but one I had thought about last night while I lay in bed and had only managed to come to one conclusion.
That wasn’t the first accident Ripley had been in.
I wasn’t going to ask what the first had been. I wanted to know, but I also knew that someone didn’t react the way he had for no reason.
I sighed but couldn’t hold back the smile on my face as I told him the truth. “I can’t raise my arm up over my head, boss. I can’t get in.” I started to raise my arm up so I could show him, only getting a few inches in before I had to stop with a groan. “Yeah, that’s not happening.” How I was supposed to work, I had no clue, but I’d figure it out.
The expression he gave me, a slight frown and a tiny head shake, said, “that’s what I thought.” But fortunately he didn’t rub it in my face as he touched a button somewhere by the steering wheel that had the running boards dropping into place. Then his door opened and he got out, circling around the front of the truck before I had a chance to realize what exactly was happening.
The next thing I knew, Rip was behind me and those big hands were high up on my thighs, just below my butt, and he was lifting me up. Not straining. Not grunting, nothing. Just a lift up until my feet were over the running board, and then, and only then, did he let me go.
I didn’t need help ducking into his car, barely suppressing a moan at the movement that shot pain around my neck. If Rip noticed, he didn’t make a comment as he let go and took a step back, slamming the door closed. In the time it took him to get back into the truck, I had run through all the reasons why this was happening.
Then I accepted there was only one reason that should matter, and we needed to get it sorted out as soon as possible.
I waited until he’d reversed out of my driveway and started heading toward the shop before I shifted my body into the corner of the seat to get a view at him that didn’t require me to turn my neck. He looked fine to me. And it was a navy shirt day.
“How bad’s your neck?”
Luckily, he wasn’t watching my face twist up into a grimace every time he drove over even a tiny pothole, because he would have known I was full of it. “Bad enough,” I told him, fighting the urge to reach up and try and massage my neck.
His nod was a slow tilt forward of his head.
That was when I knew I needed to strike. “Say, Rip?”
“What?”
What. I wasn’t sure why that amused me so much. “I’m all right, okay? My neck hurts and so does my shoulder, but it’ll go away. You don’t have to come get me from home because you feel guilty.”
He cut me off. “I don’t feel guilty.”
“Oh,” was the super smart thing out of me. Well. Okay. “All right then.”
Then I thought to myself liar, because why the hell else would he show up here to get me? Because he wanted to? Because we were friends and he cared about me? Nah. I flip-flopped almost daily on the signs he gave me that he might be a little fond of me. Then he would do something like what had happened on Monday and make me rethink it all.
“It was the other asshole’s fault,” Rip stated after a second. “I know you’re gonna be fine, just like I knew you’d come to work today even though you’ve gotta be in pain and probably won’t be able to work long before it gets too bad.”
I made a face to myself. “I can work the whole day.” I had worked with the flu before. I could survive a day with a little strain.
A little strain that had me hiding a groan when he went over a speed bump a little too fast.
One glance at his face had me wondering if he’d done it on purpose to prove a point.
Those teal-colored eyes slid toward me, and I’d swear one corner of his mouth went up a fraction of a millimeter. “I know.”
He had done it on purpose. I wasn’t sure how I knew, but I did. Fine. He didn’t want me to suck it up? I wouldn’t. What I would do was continue being a decent person. “I’m glad then that you don’t feel guilty, because there’s no reason for you to be. But I promise you didn’t need to come get me. I can drive myself.”
Rip waited so long to say “Luna?” that I half expected him to change the subject.
That didn’t happen.
“Yeah?”
“If I want to come get you, I’m gonna come get you. Deal with it,” he stated, or more like told me. “You wanna stop at that donut place you like or what?”
I jerked a little in place, telling myself to not take his first comment too seriously. “We can go to the donut place if you want.”
“All right.”
I faced forward again. “Okay.”
“Sure you’re not mad anymore?”
“I’m sure.”
He glanced at me. “Do you even know how to sulk?”
I gave him a little smile. “No, not really.”
I heard Rip take a breath before his voice filled the cab. “Luna?”