Had he wanted to go though?

When we had gone to eat on Ashton’s first day, the two of them had gotten along all right. Part of me thought they had been on their best behaviors in front of the new guy. They hadn’t talked directly to each other once, or even made eye contact, but it had gone okay. I’d watched them like a hawk the whole time, expecting something to happen, but nothing had.

Nothing had in a while.

“Next time then?” I asked, giving him a smile that felt more honest than the rest of them before. I really needed to tell him the truth.

Mr. Cooper nodded, his expression pretty freaking curious but… okay. Bright, but okay.

I glanced back at Rip finally, keeping that expression on my face so that hopefully he wouldn’t think I was trying to pull a fast one on him even though I had been. “Ready?”

His eyes bounced on mine, something in them that I wasn’t familiar with, but he nodded eventually.

With a wave to Mr. Cooper, I headed out the door and down the stairs, Rip following behind me. We made it to the bottom before I realized I wasn’t ready to go, and I glanced over my shoulder to find him literally a foot away. “Give me one second to grab my purse, okay?”

Those blue-green eyes slid toward me. “You don’t need money.”

I opened my mouth, but he cut me off.

“You don’t need money. Let’s go,” he insisted.

I opened my mouth again, but he did the same thing, giving me that exasperated expression.

“You can pay me back some other way, all right?”

“I didn’t invite you so you could end up paying for someone else’s food.”

He stared at me.

“You’ve done enough. I don’t want to take advantage of you,” I told him for what felt like the hundredth time lately, knowing he would understand that.

Those eyes focused in on me, and I watched them go to my ears. I’d put on the first set I’d found in the ruin of my bedroom: fake gold teddy bears. “I’ll tell you if I feel like you’re taking advantage of me. But let’s go, I’m hungry. Those kolaches this morning went right through me.”

Oh, man. He wasn’t going to let this go. “Fine. But I’ll pay you back for my food at least.” I squinted an eye. “Somehow.”

He didn’t agree, but he did give me another side look before he shook his head. “Come on.”

I was going to lunch with Ripley.

I was going to tell myself that wasn’t excitement or crazy high anticipation going through me. Just two coworkers going out to eat in public. No big deal. It wasn’t even the first time we did it.

I led the way out the doors, noticing that no one even looked at Rip and me as we headed out. We had barely gone out the door when those long legs caught him up to me and we walked side by side toward his truck. He’d insisted on driving us to work that morning, even shoving my keys into his pocket so I wouldn’t get any ideas. I swear I didn’t know who this man was anymore. Neither one of us said anything as he beeped the locks and opened the passenger side door, and then went around to do the same on the driver side. He slid in while I buckled up. In no time, we were on the road.

To go out to eat together.

“What do you want to eat, boss?”

“Don’t call me that when we aren’t at work,” he said, his voice easy, not mean or anything like that. Just… him telling me not to call that.

For some reason.

I made a face. “Okay… what can I call you then when we aren’t at work?”

His grunt was his reply to that, but he didn’t look at me as he asked, “What do you think about barbecue?”

“I think I can eat a half pound of brisket,” I told him as I genuinely thought about what else I could call him instead that would be pesky but not too pesky.

His cheek twitched, and I’d take it as a smile. “You hear anything from your insurance?”

Ah. “Yeah, I talked to them earlier. They’re sending out an adjuster, and I have to send some paperwork to them, so I’m betting I’ll be fifty by the time I get a check.”

His fingers stretched out again on the steering wheel and his head ticked to the side.

“It’s fine. I’ll make it work. You fixed my door enough for me to be okay, and it isn’t like the people who came in are going to come back. They already took all the good stuff,” I tried to joke, but really, it sounded like anything but one.

Everything was fine. Things were just… stuff. They weren’t everything. I could live without them. I had survived with less before. But…

“Luna…”

“I’m okay. I know it’s stupid to be worried they’ll come back or the same thing will happen.”

“It ain’t stupid.”

It was and we both knew it.

“You don’t feel safe. Nothing stupid about that,” Rip tried to tell me in that voice I had no defense against. “Thought about getting an alarm?”

“I’ve thought about it,” I told him. “But the company that came by my house once was more than I could afford. They were asking for three hundred dollars down for the equipment. That’s the cost of the fancy tile I want for my kitchen backsplash.”

His fingers flexed on the steering wheel and he tapped them. “I know someone. Let me give him a call and see what he says.”

I couldn’t help but eye him. “You don’t have to do that, Rip.” Because he didn’t.

“I’ll get back to you after I talk to him.”

Of course he was going to ignore me.

Well, I couldn’t do anything about it if he was going to insist. He’d have to understand if I couldn’t afford it. The cops had said there had been a couple of break-ins around the area.

So, it was supposed to be… normal. Getting your house broken into wasn’t unheard of. Even if I hadn’t heard a single thing from any of my neighbors over them hearing about break-ins.

“Thanks for offering,” I told him. “You—”

That handsome face turned toward me, and he rolled his eyes, shaking his head. “Quit thanking me for everything.”

I made sure he watched me roll my eyes right back at him. “Okay, but thank you anyway.”

He shook his head again, turning back to face outside the windshield. “You don’t need to thank me.”

“You don’t need to do all the things you’ve done for me either but—”

“Stop,” he grunted.

I would have crossed my eyes if he’d been looking at me. “I appreciate it, okay? You’re being really nice, and you don’t have to. I just want you to know I’m grateful, so suck it up.”

We happened to come up to a stop sign when he glanced at me with those blue-green eyes and said, not softly but not roughly either, just… different, “I want to, all right?”

As quickly as I opened my mouth, I closed it.

He wanted to?

Lucas Ripley wanted to be nice to me?

My first thought was: why?

My second one was: who was I to tell him no? No, sir, please be a jerk and don’t care about me. I wasn’t that dumb.

* * *

I had just finished folding the clothes I pulled out of the dryer, when there was a knock at my front door.

I glanced at my phone and took in that I hadn’t missed any calls or texts. No one I knew was coming over; otherwise they would have messaged. I grabbed my biggest kitchen knife, because luckily those had survived the jerks, and headed toward the front door.

But when I got to the peephole, I took a step back afterward.

Then I took another step forward to look into it again. The person was still the same one, and the face on the other side hadn’t magically morphed either.

I couldn’t even think as I flipped the lock and pulled the door open, finding a duffel bag sitting on my porch and a tall man with wide shoulders and a wide chest standing there.

He didn’t even give me a chance to say a word. “You gonna let me in?”

Well. “No,” I told him with a grin even as I moved to the side to let him inside.

He didn’t even try to sneak by either; his entire side brushed my front as he did.