“Excuse me?” I asked when I brought it back to my face.

He didn’t make me wait. “We need to talk,” the man went on, shooting the words out quickly. “Sooner the better.”

Wait. Wait.

I was fine. I was loved. I had everything I needed.

Except for this conversation with a man who I suddenly knew, some way, somehow, was my father.

How the hell had he gotten my number?

My father was calling me. After nine years. After telling me he was going to kill me. After holding a—

Calm down, Luna.

I was calm. I was calm. I was fine. I could think.

“Don’t ever call me again,” I said into the receiver slowly, cutting off the man on the other end.

What did he do? He cursed. He cussed like he had every time I had ever asked him for anything growing up. Like I was an inconvenience, and his next words confirmed that nothing had changed. “I’m only fucking calling you because of your sister, don’t think it’s because of anything else.”

Because of my sister? Which one?

“Tell her she needs to quit that fucking job she’s at. She’s not taking my calls anymore.”

Taking his calls anymore? She was taking them in the first place? Since when? Why?

Why would she do something like that?

I wouldn’t hold it past him to lie, but... why? Why would he do that?

“Just talk to her. She doesn’t have any business doing that shit,” he went on, rambling, talking too fast.

Shredding me a little word by word. Or maybe it was my sister who was doing it with every word that came out of his mouth.

My hands started to shake. Mine. And just as I was about to shove the empty one under my thighs, I stopped. Then I made a decision.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I told him honestly, because I didn’t, and I wasn’t going to hide it. “But I don’t ever want to hear your voice again. Don’t call Lily or Kyra either. If you do, I’ll call your parole officer. Don’t think I won’t.”

And I hung up.

Then and only then, did I shove my freaking shaking hands under my thighs as I let out a deep breath.

What in God’s name was Thea into? What the hell was she doing? Why the hell was she talking to him of all freaking people?

Just when I thought things couldn’t get worse…

I found this out? This?

“You all right?” Rip didn’t wait to ask.

I wanted to say I was fine. I really did. But that wasn’t what I responded with. “Yes. No. I think… I think you’re right about my sister doing something fishy. That was my dad who just called.”

My dad. What a joke.

“I haven’t talked to him in years, and he just said…”

Why the hell was I telling Rip all this?

Slipping one of my hands out from under my thigh, I lifted it up to my head and rubbed the palm of it across my forehead pretty freaking roughly, like that would erase the conversation that had just happened.

Rip’s voice was low and gravelly, and so, so serious as he asked, “What he say?”

Keeping my gaze forward, I could barely tell him. “He said my sister doesn’t have any business doing something, but he didn’t say what, and…” Bitterness, honest to God bitterness, swelled up in my throat for the first time I could remember. I wasn’t bitter. I wasn’t. But I felt it then. Understood it then. I got why people could hold on to resentment for the rest of their lives. “He said she’s been ignoring his calls, like that was new.”

How could she? After everything he had said and done to me? She’d been the oldest. The one who witnessed more than the rest of my sisters just how our relationship had been.

And she was talking to him?

“I’m sorry.” I picked my phone back up and instantly hit the speed dial number I needed, my heart in my freaking throat. “I need to call her.”

He didn’t reply as I hit the icon to start the call. But I sat there, listening to it ring, then ring some more, then ring a little more. Until her voice mail picked up.

Then I called her again, and again she didn’t answer. Screw it. I’d leave a message.

“Thea, it’s Luna. I just got a call from… back home. Are you okay?” She had been talking to our dad behind my back. God, I was pissed. But more… more than anything… it felt like a stab. It hurt me so much I could barely talk and barely keep it together. I could barely think. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on, but I’ll help you any way I can. Just talk to me, all right? Call me back please. I’m not going in to work today. Call me any time.” I breathed in through my nose and back out of it. “Be safe, okay?”

Only then did I hang up, feeling weirdly… numb.

What was she doing?

Pulling my hand out from under my thigh, I fisted both of them on my lap and stared down at them, trying to put my thoughts back in order. She wasn’t dying. Nothing terrible had actually happened to her. There was no reason for me to freak the hell out and go back up to Dallas to see her—not that she’d even open the door to her apartment for me.

I took another deep breath that honestly sounded like a backed-up muffler on the way out.

Calm down. I needed to calm down.

It was only the rocking of the truck that had me noticing we had stopped. Right in front of my house.

“Luna,” Rip drew out my name slowly and carefully. “You good?”

I bit my bottom lip and heard the lie that wanted to come out of my throat. I replaced it with the truth. “I will be.”

Familiar, long, and tattooed fingers crept over the top of my hand and stayed there, brushing the LOVEYOU bracelet I’d put on that morning. Lucas Ripley’s voice swept over me as he said, “I don’t know what’s going on with your sister, but you tell me if there’s something I can do. You’re not alone, you hear me?”

I pressed my lips together and nodded.

But he wasn’t done. “You’re not, Luna, and I gotta tell you, you don’t need to be letting anybody run all over you or try to get away with shit—”

“I don’t do that,” I cut in.

It was only because of the soft face he gave me, all those normally harsh features without tension for once, that I didn’t let his words, or what he was implying bother me. “All I’m saying is, you don’t have to take shit, and you need to quit believing you do. Think about that, all right? Have fun with your sister but think about what I said.”

Chapter 18

“Happy to see you back, little moon,” Mr. Cooper said as he headed into the break room with his cup of coffee in hand.

I leaned back in my chair and grinned. “Me too, Mr. C. It feels like I’ve been gone a week.” But it was really only two full days. I could have stayed home an extra day and no one would have said anything, but I wasn’t about to milk anyone’s kindness.

That and I had only been home alone last night for a few hours and hadn’t known what to do with myself. I had learned real quick while I had gone to visit Lily that if I had five spare seconds, I would end up thinking about Thea and my dad. And if I wasn’t thinking about them, I thought about Rip and his secret friends and his mom. Once and only once did I let myself think about the last words he’d said to me before he had dropped me off at home, about not taking people’s crap.

I didn’t want to think about either of them, especially not since my own sister couldn’t find it in her to call me back but had zero issue texting Lily. It was only because she was texting her back, and because I had called Kyra to see if she’d heard from her, that I knew she was at least alive and decent. If things were bad, she wouldn’t be working and going to school, according to what Kyra had told me. I’d had to lie and tell her we had gotten into an argument and she was mad at me.

It had happened before.

The older man set his hand on top of my head as he walked behind me, pulling me back into safe, nice thoughts that weren’t centered around my sister emotionally betraying me or my dad being a prick. “You back to normal?”

“Mostly,” I answered, finally able to turn my neck—at least more than before. The massage I’d had done on Wednesday while I waited for Lily to get out of work had helped. “How are you doing? How’s your lady?”