“It’s fine,” I told him, noticing how flat my tone sounded and getting frustrated over it. “If you wouldn’t mind helping me move it, please.”
Silence.
There was another sigh.
His gradual “All right” wasn’t what I expected. It was soft. So soft it slid right off me and onto the floor, lost forever.
And then we moved the panels.
Chapter 15
“How was it?”
I set my food on the table beside Mr. Cooper and gave his shoulder a pat. “How was what, Mr. C?” I asked, pretty certain he wasn’t asking about the reaming I’d given Jasonagainthat morning just in case the first one, the day before, hadn’t been enough.
I was still mad about it. Bitching him out the morning before, then refusing to speak to him the rest of the day hadn’t been enough to get the anger out of my system. I had gotten to work that morning, still unable to forgive him, and when he’d decided to go out on a limb and ask me a question about an hour ago, I hadn’t been particularly nice in my response to him.
I only felt like a tiny bit bad about biting his head off.
Then again, I had gotten my head bitten off because of him, so I knew I shouldn’t.
Mr. Cooper smiled at me, not giving me a single clue what he was referring to, as I pulled out the chair next to him. “How was it?” he asked again.
I plopped into it and gave him a smile right back. “Mr. C, I don’t know what you’re asking.”
I hadn’t complained about what had happened the day before. As far as I knew, only Rip, Jason, and I knew about his screwup, and I highly freaking doubted he had found out about Rip going with me to Dallas over the weekend. The only people who knew about that were Thea, Rip, and me. As much as I was willing to share with Mr. Cooper, my sister’s crap was one of those rare things I would rather keep to myself. On top of that, I hadn’t overheard a single argument between him or Rip either so….
He tipped his head to the side. “How did your date go, little moon? I thought you told me you were going on one on Saturday.”
Oh.Oh.That.
I had told him about it. “Oh. It didn’t happen on Saturday, but I did meet up with him yesterday.”
“Did it go well?”
I lifted a shoulder as I pulled the top off my container of food. The noodles were from the batch I had made on Sunday. They were overcooked, the vegetables were soggy, the meat didn’t have enough seasoning, but… I had made it. And it hadn’t given me the runs yesterday, so I could only hope they wouldn’t today either.
“He was… decent,” I admitted.
Mr. Cooper snickered. “It didn’t go that well then?”
I set the lid of my food between us with a sigh. “I went in with zero expectations, Mr. C, and I’m glad I did.”
That was the truth. I hadn’t gone to the bar expecting to meet the love of my life, but I had gone with my hopes up that my day couldn’t get any crappier after what had happened with Rip.
It hadn’t. But it hadn’t made it any better either.
The Out of my League man had been in his forties and very good-looking, just like Lenny had shown me. He had been outgoing and talkative.
I didn’t mean to laugh as I thought about how the night before had gone, but it happened.
I lifted a shoulder as I shot Mr. Cooper a look and snorted then shook my head. “It wasn’t total crap. Maybe 50 percent.”
The expression on his face was so overprotective it warmed my heart about a hundred degrees. “That bad?”
Well...
I didn’t want to bother with all the details. I had called Lenny on my way to work that morning to let her know that the man Grandpa Gus had set me up with had spent the entire time telling me all about how he had just gotten divorced and how he was so excited tomove on with his lifeanddo all the things he hadn’t been able to do for all those years.
