“You eat dinner already?” he asked as I was closing and locking the door.

“Yeah, did you?”

I mean, he’d dropped me off two hours ago. We had both worked late, and he’d offered to take me home whenever I was ready. He was the one who had come by my room right before seven asking if I was done for the day, and I had been. Or at least I’d been pretty close to it.

“Nah,” the man replied, dropping the duffel at the bottom of the stairs.

My eyes focused in on the bag, putting together what he was doing at my house at nine o’clock at night with that.

He was going to spend the night.

“Want me to order you something? I ordered pho, but I ate it all, I’m sorry,” I apologized, still looking at that navy blue bag that had some miles on it.

“No,” he replied, bending over to unzip it and pull out the same kind of container he’d brought me lunch in. But then he pulled out three more just like it too, stacking them up carefully in his hand as he straightened. “I brought food. I’ll put the rest in your fridge, all right?”

“Okay,” I basically croaked.

Those eyes caught mine for a second before he disappeared down the hall that led into the kitchen.

Just like Lenny did when she came over. Or when Mr. Cooper or Lydia came over. Or when my sisters were here.

Like it was normal.

And he’d brought me food. Again.

Man, I could fall in love this man if I let myself. I really, really could. But only dummies fell in love with their bosses—bosses who didn’t do girlfriends or relationships.

There was no use dreaming about things I couldn’t have. There was no use thinking I could fall in love with him even though some tiny part of me quietly whispered that I already was. That was for sure. It was with that thought that I yelled down the hall, “Rip! I’m going to shower but make yourself at home!”

“’Kay,” he called out just as loudly, doing whatever it was he was doing in the kitchen. Eating?

I stopped where I was. “Want some company while you eat?” I yelled.

“I’m good,” he replied.

Okay.

I headed into my bedroom, grabbing the clothes I had organized while I waited for my dinner, and pulled out a navy short and tank top pajama set with pink hearts that Lily had bought me.

It didn’t take me long to shower and get dressed as I did my best to ignore how tired I was. I’d gone on maybe five hours of sleep over the last three days, and I was feeling it. Honestly, all I wanted to do was fall face-first onto my bed. I was too sleepy to even care about the tiny possibility someone might decide to come back.

And… Rip was here.

I even brushed my teeth then moisturized my face, giving the circles under my eyes a sigh. I really needed to get some sleep. And using one of those gel eye masks wouldn’t hurt either. At least the stress hadn’t made me start breaking out.

Sighing again, I opened the bathroom door and stopped.

I stopped right there in place and took in the man sitting on the edge of my bed.

The man sitting on my bed, pulling off his socks, giving me a nice view of pink soles.

The man who looked up the second I opened the door and flashed me a smile that was almost as tired as mine was.

“If you get hungry in the middle of the night, I left food in your fridge,” he told me quietly, folding his socks and dropping them on top of his work boots. “You need to hit the store though. There’s nothing in there.”

“I know, but thank you,” I told him, standing there. “I’ll make time to go this weekend.” I paused. “Did you cook everything yourself?”

His eyes never left mine as he answered, “Yeah.”

I wondered if his mom had taught him how or if he’d had to learn after she was gone.

“Did you want to shower?” I asked, choosing that to focus on.

He shook his head. “I did before I came over.”

Well.

“I can’t make it through another night on your couch again,” he let me know, still speaking in that calm, quiet voice that I didn’t know what to do with.

Oh.

I thought about that. “Lily’s bed is too small, it’s just a daybed, and my other sisters took theirs.”

Oh.

Oh.

I didn’t need to look at my bed to know that while it wasn’t a king-sized mattress, it was a queen. And the biggest in the house.

“You can sleep on my bed. There are some tears in the mattress, but I covered them with the sheets. It’ll still be better than last night,” I offered, giving him a smile. “I’ll sleep on the couch.”

…by myself.

Closer to the front and back doors.

That wasn’t going to happen.

“Or in Lily’s room,” I threw out.

Rip stood up, tall, so freaking tall, and I had to tip my chin back a little to keep making eye contact with him. He stretched those muscular arms over his head and yawned, “You look like you need a good rest too, baby girl.”

I did. I really did.

I also needed to ignore the use of that b-word again.

And I needed to quit being a chicken and sleep wherever.

“Nothing’s gonna happen, you know that, yeah?” he asked in his careful voice, making me focus on him.

I nodded.

His breath was deep but true, and he was looking right at me as he asked, “Why don’t you sleep in here too?”

Too? On the same bed?

I mean…

I said “Okay” before I stopped myself, or even realized what in the world I’d just jumped into.

What the hell was I doing?

Before I could stop myself, Rip said, “Let’s get to bed then.”

Just like that.

Well. Hell.

I was so nervous I held my breath as I went to the wall and flipped off the lights, blindly making my way toward the lamp that had survived these assholes coming into my house. The lamp lit the room just enough, showing me that Rip was on the other side of the mattress—the side I didn’t sleep on—already pulling the white coverlet back like it was the most natural thing in the world.

I wished.

Or at least I would if I was asking for a side of heartache.

“Is this a good idea?” I couldn’t help but ask. Sleeping in the same bed with my boss just seemed, like it shouldn’t happen. At least to me. At least not when that boss was Rip.

“Why wouldn’t it be?” he asked right back before slipping under the sheets I had put on earlier.

Huh.

If he thought there wasn’t anything that would make this a bad idea…

I could ignore that this was something new. That my heart beat just a little faster at the idea of sleeping beside him. There was no reason this wasn’t strictly platonic.

I pulled the covers back and climbed in too. Flicking off the lamp, I snuggled into the covers and felt the mattress beside me moving, saying that Rip was adjusting himself too.

I rolled over onto my side to face where he was and slipped my hands under my cheek.

“Luna?”

I closed my eyes without even trying to. “Hmm?”

“You good?”

“Uh-huh, you?”

“Yeah.”

I yawned. “Thanks for coming over. Give me a poke if I’m moving around too much, okay?”

My eyes popped open the second I heard him snicker.

I was so tired, but I still laughed.

I was pretty sure he said something else, but I had zero energy, I couldn’t even find it in me to overthink Rip being in the same bed as me or me telling him to give me a poke. I fell asleep instantly.

And I was pretty sure my dreams started up instantly too.

Maybe it was the stress of getting burglarized. Maybe it was my worry and anger over Thea… Maybe it was the fury that speaking to my dad fueled me with. Or my beef with Kyra now too…

But I fell into a dream that starred my dad in it. Again.

Some part of me knew it wasn’t real, knew that it wasn’t actually happening, but despite all of that, my panic felt real. Too real as it started off with Kyra saying she was hungry while we all sat in my bedroom while we worked on our homework. I made my way into the kitchen from the back of the house, grabbing two boxes of macaroni and cheese from the secret hole I’d cut into the sheetrock in my closet. I could hear my dad and the girls’ mom arguing from the living room, and I tried to rush—to somehow make the water boil faster so I could go back to the room—but it hadn’t happened.