“I think he’s trying to get me fired. You can look at the cameras and see he stayed after I’d left. I didn’t come back into the building. I left for my appointment, and you know where I was the rest of the evening.”
He closed those blue-green eyes, and I could see the tension all over his upper body. Oh, man. I barely noticed right then it was a white compression shirt day.
“Rip, I didn’t do it. I swear,” I told him, opening my eyes and hoping I didn’t sound as desperate as I felt but getting nervous that it might be a good idea that I did. I didn’t want anyone’s pity, especially not Rip’s. Especially not after everything.
But if I did the math correctly in my head, this might be three strikes for me.
“I swear on my life I didn’t do it,” I rushed out, dropping my hand as more nerves shot straight through my chest.
“Stop talking, Luna,” he said in the quietest voice he had ever used on me before. “Just stop fucking talking.”
I did what he said, feeling nauseous the entire time.
He couldn’t blame me for it… could he?
I shouldn’t have left Jason alone, okay. But I had. The same way the man who had the head paint position before me had left me alone countless times when he wanted to take off from work four hours early. There was no “I” in team. I’d had to go to my appointment….
I was just making excuses.
So, I didn’t want to get blamed, but I didn’t want to get fired more than that. I knew that for sure, accepted it for sure. Was a little bit of pride worth losing my job? A job I really did love?
No, it wasn’t.
“Rip,” I started up again before I could stop myself. “I’m so sorry. I can fix it.”
He stood there, still like a statue. Breathing in, breathing out. Still. Utterly, completely unmoving. Until, “What did I just say, Luna? I don’t want to fucking hear it right now,” he replied calmly, which just made it worse. He was furious. He didn’t need to yell at me for me to know that.
And the dread in my stomach just got worse.
“We can fix it. It’ll just take—”
He finally turned that massive body toward me to explode. “I don’t give a shit if you can fix it or if we can fix it! I just want you to stop fucking talking for a second!” he hissed, just about the closest thing to yelling as he was capable of, I’d bet.
It was the loudest I had ever heard him talk before.
That had to be why I sucked in a breath; a breath that I didn’t let go. I felt the urge to make some sad sound form in my throat. Then in my heart. After a moment, I was blinking quickly without even meaning to.
Maybe it was my fault that I had left Jason alone, but it wasn’t my fault he had done this. It wasn’t my fault that Rip was in a bad mood and was now being mean.
What was my fault was how betrayed I felt right then. I hadn’t had enough time to build up any expectations between us, butthis?This hurt. Just a little, but still.
“Please don’t fire me.” My voice cracked despite the fact I was basically whispering. “I’ll fix whatever needs to be fixed. It’s my fault. You don’t have to pay me, but please don’t fire me. I love working here,” I told my boss—the man who had hugged me and called me baby girl forty-eight hours ago—my voice shaky, keeping my eyes trained on the button of his coveralls that was directly in front of my face, somewhere in between his pectorals.
I was loved. I was fine. I wanted this job, and I didn’t want to lose it.
“Please, Rip,” I added, hearing the hoarseness in my voice and not letting it shame me.
The silence after those words were out of my mouth could have burned the skin and muscles off my bones it was so oppressing.
I wasn’t going to cry, but if it happened, I wasn’t going to be ashamed of it. I’d dealt with enough of that in the past, with my parents telling me to quit being a baby when they’d say something that upset me and then didn’t want to deal with the consequences.
A person gets to pick what constitutes their pride.
I had used to think that my parents stomping my ego to pieces as a kid had been a disgrace, but now… now I thought it had been a gift. I knew what I could take without breaking. Bending hurt. It was uncomfortable. It was terrible. But I knew that bending didn’t kill.
If the fact that it was Rip treating me like this was the reason why I was struggling with keeping it together…
I wasn’t going to think about it.
