“Big plans for the rest of the weekend?”
He gave me that smug face. “No” was his short answer, which could have meant a thousand different things. “You think of a new favor yet?”
We were back to this.
Well, if he wanted to play this game, we could play it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The smug face turned into my favorite smart-ass one. “Luna.”
I smiled. “Ripley.”
“You think of one or not?” he grumbled but not in a mean way.
I scrunched up my nose at him and leaned forward a little as I lowered my voice and said, “For the thousandth time, boss, you really don’t owe me anything.”
“I really do,” he quipped back immediately, lowering his voice too.
“No, you don’t. We’re even.”
That dimple popped up and disappeared again so fast I thought it might have just been wishful thinking that I’d seen it again. “We’re not even until I do another favor for you,” he tried to claim.
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. You don’t have to do another favor for me. You didn’t have to in the first place.”
He blinked. “Think of a favor, Luna.”
I blinked back. “You think of a favor.”
He stared, and I definitely wasn’t imagining that his voice dropped into this thing that was too low to be called a whisper. “You want me to think of one?”
I ignored the waythatwent straight to my chest and lifted a shoulder, keeping it calm, keeping it cool. “Sure. Why not?”
That got me no response. Just like I thought.It’s not that easy, is it, Rip?I thought to myself before giving him a break.
“Do you know how to do tile work?”
“Tile work?” he asked slowly.
I nodded. “Yeah. How about you help me tile my bathroom?”
“Tile your bathroom?” he echoed, fueling up my inner pest.
“I’m just throwing out ideas since you’re being all desperate and needy about wanting to get this favor over with.”
If Rip could have sputtered, I was pretty sure he would have right then, because his expression…. “You say I’m being desperate and needy?”
Okay, so maybe I just wanted to screw with him a little. So I kept my mouth shut and took a small sip of my Sprite before adding, “It’s okay if you don’t know how to do
tile. Not many people can tear a car apart and build it back together like you can.”
The silence yawned between us for a moment and then three before… “How much have you had to drink?”
I burst out laughing. “It’s Sprite, boss. I don’t drink that much, and especially not in front of most people.”
Those eyebrows went up. “You don’t?”
He was still asking me questions. Okay. “Drink?”
Rip dipped his chin.
