We were always almost hurting, and with one person less?
He shrugged the shoulder closest to me. “I’ll find someone. I get resumes all the time from kids straight out of school.”
I smiled at him. “If there’s anything I can do, let me know.”
Mr. Cooper put his arm around my shoulders and hugged me to his side.
He rarely ever did that, and it caught me by surprise so much I barely had time to smile over at him.
His quiet laugh had me glancing down at where his eyes were focused: on my wrist. On the bracelet of linked, tiny plastic donuts with colorful icing on my left hand to be specific. “I was wondering what your fun thing of the day was.”
I gave my hand a shake. “Lily bought it for me,” I explained.
“That’s pretty fun, little moon,” the older man confirmed with a warm smile.
“Luna,” came a familiar male voice that had me looking toward the door just as Mr. C’s arm started to retreat.
Sure enough, Rip’s massive body took up the width of the doorframe as he stood there, a piece of grease-stained paper in his hand, his gaze intent on me. Totally ignoring Mr. Cooper sitting beside me, pulling his arm back toward his side. He wasn’t frowning, but there was something about his expression….
“Hey, Rip,” I said, giving him a smile as I straightened.
He tipped his chin up, making my eyes flick to the lines alongside his mouth from all the scowling he did. His voice was gruffandirritated. “You get started on that Thunderbird yet?”
“Not yet.” Should I tell him about what happened? I eyed his shirt once more and thought about how grumpy he’d been at the meeting that morning. Because of Jason’s screw up, it pushed back me getting to the car he was asking about.
“Do me a solid.” His eyes stayed on me so intently it made me feel like I’d done something wrong by letting Mr. Cooper give me a hug. But I hadn’t, and Rip was well aware of the father-daughter relationship I had with the older man. I had invited him to my house twice for Thanksgiving, making it clear that Mr. Cooper and his wife would be there too so that he wouldn’t think I was trying to flirt with him. He didn’t show up either time. “I changed my mind about it and left a new work order for it on your desk. Take a look at it. I know we’ve got the color in the back, so use that one instead, got me?”
I nodded. New work order. New color. He was using that barking, something-up-his-butt voice. All right.
Ripley’s blue-green eyes narrowed as he watched me from the doorway, pointedly still not looking at the man beside me. “Do you need to write it down?” he asked, dipping into that condescending tone just a little.
I let it slide right off me. “No, I’ll remember.”
From the doorway, Rip gave me a nod before walking off. I didn’t need to watch him leave to know what his butt looked like in those coveralls. It was perfectly proportionate in comparison to the rest of his six-foot-four built-like-a-tank body. Big and thick.
Beside me, Mr. Cooper let out a sigh that I’d heard a hundred or two times before. I couldn’t blame him. The less they communicated, the better everyone’s day was.
Especially his.
But at that moment, I couldn’t focus on Rip’s butt, or relish in the fact that I’d gotten to see his face not completely scowling in my direction, even if it was only for a second. Sometimes he’d come up for lunch at the same time I did. Sometimes he’d sit next to me and eat. His elbow would brush mine. Maybe his forearm would touch mine. If it was a good day, he’d give me an eyebrow raise that I would take like it was a smile. If it was a really good day, I could talk to him about the car he was restoring, and we might talk about it for a few minutes.
I had given up trying to ask him personal questions about two months into him arriving at CCC.
But on days when Mr. Cooper and I happened to eat at the same time, none of that ever happened. I’d watched Rip turn around and walk out, noticing how Mr. Cooper sat there and tried not to let it bother him.
On this day, it was impossible not to notice that getting ignored was eating up the kindest man I had ever met.
So I turned my head to my favorite boss and gave him a smile he probably saw right through. “Have I told you that color shirt looks really nice on you? You don’t look a day over sixty-five in it, Mr. C.”
* * *
It washours later when I realized how bad I’d screwed up.
I wasn’t sure what exactly had snapped together for me at the last second just as I had started to crouch down to keep moving the gun across the surface of the quarter panel I was in the middle of painting. But something had just clicked as I stood in front of the section of the car between the rear door and the trunk. That click had saidLuna, wait a minute.
Wait a minute.
“Shit.” I pulled the hood of my coveralls down, raised my goggles to rest at the top of my head, and tugged my respirator to my chin, trying to think as I stared at the panel in front of me.
