Okay.
I needed to get this in gear.
I gestured toward my boss. “Ah, Rip? You want to come over here so you can narrow down some ideas?”
He didn’t move, and he didn’t look away from the other man.All right.
“Here you go, Luna,” Hector said from the other side of the counter, tapping what I knew were mango-flavored chili-covered lollipops against my forearm.
I bought one from him—from hisnieceto be exact—every time I came in.
Taking them, I smiled and said, “Thank you,” before pulling the plastic off the top off one and shoving the whole thing into my mouth before holding the other one out toward Rip.
His body still hadn’t moved, but those blue-green eyes had. To the lollipop. Then back over to Hector.
“I got it for you,” I told him around the pop as I balled up the wrapper with my other hand and handed it to the one man in the room who had never hurt my feelings.
“Luna said you were wanting a custom color for a couple of cars,” Hector piped up as he threw the trash away.
Rip took the lollipop from me and shoved it into his free pocket.
His eyes slid to me, and somehow I managed to raise my eyebrows at him because I didn’t get what had irritated him. “You okay?”
He tipped his chin, and I noticed the way he let out a deep breath. Noticed the way his shoulders were shoved back as he came toward the counter. Then I definitely couldn’t miss the way he stood next to me, his upper arm touching my shoulder. His boot against the side of my boot.
Maybe he did feel bad about yesterday.
It wasn’t like he ever jerked away from me before, but he’d never come up to standing right beside me either unless there was a reason. That reason being me being upset if the last two times counted. That was something to think about.
“Any ideas what you’re lookin’ for?” Hector asked, his eyes bouncing back and forth between Rip and me in a way I wasn’t sure how to take.
Just as I opened my mouth, Rip beat me to it. “Red. Blood red.”
I’m sure I looked up at him with my mouth open in surprise. Where the hell had that come from? I had literally asked him in the car if he had any ideas.
“Almost black, but not,” Rip kept going.
Hector seemed to think about it for a second before he nodded. “I can work with that. What about the other one?”
That handsome face tipped down to look at me, those intense eyes lingering on my hair for a moment before they finished the trek down to mine, and he asked, “What’s your favorite color?”
My favorite color?
Hector answered for me. “It’s white, isn’t it?”
I nodded, but I was going to blame the lollipop in my mouth for why I did. We’d had plenty of conversations about colors over the years. Of course he knew.
Rip’s gaze swung back around to me, his forehead furrowed. “White?”
I nodded again.
“Why?” he asked like even he couldn’t believe it.
I shrugged and took the lollipop out of my mouth long enough to say, “It’s classy. Everything looks good in white.”
He blinked.
“If you mix the three primaries together, you get white. I think it’s cool.” I smiled at him, for real that time. “And I’ve only painted one white car in years. I’m not sick of it yet.”
