I walked faster toward my boss, cutting the short distance between us until I stood a couple feet to the side of him. I held my breath as I took in the sight before me.
Before I’d left, I had finished up the last coat of primer on two quarter panels. Jason had promised to get them out of the booth so he could finish the four sets of wheels for another project. I’d had to get to my appointment, and I’d been trying to give that pain in the butt an olive branch; I’d given him something he could do to earn a tiny bit of loyalty. To show me that maybe I could trust him.
But as I looked into the booth, the panels were definitely still in there.
Panels to what I knew were a 2010 Ford Mustang. The same make and model of the car I had left on Friday. Only, it wasn’t the solid gray I had left it. And it wasn’t the so-dark-green-it-looked-black color that I had locked away to use this morning.
Itwasgreen. A spotty green that had been applied so badly, I could tell from the distance I was at. It was terrible.
Just… freaking… terrible.
“Crap,” I whispered to myself, stunned.Stunned.
“You do this?” he asked slowly like he couldn’t even believe he was asking me that question.
I reared back to look at him. “No!” I had screwed up recently, sure, but nothing like this. Not actually skill-wise.
He was still focused on the car inside when he let out a deep breath that made me think of the hug he’d given me outside of my sister’s apartment. “Then who did?” he asked, not sounding at all like we had overcome some barrier between us less than two days ago.
In fact, it sounded like before. Like worse than before. And I didn’t like the way it made my chest feel funny.
“I don’t know for sure,” I started to say, “but it had to have been Jason. I finished the primer before I left on Friday, and he was supposed to stay and do the rims, not work on this.” After our Friday morning meeting, Mr. Cooper had told me to leave whenever it was time and let Jason finish whatever was needed.
“Where’s the order at?”
The work order?
I looked around the room and tried to find the folder with all the order information for it. I didn’t see it on my desk. I’d left it there for sure that Friday, so Jason could have access to it if he needed. “Let me find it. I know I left it on my desk before I left, but he was only supposed to do the rims. I told him three times.”
I couldn’t stop looking at the freaking car I had spent hours on. I’d seen people’s DIY paint jobs look a hundred times better than this. Taking off the color was going to be a major pain, especially after I’d had to do the same thing so recently.
“You left him here alone?”
I kept going through my desk, knowing I was a little bit of a coward for not looking him in the eyes as I answered. “Yes.” Mr. Cooper had known. He’d been the one to tell me to go before he and Rip had gotten into that crappy argument.
Rip let out another deep breath that unsettled me.
And still, I couldn’t manage to look at him. “I didn’t do it, Rip,” I said, giving myself away. “I’ve started triple-checking orders to make sure I’m doing the right color after that other time a few weeks ago. And I’ve definitely never donethatto any car, even when I was learning.”
He let out another breath, and I’d swear I heard his jaw crack.
Jesus Christ. This was… what? Three screwups in his eyes? In just a matter of weeks? Three times now that something had gone wrong?
And hadn’t he put down those times on my record or whatever it was called?
Fuck.
Calm down, Luna. Calm down and think.
Did I want to get Jason fired? No. But did I want to get fired when he’d specifically done something like this even after I had told him not to?
No.
I stopped looking through the desk and closed my eyes before rubbing at my forehead with the meaty part of my palm. “Jason’s been acting like a real prick lately,” I started to tell him, not letting myself feel bad for throwing him under the bus. “But I didn’t think he’d do something like this. I told him all he had to do was work on the rims, not anything else.”
Rip’s hand went up to go over his forehead.
Oh, no.
