“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?”

He set a sandwich beside me. “Everything is good. She’s great. She misses you and told me to have you call her. Other than that, no complaints from me.”

“Your blood pressure?”

That had him sliding me a look.

I grinned and whispered, “The new guy?”

“Good,” he confirmed. “He works hard, very respectful and professional. I’m happy.”

“Good.”

“What’d you do on your days off?”

I had decided I wasn’t going to tell anyone about the Thea thing, including Mr. Cooper. “I went to see Lily and stayed with her for the night. I spent last night watching TV and doing laundry.”

“Gone on any more of these dates?”

Hell. If it hadn’t been for my little sister sending me a message that morning, I would have forgotten all about it, even after she had brought it up a dozen times while we had been together. “Tonight actually. I’m going out with Lily’s old teacher.”

“A teacher?”

Did he sound skeptical or was I imagining it? I nodded anyway.

“I could see you with a teacher,” he said, thoughtfully. So he wasn’t skeptical about it. All right.

“I can’t. She said he’s nice. We’re meeting at Mickey’s, so hopefully it goes well,” I replied, glancing to the side to see Rip halfway into the break room. I hadn’t even heard him come in, he was so sneaky.

He shot me a stone-faced look I wasn’t sure what to think of.

When I had walked in that morning, he’d already been working. And when I brought him down his coffee not too long afterward, we’d had the same exchange we always did, except he’d asked if I felt any better. I had told him, yes, and that had been the end of that.

He hadn’t asked about my sister after offering to help me out with her situation if I needed.

Not that I would.

Well, unless it was absolutely necessary.

“Feeling better, Luna?” another voice asked, drawing my gaze back toward the door as Rip walked right behind me.

It was the new guy, Ashton, at the door, holding what looked like a bag from the burger truck that was a block away from the shop.

“Yeah,” I said, shooting him a smile. “I can finally turn my head a little. See?”

The blond man smiled as he dropped his bag into the seat in front of mine. “Nice.”

“Thanks,” I told him.

Out of my line of vision, Rip stuck something into the microwave. “Everyone was complaining about you not being here,” Ashton kept

going as he pulled his seat out.

“Aww, they don’t have anyone else to pick on is all,” I joked.

Two bites of food later, the scrape of the chair on my other side being pulled out had me preparing for Rip to drop into it, and he did. He had a reusable glass container with what looked like… chicken, brown rice, and veggies. Then I looked down at mine and found the same sticky, tan noodles, and wilted brown vegetables that still didn’t taste any better than they had the first day.

He must have peeked at my food too because our eyes met, and I had to shoot him a grin.

The cheek closest to me went up—it was the one with the dimple too

—and I couldn’t help but feel a little triumph at our inner joke.

I nudged my container an inch closer to him and asked, totally serious, “You want some, boss?”

That cheek went up a little higher as he replied very clearly, using all the depth of that deep voice, “I’m good.”

“You’re sure?”

His eyes swung back to my food, and he seemed to think about it for a moment before he took the fork in my hand, dug it into the container, and like he’d done it a dozen times before, scooped the food it into his mouth in the time it took me to process what he’d done. His jaw worked… Those teal eyes went wide…

And he gagged.

Ripley freaking gagged before his throat bobbed forcefully and he swallowed it.

I opened my mouth wide as I watched him shake his head afterward like he was trying to erase the memory from his brain.

“Rip,” I managed to get out while still having my mouth open. “What the fuck was that?” he asked, reaching for his bottle of water

and gulping down half of it before shooting me what I was pretty sure he meant to be a horrified expression but was just adorable instead.

“Lo mein,” I told him, starting to laugh.

He looked at me. Then he grabbed my Rubbermaid, shoved his chair back and dumped everything in it into the trash.

“Rip!” I hissed, laughing. “What are you doing? That’s perfectly good food!”

Already pushing his chair back in closer to the table, he shot me a look as he set the now empty container down and picked up his own. “There’s nothing perfectly good about any of that, Luna,” he grumbled, shaking his head as he scraped half of his meal into my bowl. He scooted it back toward me with a lift of his chin. “Eat that.”

I blinked, ignoring the prickly feeling that popped up on my arms as I took in what he’d done. “I don’t want to eat your food.”

“Luna.”

“What if you get hungry later because you only ate half?”

That handsome face changed, just a little, but then he rolled his eyes and said in that bossy voice, “Eat it.”

It hadn’t hit me until right then that neither Mr. C nor Ashton were saying a word or had been since Rip sat down next to me and we had started talking. I wondered what Mr. Cooper would think.

But Rip talking again made me focus on him. “You’re really going to argue with me over eating?” he had the nerve to ask.

I pressed my lips together and muttered, “No.” Then I stopped doing that, curled my finger over the top of the bowl, and dragged it over. “Thank you for sharing. You didn’t have to.”

His warm reply was a grunt.

If it hadn’t been for my phone beeping from its spot on my table, I would have kept going, but I glanced down to see I’d gotten a message from Lily.

After the call from my dad, anytime the phone went off, it made me paranoid.

I unlocked the screen and tapped her message open.

Lily: Are you ready for tonight?

Okay, at least it wasn’t anything else. Just that date. Tonight.

Did my neck start hurting again all of a sudden or was I imagining it? I texted her back.

Me: Yes…

Me: My neck hurts though.

That was more of an exaggeration than it needed to be, but….

Lily: Don’t turn your head then, silly.

Peeking at Rip, I could see he’d pulled a magazine out of somewhere

—his pocket?—and unrolled it beside him. But it looked like he was dragging his tongue over his teeth, making a face as he did it. My food had that effect on people.

I thought about what to write her back, before finally glancing down at the new food in my container. It was exactly like what I had thought: stir-fried rice with veggies and a chicken thigh. I scooped up some rice with my fork and shoved it into my mouth, blinking as I chewed and swallowed.

I slid my gaze over to Rip and took another bite.

It was freaking delicious. I wondered if he’d made it or—or what? Unless he had a cook who went over to his place—or a woman who made his food—he’d made it.

Maybe it was a woman who made it for him. I had no idea if he had a girlfriend. Or maybe not even a girlfriend but just a… friend. Maybe with benefits. No one had ever mentioned him having a woman in his life, and it wasn’t like he brought anyone over to the shop other than the guy he’d met in the lot.

“Did you make this?” I asked him.

He didn’t even glance at me. “Uh-huh.”

Okay then. I texted Lily a response while I scooped more food into my mouth.

Me: I really don’t want to go, Lily.

Lily: Come on. Do it. Who knows, maybe you’ll hit it off. I promise he’s really cute.

I knew he was cute. She had shown me a picture of him at least three times. That wasn’t the point though.

Lily: But I’ll see if he can go another day if you want.

I didn’t feel like going in the first place, but… I was supposed to be trying. So…

I glanced at Rip again, watching as he flipped through the magazine while digging his fork into his food without looking at it. He’d shared his food with me. Food he’d made.

The heart wants what it wants, but the brain knows what it can get. And it was with that thought that I wrote her back.

Me: Yeah, if you can.

Lily: Okay, I will.

I only slightly felt like a jerk after that, but at least I wasn’t outright cancelling. I was still trying. Just… not today.

For some reason, I glanced to my other side to see what Mr. Cooper was doing since he’d been so quiet, and I had to pause, looking at him when I saw the smile he had on his face while he ate his sandwich.

“Is it that good?” I couldn’t help but ask him.

His blue eyes came to me, that smile still on his face, and Mr. Cooper chuckled lightly. “Yeah, it’s that good, Luna.” His smile grew even wider right before he moved a hand to pat the top of my head. “Best sandwich I’ve ever had.”

 

Hours later, when it was five o’clock and I was pretty much

done with my work for the day, which consisted of me barely talking to Jason, who had been eerily decent, I checked my phone again and found more messages from Lily spread out over the afternoon.

Lily: I emailed him but haven’t heard back.

Lily: Still nothing

Lily: No response, mama Luna. I gotta get to work, but I’ll see if he writes me back. Sorry. <3

He hadn’t responded?

What if he’d gone to the bar we had agreed to meet at and was going to wait?

I sent my sister a text and told her it was fine then grabbed my things to head out. Rip was busy talking to a couple of the shop guys, so I couldn’t even wave goodbye to him. I did call out bye to Miguel, who

was still watching me like I was going to hurl vomit at him from across the room.

By the time I got home and Lily still hadn’t messaged me to confirm that my date was off, I felt bad. I really didn’t want to go, but I wasn’t about to leave him hanging either. I forced myself to get dressed and head to the bar.

Worst-case scenario, I’d text Lenny and tell her to call me in an hour if things went bad.

Best-case scenario, he’d stand me up.

 

I’d been at the bar for only a few minutes when I accepted the

fact that the teacher had either gotten my sister’s message and been too much of a butthole to write her back or he had died. It had to be one or the other. At least that’s what I was going to tell myself.

But on the very small chance that he hadn’t gotten her email and was only running late…

I was waiting. It was the nice thing to do.

About five minutes into sitting there, checking my phone about every minute to see if Lily had messaged me, I was kicking myself in the ass for not just staying home in the first place and running the risk that the teacher would be the one sitting around instead. But I had ordered a glass of Sprite and took in each person who walked into the bar, hoping one of them looked like the picture my sister had shown me of the guy.

After fifteen minutes, I would have taken anyone attempting to look around, so at least there had been some hope that someone was looking for me. But the only looking-around going on was people coming in groups looking for a table. I had taken up a two-seater in the middle of the room.

There wasn’t anyone though. Just me, sitting alone, watching other people. The story of my life.

I checked my phone one more time and didn’t even bother sighing when nothing had changed on the screen. One of the waitresses walked by me with a tray of potato wedges covered in melted cheese and what I was pretty sure was broken up bits of bacon. My stomach grumbled. I should have gotten at least a snack before I’d come.

Ten more minutes. Ten more minutes and I’d leave and not feel guilty because I had come. That was it. I wasn’t going to stay a minute

longer; I was starving. If I wanted potato wedges, I could settle for a stop at the Jack in the Box on the way home.

Across from me were a group of men standing right by a dart board, already halfway trashed if how bad their aim was meant anything. One of them threw a dart that hit about three feet to the right, bouncing off the sheetrock covered wall that already had a bunch of holes on it from other drunk guys in the past trying to play the same game. The men in the crowd started laughing, but the same man went again and did just as bad.

I glanced at my phone.

Three minutes down, seven to go. “All alone?”

I must have been that distracted that it took me a second to process who was standing there in front of me, holding something dark and amber in a glass. It was the big hand with fingers covered in tattoos that I caught onto first. Then it was the long sleeve ending right at the man’s wrist that I took in next.

There was only one person I knew who would wear a long-sleeved shirt in the summer. And when that wrist connected to a big, muscular arm, and then a wide chest, a thick neck, and finally a face I had seen countless times…

I’m sure my eyes were bugging out of my skull.

“Rip?” I might have gasped like I didn’t know his name.

Those teal-colored eyes didn’t shine, and his mouth didn’t form the shape of a smile. He went right on looking at me as he stood there, tall as ever, broad as ever, and just too handsome as I sat there, getting stood up. “You here alone?” my boss asked.

Was… was I here alone?

I had lost my mind. Crap. I must have been that surprised I couldn’t think straight. “Hi. Yeah.” I smiled, confused as to why he was here. “I was supposed to have a date, but I don’t think he’s showing up,” I babbled.

He scratched at the side of his nose with the thumb of his free hand. Then he pulled the only other chair at the table out and wedged that huge body into it. His forearms went to the top, and those eyes came back to me.

Did he have a funny look on his face or was I imagining it?

“What are you doing here?” I asked, looking around—I wasn’t sure for what, a beautiful woman with giant knockers coming toward us or something.

But no one was even paying the smallest bit of attention toward our table.

Rip had his focus on the group of men throwing darts as he replied, casually, “Getting a drink before I head home.”

Well, that made sense.

Grabbing the tip of the straw in my drink, I fidgeted with it as I kept an eye on the man on the other side of the table. “Do you live close to here?”

He was still looking at the group of men. “No.” So…. “Are you here by yourself?”

“Yeah.”

Rip turned that perfectly profiled face over to me as he took a sip of his drink. Lazily, those dark eyebrows went up a little. “This is a shitty place to meet a stranger, baby girl.”

See? There was that tiny bit of fondness again. “It’s public.” “It’s dark,” he countered.

I blinked. “There’s a lot of people here.” “A lot of people drunk or about to be.”

“The bouncer is almost as big as you are,” I told him.

That other eyebrow went up and he said slowly, “The parking lot is fucking dark.”

I’d swear on my life that he smirked, and I ignored the little pleasure I felt at it. At being the one he would do something like that with. But it didn’t mean anything. I couldn’t forget that. He was my boss, and… he was fond of me. He was. I knew it. He’d shared his lunch with me. If that wasn’t fondness, I didn’t know what was. I knew how to share, and everyone knew that. But Rip? Rip had hidden his birthday cake so no one else could have any.

“Why’d you choose this joint to meet up at?”

It finally hit me right then that he was here watching me wait around for my date. Watching me get stood up. Fantastic.

Absolutely fantastic.

Why was he always around when my Luna Luck kicked in at its worst? Literally, my cousin trying to hurt me? He was there. My sister kicking me out of her apartment after a four-hour drive? He was there. Me screwing up at work? He was there. Me getting lied to by the same sister? He was there.

I wasn’t sure I believed in signs, but if I did, those would have been major ones. At least that’s what I’d figure.

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.

He was nosey enough that he did, and I couldn’t help but feel his surprise. “What he want?”

I had walked right into that, hadn’t I? I fidgeted with my straw again. “Between us?”

He nodded.

“A threesome.”

Nothing on his features registered surprise.

“With his ex-wife,” I finished, giving him a smile and kind of raising a shoulder. I was over it. Now it just made me laugh.

Rip blinked, took a drink, and then took his time with his next question, making an almost stunned face. “Say that again.”

I finally did laugh. “He wanted us to have a threesome with his ex- wife. Apparently that’s something he did sometimes with other people, even after they divorced, but I had no idea until he asked.”

That big body leaned back in his chair, but that funny face didn’t go anywhere. “He broke up with you over it?”

I fiddled with the straw again, looking down into the Sprite before raising my gaze back to him. “I broke up with him over it. He said he was sorry and that he shouldn’t have asked, but it was too late. It hurt my feelings, and I couldn’t get over it. I mean, I don’t think I was being

overly dramatic, but it’s a little weird that a man still has sex with his ex- wife. They had two daughters together. You know?

“He swore it wasn’t a big deal if we didn’t, that they were over for a reason and that it didn’t mean anything, it was just sex, he’d said. But back then, he’d been the only one I’d ever…” Crap. He didn’t need to know where the rest of that had been going. Did he? Nope. “He was really nice, and he treated me really well, and I know he cared about me, but in that question… he broke my trust, and I knew I would never be able to get over it. What, he’d bring up having a threesome with her again later on? Or get bored with me and then find someone else to suggest? I don’t think so. So I broke up with him, and that was that.”

That story stung a lot less this time than it had every other time in the past I had retold it.

He hadn’t broken my heart, but he had my trust.

I had been sad for about two days, and then I got over it. I didn’t let people take too much of my time away, and that’s what mourning and whimpering were. Time and energy wasted.

Maybe some people would be able to have a threesome… maybe I could have if we hadn’t been in a relationship and he hadn’t been the same man I had lost my virginity to… but I was pretty sure that there was something in me that wouldn’t let me ever be in that kind of relationship.

I’d had to share so much in my life. I thought that if I wanted to be selfish every once in a while, there was nothing wrong with that.

I shrugged again. “And right after him, I saw this one guy for a few weeks… kind of like a rebound, I guess… and that’s been it, except for a couple of dates here and there every few months, but none of them ever worked out.” I plastered a smile on. “But now that Lily is gone, everyone talked me into giving it another try. So I’m here, getting stood up. Yay.”

Rip’s nostrils flared again, and one of those thick fingers went to the rim of his glass, circling it while his eyes strayed to mine. “But why are you here, baby girl?”

Why was I here?

That wasn’t a loaded question.

I glanced at the group of men still trying to play darts. “I’m happy, but I know people who are even happier because of the people in their lives, you know? I’ve always liked seeing elderly couples walking around, holding hands and stuff; I want the same thing, or at least I want to try for it. I want a partner. I want someone I can rely on. Someone to snuggle with would be nice. I like snuggling.

“And if I have to meet a bunch of guys and sit at a bar getting stood up a few times until I find one who makes me feel… happier than I am by myself, then it’ll be worth it someday.” I smiled at him to make the conversation not seem as heavy as it felt for me.

But it was all the truth. I just… wanted somebody. Not just anyone, but someone special. A best friend and a lover. A partner. A life partner. I was fine being alone, but I didn’t want to be lonely, and there was a clear difference.

Rip watched me, and I mean, he really watched me right then. Whether he was trying to figure out if I’d lost my mind or if I was something to be pitied, I had no idea.

Maybe I should have kept my mouth shut. “Anyway, I should probably get going.”

That big, beautiful man leaned forward in his chair, his eyes sweeping over my face and the hair that had gotten pretty wavy because of the humidity. I had almost forgotten I’d put a silver glitter clip into it that morning to keep it out of my face. “You’re gonna leave me here alone?”

“You really want me to keep you company?” His response was a long, long look.

For some reason, it made me feel oddly vulnerable. He thought I was pathetic. I knew it. But pathetic or not, well, he was kind of hinting he wanted me to keep him company. “I can stay if you want.”

He didn’t say he wanted me to, but… he just kept right on looking at

me.

So I took it as a yes. “Okay, I’ll stay.” It was the right answer.

He took a sip of his drink. “Good.”

Well, it looked like I was staying a little longer now. With our

conversation still nipping at the back of my head, I asked him again, “So, you’ve really never had a girlfriend? Not in forty-one years?”

“Nope.”

“Not even in high school?” He shook his head.

“Not once?”

“Nope.” He gave me this face that almost seemed like a challenge. Like a dare. “I’ve got two numbers on my phone that don’t belong to somebody who’s got a dick. One’s the lady that cleans my place once a week…”

“Who’s the other?” I asked, trying to ignore the edge of jealousy waiting around the corner of his answer.

That got me another snicker. “You, who the hell else?”

“Me?” I leaned forward then. “Since when? You’ve never called my cell.”

“Since always. Just ’cause I don’t call you doesn’t mean I don’t have

it.”

I couldn’t help raising my hands up to my heart and settling them

there, this huge smile coming over my face. “Does this mean… Boss, are we friends? Outside of work, of course.”

His face went totally serious for a moment before he tossed his head back and laughed. “Get the fuck outta here, Luna. Christ.”

We were. We were so totally friends. He was my boss too, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t be friends when we weren’t at the shop. Or during lunch. Or when my life tried to fall apart on me a little.

Me and Rip.

Friends.

I’d take it. I’d take it every day of the year, forever.