Maybe.
I took a step back and eyed the butt partially outlined beneath the baggy material of the coveralls he already had on. Just for a second. His shoulders and arms were so wide he had to squeeze into an extra-large that was baggy around the middle. I let myself look once more before basically yelling, “You’re welcome!” Asking him how the rest of his night had gone seemed like a terrible idea, so I didn’t ask. You didn’t storm out of the bar on your birthday and have a good rest of the night.
I managed to take maybe three steps backward and hadn’t even turned around to head back, when I heard, “Hold up a sec.”
I stopped in place. “Need something?”
Halfway hidden inside the car, he didn’t raise his voice as he said, “I want to talk to you about that Mustang you’ve got on the schedule. Hold off on it until I think through it some more. I’ll come down and tell you what to change later. All right?”
I hadn’t looked through the paperwork yet, but okay. “Okay. I’ll work around it.”
“’Kay,” he echoed from under the hood.
I made my way toward my room, holding my coffee and trying to remember what exactly I had to do. I was trying my best not to think about my grandmother. Or the funeral. Or going to San Antonio period. Or my sister’s graduation and how it meant the beginning of the end. Instead, I thought about how nice the evening had been after Rip had left. I’d had a good time with the Coopers and the two CCC employees that had eventually shown up.
So that was what I was going to try and do, and if it required me to zone out everything else going on in my life, well, I could do it.
I managed to make it into my room and open my drawer to pull out my files, finding the one I was looking for. It was a Mustang that I had put primer down on last week, but they had held off on me finishing it. That kind of thing happened often enough, I didn’t think anything of it.
Luckily, there was always something for me to work on. I went through the albums on my phone, picked out the Grease soundtrack and started my day.
* * *
I had just finished what I could for the day when I went looking for Rip.
“He left,” Miguel, one of my favorite coworkers, told me.
I blinked at one of the only two men at CCC who had been there almost as long as I had. “Where did he go?”
My coworker squinted an eye. “I think he went to the yard to look for some parts he couldn’t find.”
Figures.
His light brown eyes slid to the side before coming back to me, and he couldn’t hide the hesitation in his tone as he asked, trying not to make a face as he probably silently begged me not to take him up on his offer. “Want me to call him?”
I shook my head. Even if it wasn’t a huge difference, he was a little nicer to me than he was to the rest of the guys at the shop. Rip rarely cussed at me at least. But I still appreciated Miguel offering to take one for me. “It’s okay. I can call him.”
He didn’t even bother trying to hide his relieved sigh. “Let me know if you need help.”
“I will. Thanks, Miguelito.”
He grinned at the nickname I had taken from his wife one day a long time ago. With another smile aimed right at him, I headed back to my room and dialed Rip’s number from memory.
He answered immediately. “This is Rip.”
“Hi, boss-man, it’s Luna—”
“Yeah?”
“Hey, I need to get started on that Mustang. What did you want to talk to me about?”
There was a male voice in the background on the other end of the line and it sounded like he was asking him something… “What?” Rip asked, aiming the question at me, after a moment.
“The Mustang. I’m calling about the Mustang.”
There was definitely some more irritation in his tone. “What about it?”
I tapped my fingernails on the counter of the one and only desk in my room. “You told me you wanted to talk about the Mustang this morning.”
There was more noise in the background, voices talking over other voices, and finally, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. “So you don’t want to talk about it?”
There were more voices in the background, but after a moment he came back on the line. “I’m busy, Luna. Don’t you have enough to do?” he snapped, making me pull the phone away from my face to look at it.
Good grief. Somebody was extra grumpy. This was exactly what I’d been anticipating from him after the night before. Sheesh.
“I guess not, boss,” I mumbled, still making a face at the phone before I brought it back to my ear. “I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page—”
He made one of those grunting sounds.
And then he hung up on me.
Dropping the headset into the cradle, I shook my head and picked up the dumb file again. He made it seem like I’d been calling him for no freaking reason.
The sooner I got started, the sooner I could get it over with.
Maybe I could actually leave on time and get home early enough to call my sisters and tell them about Grandma Genie and the funeral. But part of me hoped I could put that phone call off a little longer too.
* * *
I had just closed the doors of the booth after putting on a second coat of color on the Mustang when the door to my room swung open. My hand went to the top of my protective suit so I could drag down the zipper when Rip’s big body appeared, covered from collarbones to toes in his coveralls and work boots, which all should have been fine and normal but…
He had this expression on his face I had only seen maybe a few times before.
The last time had been the day of the Silver Mink color episode, aka way too recently.
“Hey,” I said to him, hearing the caution in my own voice. I even stopped dragging the zipper down right around my belly button.
His tone matched the death glare he was giving me. “What color did you paint the fucking car?”
I completely stopped trying to pull my suit off and watched as he stopped maybe five feet away, his jaw as hard as it usually was. “I think it said something Mist, but I can’t remember exactly. I ordered it two weeks ago….” I almost narrowed my eyes, trying to think over why he was standing there, looking at me like I’d just lost his lucky wrench.
His jaw moved to the side then the other side and his Adam’s apple bobbed. That deep line formed between his eyebrows and something that was pretty close to hesitation made me totally quit moving and focus instead on the man standing a few feet away from me.
“Luna.”
Did it sound like he growled my name or was I imagining it?
Of course I wasn’t imagining it.
When his fisted hand came up to his forehead, I knew he was definitely pissed over something. I just didn’t know what. I’d done exactly what he had asked for, hadn’t I?
“What color did you paint the fucking car?” he repeated slowly.
I pressed my lips together for a moment before answering, carefully, watching him the entire time, “The color that was on the order.”
Rip tipped his head back, showing me the long line of thick, muscular neck and perfectly proportionate Adam’s apple as he blew out a breath so rough it was impossible for me not to hear it. “Didn’t I—” he started to say before cutting himself off with a harsh grunt.
Didn’t he… what?
His voice got even lower. “Didn’t I tell you not to do anything to it until we talked?”
“Yes.” I narrowed my eyes, wondering what had gotten his panties in a bunch. I had reread that order three times to make sure I had it right. I’d even looked at the dates and checked on the computer system to make sure there hadn’t been any other orders written up for it since.
There hadn’t been.
So… “And I called you…” I trailed off, more confused by the second on why he was looking at me like he wanted to kill me again so soon.
Rip’s eyeballs didn’t move in my direction. His fist was still at his face. “Luna.”
Part of me knew it wasn’t time to joke, but… I still said it. “Ripley.”