“Yeah,” he confirmed what I already knew. “I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry about it.”
That’s what I had figured. I gave him a little smile even as my heart raced over the words that my brain was still stuck on.Paid his way out. Real name. Too old for some shit.
What it all meant, I had no idea.
But my eyes strayed to the collar of his compression shirt and stayed there longer than they should have.
“You all right?” he asked randomly.
That time, my smile was genuine as I nodded.
“Sure?” Rip even went as far as to ask.
“Yeah,” I told him. “I’m just tired is all. I slept like crap last night.”
Those blue-green eyes watched me, and I figured he had a decent idea why that had been the case. Just as quickly, his eyes shifted to the giant clock on the wall. “Get home. I got this, and then I’ll head out too. We got enough done.”
I looked at him, pushing the words I’d heard out of his mouth minutes earlier out of my head. “Are you sure?”
It was his turn to nod.
“Okay. I was—” My phone rang from the back pocket of my pants, and I pulled it out and squinted at the screen. Then I stuck it back into my pocket.
His gaze had followed my hand, and his face was smooth when he tipped his chin up, his eyebrow going in the same direction. “You gonna get that?”
“No.”
The corners of his mouth moved maybe a millimeter.
“My sisters have been calling me for the last two hours, even though they know I’m here,” I explained. “They got to Houston earlier and—” I cut myself off, realizing what I was doing. This wasn’t my other coworkers I rattled my business off to. I waved my hand in front of me and shook my head. “Anyway, I guess I’ll get going then if you don’t need me anymore.”
Rip’s little frown hadn’t gone anywhere, but he nodded.
I took a step back, ready to turn away. “If you want to come by my house tomorrow after all, I won’t let anybody bother you too much either,” I offered him, knowing he wouldn’t commit himself. “If not, I’ll see you Monday. Have a good weekend.”
At least I had invited him, like I always did.
“Luna,” he called out before I got another step.
I stopped, half expecting him to tell me there was something else he needed. “Yeah?”
My boss stood there, hands on his hips, watching me with that gaze that I never completely understood.
I grinned at him. “You all right, boss?”
I watched his whole body exhale before his mouth twitched and he said in that low, grumbling voice, “Decide what you want as a favor.”
“What’s that?”
The next expression he gave me, I did understand. It was hisLuna’s an idiotface. Then he repeated himself.
And even after he repeated himself, I had no idea what the hell he was talking about. So I asked him once more. “I don’t understand what favor you want me to decide on,” I told him slowly, like it was him who wasn’t understanding what he was saying.
Because that was the exact case.
I had used it up yesterday. He wasn’t exactly a spring chicken anymore, but he wasn’tthatforgetful either.
Swiping at his eyes with the meaty part of his palm, he sighed my name. “Decide on a new favor.”
