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.
“All I’m doing is what you’ve asked for. I’m doing what you told me, and I’m totally fine with it. Don’t feel guilty. You’re doing me a favor. You’re speeding along exactly what would have eventually happened.
“I’m not quitting. I’m not going to start doing a bad job, or start deciding I’m not going to stay late if I have to, so you don’t have to worry about this affecting my work, all right? I’m just going to mind my own business like I should have been doing from the very beginning, Mr. Ripley, instead of spending my time and energy on something that would never happen,” I finished snapping out, the wind rushing from my lungs, my shoulders coming down hard when I hadn’t even realized how tight and high they had been in the first place.
God, I was pissed.
I was hurt. But mostly, I was pissed and exhausted, and some part of me wanted to cry, but I wasn’t going to. Not for someone with misguided guilt. Not for someone who wanted me to leave him alone. Not for someone who didn’t want me and never would.
We didn’t want the same things, and I had been too stubborn and desperate to see that.
I watched him the entire time I spoke. Witnessed the way his fists tightened. Took in the way the tendons at his throat became more pronounced.
But I missed the way his gaze changed.
And chances were, that wouldn’t have mattered anyway.
I felt bad for snapping at him. It wasn’t totally his fault I was at this point in my life, was it? He’d been just another hammer on my already bent nail. And none of this had been meant to force him to feel something that he wasn’t capable of.
“Look,” I said, ignoring how hollow and tired I sounded, “I should have treated you like my boss from the beginning. I haven’t, but I will from now on. I’m sorry for making it seem like you broke my heart. Sometimes I forget it got broken a long time before I met you. I’m sorry for making it seem like I was pressuring you into keeping me company or being nice to me. I’m sorry for forcing you into doing me all these favors.”
I met his gaze, ignoring the weird expression on his face. Ignoring the way his eyes were narrowed. “I’ve got enough going on without adding more problems. I just… want to pretend this didn’t happ
en. I want things to go back to the way they should have been from the beginning.”
From the moment we had met.
Rip blinked at me. He even swallowed too. It was so rough that the collar of his shirt dipped down to expose more of the skull at his throat than usual.
I managed to take a step back before he said my name.
I looked at him.
He tipped his chin up high and kept those blue-green irises on me as he said just about the last thing I ever would have expected from him. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, baby girl.”
Yeah, I was sure he hadn’t.
“I didn’t,” he insisted like he’d read my freaking mind, watching me with those crazy eyes.
Sure.
Sure, he hadn’t.
I was so done with this. I just wanted to go back to when things were less complicated. I just wanted to be happy again.
“Well, you did, Mr. Ripley, and it’s fine.” I slid my tongue over my teeth and took a step back. “I need to get back to what you pay me to do. If you need anything else, let me know. I’ll be here for that.”
* * *
“Oh, honey,” Lydia cooed as she waved me into the same house that I had lived in with them for years.
Giving her a hug first, I stepped inside and waited while she shut the door behind us. I didn’t need to look around to know exactly what the layout was like. It hadn’t changed much in the time since I had moved out. Lydia had a thing for antiques, and most of the furniture was dark and cherry. From what she had told me, a lot of it had been inherited from her family, but some of it she had purchased herself—a few things with me when I had gone with her on my weekends off.
I remembered how nervous I had been for the first few months after moving in. I had kept worrying I would knock over something that had been in her family for generations. I had gone out of my way not to touch anything. The only nice thing I’d had at my dad’s house had been the television, and unless I’d been home alone, or stayed really, really quiet, I hadn’t really watched it.
If I was going to be honest with myself, even now, I was still nervous about knocking something over at the Cooper’s place.
“How are you?” I asked as I toed off my shoes.
She sighed. “I’m all right. Stressed. Worried. Hopeful.” She gave me an exhausted smile. “You?”
I shrugged, purposely shoving all thoughts about Ripley and his actions earlier that day into my imaginary trash can. “Okay. Busy at work.” I dropped my shoulders and returned her smile. ”Do you need help with anything?”
She shook her head, then stopped. “Actually, would you mind staying long enough for me to run out to the store and pick up his prescription? I was going to wait until Allen fell asleep, but if I can avoid driving at night… These eyes aren’t what they used to be….”
“You know I don’t mind. I was planning on staying anyway.” I tilted my head toward the door.
Lydia flashed me a smile that made me wonder what kind of woman Mr. Cooper’s first wife had been like that she had been the love of his life and this woman… wasn’t.
That was an unfair thought. They had always been happy and loving and warm, and Mr. C had always treated her like a queen.
“I won’t be long,” she promised, already reaching for the keys left in the bowl by the door.
“Take your time,” I said as I waited for her to grab her purse too.
It didn’t take long for her to leave. I left my purse where hers had been, and then made my way down to the living room down the hall. I’d spent countless nights on the couch next to the recliner that I found Mr. Cooper sitting in. The upper half was slanted back, his feet propped up on the footrest, and he honestly looked really, really good.
“Mr. C,” I called out softly when I realized I couldn’t see his face to see if he was asleep.
He wasn’t.
“Little moon?” His hand went into the air, waving me closer. “Come sit, unless you want something to drink.”
I made my way to the couch and sat down. “I’m fine, but do you want something?”
“No, I’ve got some water over here.” He pointed toward a bottle on the side table between his recliner and the couch. “Lydia has got me drowning in it.”
I couldn’t help but grin at him as I reached to slip my hand into his. “I told you that you needed to be chugging it.”
He squeezed my hand. “Still tastes like dirt.”
“You know what would taste like dirt?”
Mr. Cooper gave me a funny face.
“No salt on your food.” I raised my eyebrows as I slipped my hand out of his. “No bacon.”
The older man groaned. “Don’t remind me. They told me no caffeine either.” He sighed. “I guess it should be good you’ve been sneaking decaf into the mix for the last few years.”
If I hadn’t already let go of his hand, I would have right then. “You knew?”
“Yes.” He chuckled. “Sneaky girl. You remind me so much of someone I used to know.”
“Someone good?”
“The best,” he said softly before aiming that gaze, which I just realized was so much like Ripley’s, at me. “Luna… I’m sorry, honey. I’ve gotta tell you, it’s been eating me up inside.”
It was me who swallowed. “You have nothing to be sorry about,” I told him because it was the truth.
The older man shook his head, the face that had aged overnight from his heart attack, showing every inch of the ten years it seemed like he’d lost. “No, I do. I really do.”
He knew that I knew, or at least assumed that I had an idea or a guess that, he had kept something from me. “I understand that things are complicated sometimes, Mr. C. I’m sure you had your reasons,” I said as gently as possible. I had tried my best not to think about him and Rip, I really had.
I saw his hand going up toward his face before I saw the way tears had beaded up in his eyes and made them shiny. “None of them seem that good when I look back on it,” he admitted, his closed fist coming to rest over one eye. “I’ve screwed up a lot over the years, little moon, and I don’t have any good excuse why.”
“We all screw up a lot,” I tried to assure him. It was the truth.
“It seems like I do more than anyone else does.”
“That’s not true. I’m still alive.”
His laugh was watery. His face was still partially covered as he shook his head and sniffed. “Oh, Luna, I really am sorry I never told you the truth. I thought about it a hundred times. Maybe even a thousand. Every time you would bring me my coffee. Every time you tried to break up one of my arguments with Ripley… I thought, I should tell her. And I was too ashamed to.” He exhaled. “I didn’t want one more person being disappointed in me, especially not you. I know it’s selfish, but I couldn’t bear it if you were.”
I had been disappointed in him for not being upfront with me.
I’d been disappointed to think that he hadn’t cared about me or valued our relationship enough to tell me that he had a son.
A son I worked with.
I had been a little hurt he’d looked into my background, but thinking on it, I understood. I’d been a seventeen-year-old girl who magically appeared.
But this wasn’t all about me, and I was no one to talk about keeping things to myself so that I wouldn’t disappoint others. This was about him and whatever was going through his brain. Whatever had gone through his heart in the time before we had met.
I didn’t want to lie and tell him that I wasn’t disappointed he had kept something this massive a secret, so I told him what I could. I told him my own truths that I had kept. “I never told you that my dad dealt drugs, or that my uncle made them, that my cousins sold them, or that I left the day my dad held a gun to me and told me he wished I had never been born.” I started to smile but stopped because… because I didn’t have one in me. “I never told you I had an older brother who up and left one day. I didn’t want you to know where I had come from so that you wouldn’t
expect the worst out of me like everyone else had while I’d grown up. I’m sorry I made you find out another way, Mr. C. I should have just told you the truth, but I was too ashamed of it.”
He sucked in a breath and shook his head, those eyes bubbling over until one tear streamed down his weathered cheek. I wasn’t surprised when his hand reached over and took mine, his voice a little shaky as he sniffed, “You are the best girl I have ever met, Luna Allen. I couldn’t think that. I wouldn’t think that. Not ever. The devil could’ve been your daddy and you would still be the same girl.”
It was my turn to sniff, to hold my breath.
“I hope you can forgive me for not being upfront with you all these years, if we’re going to talk about holding secrets.” The back of my hand came up to my face to wipe across my cheek. “I’ve screwed up a lot, Mr. C. We all do things that we can’t explain or don’t want to. There’s a bunch of little things I haven’t told you lately either.”
Mr. Cooper gulped and nodded.
But I figured it was time to at least ask this one thing before I lost my nerve. “Is Rip really your son?”
He nodded, but it felt… I wasn’t sure exactly how it felt. It felt like a weight off my chest, but it had only moved to my shoulders. Maybe I had accepted that they’d both had their reasons for keeping it between them, but I was struggling with it. Just a little.
“As you can see, we don’t have the best relationship,” he chuffed, trying to make it sound like a joke but failing at it.
“Not that this helps, but I don’t have that great of a relationship with my parents either.” Then I thought about it. “I don’t have the greatest relationship with Thea or Kyra right now either, if that makes you feel better, and I don’t really want to talk about it yet, if it’s all right.”
His laugh was another watery sound that didn’t sound like a happy thing at all. “But I bet your sisters don’t hate you.”
He thought Rip hated him. But what could I do? Deny it?
Instead, all I could get out was, “I’m sorry, Mr. C.”
Luna and the Lie Page 45
