Neither one of us said anything as I walked away.

Chapter 27

My lunch break the next day was a repeat of the one before it, and I honestly didn’t know what to think of it.

Or even if I should waste my time thinking it over.

I went outside, had all of my food out, my clothes were rolled up the way I liked them, and I had my legs stretched out in the sun when the door opened and out came the same man I had just seen hours ago when he’d come into my room and peeked through the window of the booth while I sprayed. That day, he had on a gray compression shirt and another pair of jeans that were somehow dirty even with the coveralls he wore over them.

Everything on him was covered like usual.

From his neck down over his wrist bones, everything accentuated that big, muscular figure I had checked out every chance I could without getting caught for years.

But this time, it wasn’t so hard to look away. It really wasn’t hard at all.

I’d had another dream about my dad the previous night, the same one as before that left my head uncomfortable and tight and left me in bed sweaty and out of breath. It had only taken me a couple hours to shake it off. All it did was remind me of why it wasn’t hard to look away from Rip right then.

The thing was, I didn’t need to use my eyes to know what he was doing.

Rip did the same thing he’d done the day before. He came over and sat beside me, and neither one of us said a word. Not while we ate. Not in the sparse minutes I had after I’d forced down my food. Not while I looked at my phone and scrolled through reviews of couches that were on sale.

When the time came to get back to work, I didn’t even do more than glance at him as I collected my stuff and headed back to my room more than half an hour after he’d appeared.

* * *

The very next day went a lot like every other day before it, at least since Mr. Cooper’s heart attack.

I showed up to work. Ripley was already there. I pretended not to see him as I headed into my room, and then pretended not to see him some more when I went upstairs to prepare my coffee or when I went back downstairs with it in my hand. Just mine. Not his. Like it was our new thing, because it was. I shouldn’t have to go out of my way to be nice to my boss when he didn’t want it, and when it wasn’t like he was doing me a favor by employing me.

He couldn’t fire me without going through Mr. Cooper. Because even if chances were very, very high they were related, I knew that when it came down to it, I had a better relationship with him than Rip did. I had gone to see Mr. C the night before, had dinner with him and Lydia, and stayed to watch a movie. I knew my place in the older man’s life.

But just like every other day lately, at some point in the beginning half of the morning, I had a visitor stop by my room.

A six-foot-four-inch visitor who I would bet weighed around two hundred and fifty pounds.

The man I didn’t want all up in my space anymore.

“Can I help you with something?” I asked, using the same exact words I had used every other time he’d come in. Calm, cool, professional.

Unlike every other day though, my boss didn’t use an excuse about wanting to check something or see something.

He just stood there with his hands on his hips, gritted his teeth, and said, “You done?”

“Yes. I just finished the hood in the booth, and I’m waiting a minute before I get it out of here and start on the panels. Ashton already said he’d help me move it out.”

He stared.

I stared back.

Then he let out a deep, deep sigh, cocked his jaw to the side, and grumbled, “You know what I’m talking about. You done for real?”

I used my nicest voice as I asked, “With what?”

Lord, he was staring right at me as he held his hands out to his sides. “With this.”

“With what?”

He pressed his lips together. If I looked hard enough, I bet I could see how white they became as he did it, but I didn’t. I didn’t even look a little bit. “With this, Luna,” he replied, flipping his hands again.

Looking back on it, I should have chosen a different approach. But that was the thing with looking back on your actions: life didn’t have a rewind button. Unfortunately.

But at least I could look back and remember that I’d held my head up high, kept my voice even, and looked my boss right in the eye as I told him, “I’m treating you the way you wanted me to treat you, Mr. Ripley. With respect. Like you pay my bills. I’m leaving you alone. I’m not annoying you. I’m not forcing myself on you or asking you to do things you wouldn’t want to. I don’t know what else you want from me.”

That intense gaze didn’t stray a centimeter. Not for a second. Not for a millisecond. He stared at me like his gaze was made of laser beams and he wanted to burn me to ashes.

And then he tried.

“Would you fucking stop with the Mister Ripley?”

I didn’t flinch. Didn’t move. I just looked at him like his words didn’t affect me at all. “That’s your name, sir.”

Maybe the “sir” was overdoing it.

“You fucking kidding me right now?” Rip’s asked, his voice starting to rise.

All right, it was a little much, I guessed, but that didn’t change a single thing. Not about me, not about this situation. “No, I’m not,” I answered him calmly. “And I don’t understand why you’re raising your voice. I’m not doing anything.”

Rip’s eyes almost, almost bulged out of his skull as he leaned forward. “The fuck you’re not doing anything. You’re talking in circles, doing exactly what you know is gonna bother me.”

“I’m not doing anything to bother you. I’ve done enough to bother you in the past, remember? So I’m stopping. I’ve stopped. All I’m doing is exactly what you asked.”

My boss took a step forward. “Quit talking to me like that.”

“Like you’re my boss?” I asked slowly, knowing I was baiting him but not sure what else I could say. “Like an employee who didn’t lie to the cops for you when they showed up one morning asking where you’d been? When I gave you an alibi because I believed that you were home alone? So I told them I had been with you that night and you let me give you a kiss on the cheek?”

“Goddamn it, Luna,” he griped.

I could hear my dad’s voice using that tone with me. I could hear him saying those exact same words.

But I was done listening to that tone and that phrase when it was said like that together. I really was. Especially when it was out of Rip’s mouth.

“I know you didn’t do anything, Rip. That’s why when the cops came, I told them you were with me that night. I didn’t expect anything from it. What I’m saying now is I know where we stand. I had no problem lying for you, but you started this favor business. And you told me to leave you alone,” I spit back at him, trying to sound collected and distant but knowing I was failing. “So that’s what I’m doing. I wanted to be your friend. I tried to be your friend. I thought you wanted to be mine too. I wanted you to like me, and I would have wanted you to like me as more than a friend, Rip. You know, I would have wanted that more than anything.

“I knew better, but I still felt that way. But I really would have just taken being your friend if that’s all you’d been willing to give me. I was trying not to think of you like that anymore. I think one day, I would have eventually moved on with this stupid infatuation I had with you, all on my own. Probably once I found someone else to like. I’m used to caring about people who don’t care for me in return, Mr. Ripley.

“But I’ve got enough people I love who haven’t wanted me around. And I’m not going down that road again. You want to be mean to me and push me away because you were upset or whatever it was with Mr. Cooper? I get it. I can’t begin to figure out how confusing your relationship with him is. I get that you’re mad he married someone else so soon after your mom. I get it. But I didn’t do anything to deserve you kicking me aside. I tried to be there for you, and even if you warned me that you didn’t want to hurt me, you still did.

“But I’m done. I know how to listen. I can tell when I’m wasting my time, and I’m not going to waste my time anymore. I’m not going to give and give and give to someone who doesn’t want what I have to share. My parents have done it to me, my siblings have done it to me, everyone does it to me when I let them, and you’re going to be the last person who makes me feel like a freaking nuisance.