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… hewasfond 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 thathe’dcome 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?”
