“Luna. I’m tired, baby.” Rip sighed, giving me a gentle squeeze.
I looked up at him, exhaustion weighing down my eyelids. I watched as his hand came toward my face and his finger slipped across the bottom of my eye. There weren’t tears there. There couldn’t be. I had already done enough crying for the next decade. But his finger didn’t go anywhere else; it stayed there, under my eye.
“Let’s go.” He was still speaking softly, his face genuinely exhausted. “You’re not staying here. You’re going to be fine. You don’t want to stay at a hotel? Stay at my place. You don’t want to stay at my place? We’ll get you a room.”
I stared.
“It’s nothing nice, but I got a bed you can take, and a lock on my door, and some food in my fridge.”
I didn’t say anything.
The hand around my wrist loosened and he slipped his fingers through mine once more. “Let’s go,” he tried insisting again.
But I didn’t “go.” I just stood there, trying to imagine what his place looked like, what his bed looked like… and I still didn’t go anywhere. I didn’t want to stay at a hotel, and for some reason I didn’t understand, I didn’t want to stay at his place either. He was my boss first and foremost.My boss.
But Rip was even more tired than I was or wanted to go to bed earlier because he sighed, “All right, baby girl. We’ll stay here.”
* * *
Looking around my bedroom,I blew out a breath that felt like it would have weighed a ton if it had any mass to it, and I wrapped my arms around all the blankets I’d managed to collect from around the house. Lord, I could finally feel every hour I’d been awake in every inch of my bones.
Making my way to the living room, I held everything as tight as possible. The blankets, two pillows… I was going to sleep on the floor, I’d decided. Luckily, the couch was a pull-out sofa, and the assholes who had broken into my house hadn’t bothered doing more than stabbing at a few cushions.
But the same question I’d been wondering over since last night remained. Who the hell would do this to me? Why would they?
The idea of it made me want to throw up. It was somean…
It’s just stuff.
It was just stuff.
And I had insurance. That was something. I had called them while Rip had gone to the store, and it had taken almost an hour to get everything sorted and in motion.
Something was better than nothing.
I found Rip sitting on my couch with his arms crossed over his chest, staring at the television sitting on the small entertainment center across from it.
If he looked exhausted, I didn’t want to know what I looked like.
“I’m sorry, Rip,” I said, really feeling like a thoughtless ass right about then. How many times had he brought up how tired he was?
“If you want to go home…”I’ll survive alone.
He simply shook his head, and I’d swear on my life his eyes drooped for a moment. “I’m staying here,” he repeated for what had to be at least the fifth time since he’d brought up that option.
“Yeah but…” I made myself say it. “You can go if you’d rather go home.”
“I’m staying.”
Did I really want to beg him? Not really.
“Okay.” I swallowed. “Thank you then.” Focus. “Let me help you make up the sofa bed then—”
“No sofa bed. I can sleep on the couch.”
I eyed the ruined cushions and the length and then weighed the chances of him actually getting any sleep on it.
“Eh, Rip, you’re size ginormous and my couch is size normal.”
