I sighed, shoved those worries aside, and sipped out of my straw just to kill time before I told him the truth. “Because it isn’t that far or that close to my house.”

I didn’t imagine that his look was pretty freaking close to him being amused. “Pretty smart.”

I tapped my temple.

Wanting to change the subject, and taking advantage that he’d come over to sit with me, I leaned forward and put my chin on top of my opened palm. “Will you tell me where you live or is that too personal? I can put it in our box of secrets, if you want.”

He moved his head from side to side before replying with two major streets I recognized being further up north.

“House, duplex, apartment, or complex?”

“Shithole.”

I shouldn’t have laughed… but I did, and when I caught him smirk-smiling, I knew he had said that on purpose. He was playing again. Why now? After all these years? I wondered, but did I care that much? No.

“It’s shit. Just somewhere to sleep and eat,” he explained, smoothly.

I took a quick sip of my Sprite. “How long is your lease?”

“I don’t have one.”

He lived in a shithole, but it wasn’t a rental. I didn’t want to say that didn’t make sense, but… it didn’t.

“It’s not that kinda place.” His mouth twitched, and he said out of the blue, “I got a mobile home on a lot.”

“It’s yours?”

Rip nodded.

“That’s not a shithole then.”

“Whatever you say,” he said, keeping an eye on me. “It’s shit, believe me, but it’s a place to sleep, shower, and make food.”

“That’s all mine has too,” I told him. “My place isn’t amazing or anything, but it’s mine, so I think it’s pretty awesome.”

The little smile that he gave me at my words egged me on to keep talking.

“You should have seen my house when I first bought it. It looked like it could have been the setting for a movie about a family who moved in and the children get possessed by poltergeists that had been in the house for the last two hundred years. My little sister, Lily, used to shove a chair under her closet door because it freaked her out. I slept with a lamp on for like the first year, but don’t tell anyone I told you that. I always told them all they were overreacting, but it really was creepy in there. Half the time I expected something to grab my foot off the edge of the bed and pull me under.”

Ripley’s eyes lit up and my chest filled with pleasure. “That bad?”

He had no idea, and it made me laugh. “Yeah. I couldn’t shower in peace without opening up an eye every two seconds just to make sure nothing was lurking in the bathroom with me.”

Rip made this hoarse noise that almost sounded like a chuckle, and I wasn’t about to let myself react. Nope.

“You can come over one day if you feel like maybe getting possessed or want to get an idea even though a lot of it looks pretty different now. There’s still a lot I want to do to it though.” Was he smiling? “But it’s mine, and as long as I pay the mortgage and the property taxes, no one can take it away but the ghosts and the little kids who live in the walls.”

He chuckled at me. For real. And that dimple was kinda-sorta in full view when he asked, “How long you had it?”

“A year and a half. How long have you had your place?”

“Three years,” he replied without thinking twice.

Since he’d come to Cooper’s.

Then he decided to switch the conversation on me. “You were pretty young, getting your own place.”

I took a sip of my Sprite. “I didn’t want to live in an apartment longer than I needed to. We moved around a lot when I was a kid, and I hated it. So when I got a job, I set aside as much money as I could, even if it was only twenty bucks a week. My goal had been to buy something when I was twenty-two, but after my sisters came to live with me, there was always something else to spend money on. Mr. Cooper offered to cosign for me if I needed it, but I got the house for such a good price and had built up my credit over the years, so I didn’t have to. They’d already done enough, cosigning my car loan for me when I was eighteen.” I smiled at him and hesitated with what I wanted to say next. But screw it. “I know you two aren’t exactly best friends, but Mr. C is the most generous man I’ve ever met. He’s been better to me than my own dad, but I’m sure you’ve put that together by now.”

Strangers had been better to me than my own dad, but nobody needed to bring that up.

Luckily, Rip didn’t get all hot and bothered by my comment. He just looked thoughtful for a second before he seemed to shrug it off and aim that intense gaze on me again. Even his body seemed to lean forward as he asked, “Why you here, Luna?”

“Because my sister has bad radar for men and she set me up with someone who couldn’t even find it in his heart to reschedule our date or at least tell her he wasn’t interested anymore?”

His gaze didn’t move away from me. Nothing about him did, and it made me wonder if that wasn’t exactly the question he’d asked.

“Or are you asking why I’m trying to go on a date period?”

The look he gave me confirmed that had been his original question.

Well. “Because” was my brilliant freaking answer.

That got me an eyebrow raise. “Because?”

Why did I feel so uncomfortable all of a sudden? I lifted a shoulder. “Because. Why do you date?”

He blinked. “I don’t.”

It was my turn to blink. “What do you mean you don’t date?”

“I don’t date,” he confirmed.

I stared. “Why?”

Those teal eyes were totally centered on me. “Because I don’t know. Never wanted to. Didn’t want to be tied down. Didn’t like anybody enough, you choose,” he replied easily, like it was a fact. And maybe it was for him.

I couldn’t help myself, especially not when he was being so open. I figured he’d turn this around on me sooner or later, I knew how persistent he could be, but I was going to milk this as long as he was willing. “You’ve never had a girlfriend?”

That got me a nostril flaring. “No.”

“Never?”

He gave me one of his “duh” looks. “No.”

I made a face that had him doing that low barely a chuckle thing.

“Have I seen the same woman a few times? Yeah…”

That wasn’t jealousy or anything that made my stomach tense.

“But a fucking old lady? A girlfriend? Like we’re friends and talk about shit and go over to spend time with each other? Nah.” He shook his head. “Nah.”

Sex. He was trying to tell me the only interest in women he had was only if it was sex-related. I couldn’t say that it didn’t leave a weird feeling in my gut, but… it explained some things. I wasn’t going to worry about that bitter thing in my stomach at the idea of him having sex with people.

It wasn’t like I was a virgin.

But his comment and his look helped me understand why I needed to settle my expectations for what they were.

He was here, talking to me, and he could be kind and nice and caring when he wanted to be, but that was it. It wasn’t like that should be a surprise or anything. If I looked at it a certain way, maybe it would actually make me feel nice that he saw me in a different light… in a way.

I guessed.

“Why you here, Luna?” he asked again, going back to the topic of me a lot sooner than I had hoped.

I shoved his previous words aside and focused. “Because I’d like to meet somebody to be my friend and spend time with me.” I turned his words around on him.

He rubbed his fingers against his glass. “Why don’t you already have somebody?”

Why?

“Thought you were dating somebody when we first met,” he kept going.

Oh… “We had already broken up by then, but… you know, things just ended. He wanted something that I didn’t, and we broke up,” I told him, knowing it was coming off as mysterious, but hoping he wouldn’t hook onto the bait.