I took a breath in through my nose, ignoring that thing bubbling and living under and inside of me. But as I stood there, watching him, the distrust running so fiercely through me as my brain called outliar, liar, freaking liar, something big and hard formed in my chest. This knot. This… prediction. I wasn’t sure what it was going to be of, but it was going to be something… something I wasn’t positive I was ready to handle after all.
The hands on my throat slid down to cup my shoulders, and it was his turn to let out a deep breath. “I know I fucked up, and I can tell you’re not gonna make this easy on me, and I get it. But I want you to eat a burger with me in the meantime, yeah? Get some ice cream with me. You promised the day of the wreck. Remember?”
Of course I remembered. How could I forget?
Rip took a step back, and I still didn’t say anything.
He took another step and, still, nothing.
Then another and another, until he stopped right before the door and gave me an intent look as he said, “Let’s go eat a fucking burger and some ice cream, baby girl. There’s nothing for you to be scared of. You can trust me.”
I wasn’t sure about all of that. I wasn’t even sure about part of it, especially the part of my head that needed to make rational decisions.
But I had never been one to hold grudges. That wasn’t what this had been about in the first place.
And… I wanted to believe him. I wanted to believe him so bad it burned my throat and everything else south of the border. I wanted to trust myself even though I wasn’t sure I could.
But this need in me to try, to believe, burned the brightest flame in my chest. In all of me, really.
Trust him?
“I got you,” he said with so much conviction there was no way to ignore it.
When we went to go eat a burger and two ice cream cones a few minutes later, I wasn’t sure how I felt.
What I did know was him telling me to trust him was on repeat in my head the rest of the night.
Chapter 29
The following morning,I didn’t drop my stuff on the floor when I went into my room and found another flower sitting on my desk. This time, it was a purple rose—a pale lavender that was almost white but just barely not—with a lacy white ribbon tied around it. It was beautiful. Honestly, just freaking beautiful.
But was it there because of guilt?
Or was it because of the things he’d said last night? The things I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about since we’d sat across from each other eating burgers and splitting an order of fries. The things he’d said that lit up a part of me that was scary. That gave me too much hope.
He wanted his Luna back.
His.
In what way though?
And why did I want that more than anything even though I’d told myself before I had fallen asleep all alone in my bed last night that it was dangerous and stupid and way too risky… because it was. It really was all of those things.
Don’t be dumb, I tried to tell myself as I put my bag into the right drawer, still looking at the rose. It was perfect. There wasn’t a single blemish on any petal. The tips had a slightly darker shade of purple on them.
It was just as beautiful as the one from yesterday, sitting there alone in its jar.
My hand felt unsteady as I picked it up, took a whiff of it, tried my best to ignore the way my heart started speeding up, and then set it in the jar beside the orange one.
It was just a flower. The second of my life. Bought out of guilt or just because Rip had lost his mind and gone delusional, imagining things that he had no business sharing with me.
But…
You know what? If he wanted to keep buying me flowers, fine. I was still going to tell him he didn’t need to, because he didn’t.
With my lunch bag in hand, I knew exactly what I needed to do as I headed toward the main floor to have a conversation before starting the coffee so I could move on with my day.
Rip was looking through a manual beside an old Corvette I hadn’t seen before. He glanced over the second my footsteps started to get louder. He had the same face he’d had on the day before when I’d asked him about the orange flower. Calm, patient, serious.
