“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 freakinggaggedbefore 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 thefuckwas 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.
