Shaking, I curled in on myself even more, trying to retreat. Trying to protect that part of me that didn’t feel like it had gotten beat with a bat because it was all I had left that held hope. Foolish. I was so damn foolish.
Two big arms wrapped around me, cutting my thoughts off. The next thing I knew, my face was at a very warm neck and my chest was against a broader one… and I did the only thing I knew how. My hands went to hips that weren’t my own and my fingers curled into the coveralls he had on.
And I kept on crying.
Whether it was because of my things, or the idea of someone coming inside my place, or I didn’t freaking know. I had no clue. Maybe I felt like life was unfair and this was BS, but I wasn’t positive.
All I knew was that I felt like crap and I was tired of things not working out, and I was even more tired of people taking their mess out on me. Life was unfair, and it was total BS sometimes, and even though I had known that fact for a long, long time, it didn’t make it any easier. If anything, it felt even harder.
“I don’t know what I did in another life to deserve this,“ I coughed and choked into his chest, pressing my nose as close as possible to that warm, familiar-smelling column of a throat.
Heat touched the top of my head lightly, and what I knew had to be a palm spread across the space between my shoulder blades, pulling me in even closer to that coverall-covered body. Rip’s voice was low, as he said, “S’all right, Luna. Don’t cry.”
The hand on my spine moved up and down, up and down.
“I’m sorry.”
“You got nothing to be sorry about,” he said into my hair, his arms strong. “Not a single fucking thing.”
I didn’t say anything. I just stayed there, inhaling and exhaling him… mostly on accident, but on purpose too. Like medicine but for all the other little hurts. The big hurts too. And the medium-sized ones…
Days from then, maybe I’d remember how his skin smelled like Irish Spring. How he smelled like the shop somehow too but better. I’d remember how he smelled so good in this way that had nothing to do with cologne or aftershave.
But for then, for that moment, I’d take him in for what it was. Just a man I trusted, who cared about me at least a little bit and made me feel better. At least, he made me feel less alone.
“Wanna take the day off and deal with it?” he asked my hair.
I shook my head and barely got out, “Not right now.” Thinking about everything I’d need to do… “I can wrap some things up this morning and maybe this afternoon…”
Everything was ruined. I needed to call my insurance. Needed to call a handyman. Buy trash bags…
Don’t cry.
Too late, wasn’t it?
I felt myself put my face back into Rip’s neck and heard myself make a desperate noise into his skin.
Damn it.Damn it.
“Go when you wanna go, Luna,” he whispered, his hand stroking up my spine and staying between my shoulder blades even as I let out a shuddered breath. “Everything’s all right, baby girl.”
I nodded.
“You’re gonna be good.”
I was going to be good. He was right. So I nodded again.
His hand slid higher up to palm my neck, and his voice was soft as he said, “You should’ve called me.”
No, there was no reason to. He knew that, he was just being nice. Just like he was being right then, by holding me.
But I was going to take it because who knew when the next time I would get held again would be.
Unfortunately, I knew it wouldn’t be Rip doing it.
* * *
I had been standing outsidein my yard, staring at the front door for the last ten minutes, trying to talk myself into going back in.
