I lost it.
It was that simple.
I barely remembered dropping my bag and things on the floor and heading back out to the main floor to find the man who had left my gift there.
“Rip!” I called out, knowing exactly where he was.
There was no lapse in response. “Yeah?” he responded from the furthest end of the floor, still looking at something inside the Corvette.
My coffee was sitting in a mug with the poster of the Rocky Horror Picture Show on it.
That hadn’t existed in this building before. Had he bought it… for me?
I sucked in a breath, eyeing it until I was right beside him before I forced myself to look over and say, “Rip,” I started, not even realizing I’d forgotten the “mister” part, “you can stop now with the flowers, all right?”
He didn’t look up as he asked in that congenial, soft voice, “You didn’t like ’em?”
“It isn’t about whether I like them or not—”
He still didn’t glance over as he cut me off. “You liked them then?”
“You know I do. They’re beautiful—”
“You don’t like them in your room anymore?”
I blinked. “No, I like them there—”
“So…?” he asked, still busy doing whatever it was he was doing.
I didn’t glance at his butt.
I didn’t.
“So then, you don’t have to keep buying them, okay? I told you already, I’m over what happened, if that’s why you’re doing it.”
Now that had him straightening, his head just barely missing the hood of the Corvette.
“You can stop. I get that you’re trying to make it up to me, but you’ve done enough. It’s just messing with my head and confusing me, and I would rather you stop now than stop a month from now or six months from now or a year from now when you decide you don’t want to do it anymore, okay?”
That had him turning around slowly to meet me. He waited until he was fully facing me, that giant body tuned into mine, as he said, “I’m not trying to make anything up to you. I toldyouthat already.” He set down the wrench in his hand and took a deep breath, watching me closely. “I’m getting you flowers because I want to. Because you said nobody has ever given them to you, and I’m not about to let anyone else do it. This isn’t some boss shit, baby. This doesn’t have shit to do with Cooper’s. This is Luna and Rip. This is me trying to get you to give me a chance. Understand me?”
Oh hell. He was being serious. Luna and Rip.
He was trying to… what? Win me over? I wasn’t being delusional. Just stubborn. And scared.
You only miss the shots you don’t take,Lenny had texted me. Was that what I was doing? Not wanting to take a shot because I didn’t want to miss? Was it so bad to want to protect myself from getting hurt?
I wasn’t sure, but some part of me must have been because I asked, “You’re not?”
His smile grew slowly. “No, baby, I’m sure as hell not.”
“Why?” I asked him as slowly as his smile had grown.
“Because.”
My heart was beating fast. When did it start beating so fast? Damn it. “You don’t get to just decide all of a sudden you want me to… to…” What was I going to say? Have a crush on him? I had no experience on how to talk to people, men specifically, without sounding worse than a teenager. “You don’t get to decide all of a sudden that you want me to like you—”
“This isn’t me wanting you tolike me.That’s not what I want. That’s the smallest part of what I want, Luna.”
