So my seventeen about-to-be eighteen-year-old sister at a beach house in a party town coming back on a weekend when she probably made the most amount of tips?
I wasn’t going to hold my breath.
Lily would still text me every day. And she was only a phone call away.
So that Friday, a day where I had requested to leave early months ago for a gynecologist appointment, I was trying my best to cling onto every little bit of happiness I could find, which probably explained why I was trying to be extra enthusiastic about decorating for my coworker’s going-away party that day. I had just finished taping up the last chunk of black streamer when a big figure stopped at the door to the break room.
With my arms stretched as high as they could go over my head, and with pieces of tape stuck to my fingers, I turned my head to shoot Ripley a closed-mouth smile. I hadn’t even been remotely surprised he hadn’t stopped by on Saturday. It wasn’t the first time I had invited him to something and he hadn’t shown up. It was no big deal.
“Hey, boss.”
The big man stood there as he looked around the room. “What’s all this?”
“Today is Rogelio’s last day,” I said, pointing at the cardboard letters that spelled out BYE BISH going across the bottom of the break room’s cabinets.
He scratched at his temple.
“I’m on my lunch break,” I threw in before he tried to say something about me not getting paid to decorate for someone’s going-away party. It had been a gray shirt kind of week so far, and I didn’t want to jinx it.
His eyes drifted to the sign and then the two black balloons directly beside them, and all he said was “All right” in that low voice.
Turning back to the streamer, I pressed my finger against the tape one last time to make sure it had stuck and then hopped off the top of the two-step ladder I’d had to drag from my room up here.
“Where’d all this come from?” he asked, surprising me.
I folded the ladder in on itself and propped it up against the counter. “I brought it from home. I used it for my sister’s going-away party two years ago.” I glanced back at him and gave him a smile.
“I have some blue streamer at home if you want me to use it for your next birthday,” I tried to joke around.
His snicker as he stood there made me smile even wider.
“There’s cake. If you want a piece, Rogelio said he’d come up here in—” I glanced at my watch. “—ten minutes.”
My boss didn’t move, but he wasn’t done asking questions. “What kind?”
“Angel food.”
One of those hands went up as he scratched at his throat, exposing maybe a millimeter more of it than usual. “You make it?” he asked in that calm voice that was probably my favorite of all.
“Nope.” With Lily leaving, I hadn’t wanted to waste thirty minutes I could have with her on something else. “I got it from the grocery store. I’ll save you a piece and put it in the veggie drawer if you aren’t around,” I offered before tearing my eyes away so I could finish picking up my mess. Everything had been so hectic, I’d barely gotten a chance to think about the last long-ish conversation we’d had—the one that included Rip telling me he still owed me.
I decided right then still wasn’t the right time to think about it. Maybe tonight when I got home. Maybe later in my room when I tried to zone Jason out.
In the meantime, I stashed all the bags I’d brought from home and took the cake out of the fridge to set it on the counter. I’d barely stacked up the paper plates—because I sure wasn’t going to wash them and none of the guys would either if they were real plates—when Miguel came into the room and claimed, “You didn’t decorate for my birthday.”
I slid him a look. “It’s Rogelio’sgoing-awayparty. You know I don’t put up decorations unless the birthday ends in a zero. And you’ve got what? Five more years until your fiftieth?”
The older man slidmea look. “Don’t remind me.”
I laughed.
He finally laughed too as he made his way inside. “What kind of cake did you get?”
“Angel food, but hold your horses. Ro gets the first slice.”
“He’s leaving, and you know he’s going to want half of it, Luna. You know how he is,” Miguel tried to reason, even as he opened the fridge and started poking around inside.
Rip, who had warmed up his food while I’d been cleaning and talking to Miguel, pulled a chair out from the table and dropped into it, setting a container in front of him.
