He was coming toward me in his tight long-sleeved green shirt, showing off more tattoos on his neck than I had ever, ever seen in the years we had known each other. There was a skull—an actual skull—tattooed over his Adam’s apple with lines and shapes spread out along the sides of it. And I was thinking to myself that I wanted to change my freaking mind about the favor… but I couldn’t.

I wouldn’t.

I had done scarier things than this. I would do scarier things than this. Fear, I thought, was more like a hallucinogenic. It was all in your mind, and there was nothing to really be scared of as long as you knew and expected the worst and the best.

“Hi, Birthday Man,” I managed to get out, still grinning at him with my stupid heart beating in my throat even though I told it not to, trying my best not to look too hard at the very dark ink permanently etched into his skin.

Rip slid me a look out of the corner of his eye as he pulled the chair in front of mine out. He took the seat. Right there. Right by me.

Okay. I could play it cool. I could take it easy.

“You been here long?” he asked in that grumbled, deep voice that constantly sounded irritated… even now.

I shook my head. “Just about twenty minutes,” I replied. “You?”

He made a noise that sounded like a grunt as he raised the glass of whatever he was drinking to his lips and took a sip.

Well, it wasn’t like it really mattered how long he’d been around.

“Is anyone else coming?” I asked him when he didn’t say anything after setting his glass back down on the table. I’d overheard a couple of the guys talking about Rip’s half-hearted invitation when I had taken a bathroom break, but I hadn’t heard more than that.

His gaze hadn’t left mine from the moment he had spotted me, and it didn’t go anywhere as he shrugged and said, “Doubt it.”

I must have made a face because he added, casually, “I’m not exactly anybody’s favorite, Luna.”

The smile fell right off my mouth, and I couldn’t help but frown at him. At the harshness of his words. At the… fact-like nature of them. That wasn’t very nice for him to assume. That wasn’t very nice to assume at all, and it bothered me… even if it was true that Mr. Cooper was my favorite person at the shop. And I was his. And Miguel’s—

Crap.

“I’m sure—“ I started before getting cut off.

“I’m not,” he told me, tapping his short fingernails against the glass. Rip tipped his chin up a millimeter, giving me a slightly better view of the shading tucked up against his jawline. He swallowed, everything about his body language saying that he was telling me these words in this way because it wasn’t a big deal to him. He didn’t care. Why should he? His body said.

His next words confirmed it. “I’m not around to be anybody’s friend.”

All righty then.

I wanted to tell him something that would make it seem that it wasn’t like anyone hated him or disliked him.

Most of the guys were just… wary.

Even I was wary, and he didn’t scare or intimidate me… unless I screwed up.

But I didn’t know what to say to that comment. I hated liars as much as I hated aggressive drunk people and cooked carrots. So I did the only thing I could think of: I smiled at him and shrugged. He didn’t look even a little put out or hurt by what he’d been saying. Who was I to make it a big deal if he claimed he didn’t care? “Did you like your cake?”

All he did was tip his chin down as he nailed me with that intense, bright gaze, his fingers still wrapped around the nearly full glass.

And something told me “Do it now, Luna.”

It was now or never.

I gave him a big smile. “Hey, Rip?”

He watched me as he lifted his drink and took another sip of it.

I guess that was going to be his version of saying yes.

Screw it. Do it.

I kept the smile on my face as I rushed out, “Iwanttocashinmyfavor.”

He didn’t say anything for so long, I thought for sure he would end up telling me to fuck off, that he’d only been joking all along.

And it was right then, with the j-word at the front of my brain that I realized how stupid that thought was.

Rip joking? In my dreams.

If he was going to tell me no, he was going to need to say it. It wouldn’t bother me. It wouldn’t offend me. I’d move on and find someone else to go with me.

But what he said instead was “You wanna cash in your favor?”

The “yes” out of me was croaked and dumb-sounding, but if he didn’t understand it, my nod would have to be enough.

Rip… Rip just sat there, lowering his glass to the table. He let out a deep breath that I barely managed to hear. A muscle in his cheek twitched. Then he just said one word, and it wasn’t the one I’d been expecting. The one I wanted, but not anticipated. “Okay.”

Okay?

That was it?

I’d learned as a kid never to give someone a reason to second-guess their answer if you had already gotten the one you wanted. So, all right. Maybe I didn’t trust how easily the answer had come, but I was going to work with it. “I need you to go with me to a funeral.”

The only sign I had that he’d heard me was his nostrils flaring. Then, he blinked. Lucas Ripley sat back in the stool, that tight shirt curving over his impressive chest, and pressed his lips together. His sentence was slow. “You want me to pretend we’re getting married or something?”

Yeah. My mouth opened. Then it closed.

It was my turn to stare at him. My turn to press my lips together.

Then, and only then, did I tip my face up to the ceiling and freaking laugh.

I slapped my palm over my eyes, leaned back in my stool just like he had done, and I laughed even more.

I was so caught up in it that I almost missed out on the way he barked, “What?”

Did he think I wanted us to pretend we were engaged?

I laughed even more, dropping my palm but only to drag the back of my hand across my eyes.

“What the fuck is so funny?” he growled.

I couldn’t help but grin at him, at this moment, at myself, at everything, and I couldn’t help but keep laughing as I said, “No, I don’t want you to pretend we’re engaged.”

I burst out laughing again, looking up at the ceiling as I did, before somehow managing to get out, “Why… why would I want that?”

I would swear on my future children that his face instantly went red. If someone had asked me if I thought he was physically capable of blushing, I would have thought they were nuts. But there it was: red on his cheeks. Even on his nose.

On anyone else, it would have been kind of adorable because he was scowling at the same time.

“No, that’s not what I’m asking.” I laughed again, genuinely trying to stop but not capable of it because his face was still red, and I was eating it up. “I wasn’t expecting you to say that. It was straight out of a rom-com,” I pretty much cackled, imagining him watching one at home, smiling to himself.

My boss full-on frowned. “What’s a rom-com?”

Like he didn’t know what a rom-com was. Sure. I could let it go. For now.

I took one look at his pink-red face and lost it all over again. Pretend we’re getting married. Who would have known that Rip would make me laugh when I’d been so stressed about asking him for my favor all freaking day?

He didn’t even let me enjoy it because his expression went I’m gonna kill you-like as I cracked up at his expense. “All you want is me to go to a funeral with you then?”

And there was the reminder of what I was asking of him. Why I was asking.

The smile and the laughter instantly left my face and my heart when I nodded, the severity of it stripping all that joy away. “Yes, please.”

His eyes didn’t narrow. He even lost the serial killer face. He just watched me. I wasn’t sure if he didn’t trust me or didn’t believe this was what I was asking him, but I didn’t really care.

I just stared right back at him, one single memory flipping out of me as I thought about why I had never planned on going back home.