“You change your mind, tell us.” Owen took another step back and then said, “It doesn’t have to be us that do it either, I know people. Miguel knows people.”
Miguel had known how to hold Rudy down… but that was something to ask him about later.
All of my coworkers had some shady pasts apparently.
It was nice to know I wasn’t the only one. It was so nice that I grinned at Owen even though it stung and said, “I’ll tell you if I change my mind, but I’m all right. He isn’t going to get to me.” More than he already had at least.
“We’ve all tried calling him, but he’s not answering. It looks like he took off right after Rip and Miguel did.”
Wait.Wait.
Did they watch the cameras… and see what had happened? Wasn’t that literally what he’d said a minute ago?We looked at the video?
“Fucker. He better not ever think about trying to come back.”
I appreciated what he said, but I was too focused on one thing. “Did you watch the security footage?”
Owen grinned… and he nodded. “All of it.”
Well.
Then backed out with that sneaky, and in some way, a strangely pleased, expression on his face.
Well, if I had been worried that they wouldn’t like me once they found out I wasn’t always Nice Luna, I would have been reassured they were okay with it.
Now, I needed to go talk to Mr. Cooper. He had never asked me to his office before, and I wasn’t delusional enough to think this time would be meaningless. He hadn’t been around while I had been upstairs. He had left for a long lunch.
I figured he wanted to talk to me about Jason, but…
Why wouldn’t he come downstairs then?
I realized now I could have prevented most of this by not sucking everything up. If I would have told Mr. C about how rocky things had been the entire time the younger man had been stuck with me… well, I wouldn’t be here, with my busted cheek and torn up forearms. Or if I would have just told Rip straight-out that I couldn’t stand the weasel….
It was my fault. The only person I could blame was my own freaking self.
Maybe if I would have genuinely tried to be nicer to him, we could have built a better working relationship.
Then again, probably not.
Rubbing at the spot between my breasts where the fox necklace I’d put on that morning was, I made myself head toward the door and pull it open. I waved at the guys on the main floor and gave them a grim smile when I made it to the main floor. I got a mix of a couple of head tilts, a couple raised hands, and one thumbs-up in response.
But it was Miguel standing in the middle of the room that had me pausing. “You’re good,” he mouthed with a slow smirk that seemed really pleased.
“Thank you,” I mouthed back, getting an even wider grin in response.
I shook my head at him before I turned around and headed back up the stairs.
At the office, I knocked on the door. “It’s Luna,” I called out, shoving my hands into the pockets of my jeans.
“Come in,” Mr. Cooper yelled back.
With my elbow, I moved the handle down and shoved the door open. Sure enough, the man who had raised this business from an auto body repair shop to include a successful restoration business was sitting behind his desk, clicking away on his computer with a concerned expression on his face. He tried to muster up a smile, but it fell off as quickly as it had come on.
“Little moon,” he breathed, shoving his chair back and getting to his feet… mostly. It was more of a stoop as he looked me over.
“I’m okay, Mr. C. I promise, sit down.” I gave him a smile I knew was strained as I took one of the ancient chairs across from his desk. Taking my hands out of my pockets, I pressed my palms together and then stuck them between my thighs. I didn’t miss the tight nature to Mr. Cooper’s movements as he sat back down in his chair and shoved it forward to settle down. In a gray Polo shirt and black khakis, he was dressed the exact same he always was since Rip had come, and he’d stopped working on the floor.
“They didn’t tell me about your face,” he murmured quietly, his mannerisms becoming more and more concerned by the second.
