“You gonna be all right?” Rip finally spoke up after hours of near silence.

I glanced at his profile for what might have been the twentieth time—maybe the fiftieth time—since we’d gotten into the car. The tightness at his jaw had only gotten more pronounced mile after mile. The lines at his eyes had deepened. His coloring was different. More flushed.

I wasn’t imagining the fact that he honestly looked like he was dreading this as much as I was.

But was it because he was with me and he didn’t want to be?

“Yeah, sure,” I told him honestly but watched him even closer. “Are you?”

His fingers flexed on the steering wheel and his voice was rough when he answered simply, “Yeah.”

He was full of it. He really was dreading this.

Just like that, guilt made my stomach feel off all over again, for a reason that had nothing to do with me and what I wanted.

Maybe he didn’t handle funerals well. Maybe they made him feel terrible. How was I supposed to know? I’d worked surrounded by men for almost the last decade, and over that time, I’d learned that even if they didn’t want to do something—and I mean they really didn’t want to do something—they would if it involved or compromised their pride.

I wouldn’t force someone to do something they didn’t want to for my sake.

“You can just drop me off and go back. I can get myself back to Houston,” I offered, watching the lines along his mouth tell me just how uncomfortable he was.

Because I had put him into this situation.

The man beside me slid me a look so slow that a sloth would have managed to catch it. His eyebrows went up at about the same pace, and he locked those blazing blue-green eyes on my face and said in that hoarse voice of his, “Not doing that.”

Pride was a bitch.

“I’m being serious, Rip.” I gave him a smile that was tight and probably totally fake. “I can go by myself. It isn’t a big deal. You’ve done enough.”

I’d swear he rolled his eyes. “Shut it, Luna.”

He was such a liar. “You look like you’ve got the flu, boss.”

“I’m all right,” he tried to insist.

I pressed my lips together and looked at the coloring on his face. “Is that why you’ve been squeezing the steering wheel so hard your knuckles have been turning white for the last hour?” I asked him, pressing my lips together again immediately afterward because… well, it was the truth.

That hard jaw jerked from side to side, and he even shook his head a little. “Luna, I’m good,” he tried to tell me.

“I don’t want you to do something you don’t want to do.”

He didn’t say a word for a moment, but I watched as his shoulders lost some of their tension and lowered unexpectedly. His voice was calm as he said, “I got no problem going to the funeral or the service. You can drop it.”

I bit my lip and watched him, trying to decide whether I needed to keep arguing with him. It was obvious he didn’t want to be here. I wasn’t that blind or dumb. I also believed him when he said it wasn’t the funeral he had an issue with.

But then what else could bother Rip… that wasn’t Mr. Cooper or Lydia? Or screwups at work?

Just as I opened my mouth to tell him to wait in the car, his fingers flexed on the steering wheel again, and he told me, “I’m doing this with you. I owe you. It’s fine.”

He owed me.

That was the only reason he was here. It wasn’t like I didn’t know that, and it wasn’t like that should hurt my feelings. Because it didn’t. What it did was make my heart clench up a little at the reminder that it was only a favor… a favor I had earned through a lie… for why he was with me right then, sitting not even two feet away in a dress shirt, pants, and a scarf with a coat between us. Looking more handsome than I ever could have imagined, if I did that kind of thing.

I kept my mouth shut and nodded, even if chances were he didn’t see me do it.

The navigation gave an instruction for an upcoming turn a quarter of a mile away, and he got into the lane a second before asking, “Who’s funeral are we going to?”

I squeezed my fingers together tighter. I owed him that much information, didn’t I? “My grandmother.”

His “Oh” was just about what I was expecting. What I didn’t expect was the way his question came out. Maybe it was the fact that he even asked the question in the first place. The last time I’d been sick, he hadn’t asked if I was feeling better, he’d asked you contagious still? So the “You good?” right then, caught me totally off guard, especially when it came out soft.

But I still lied. “I’m good.”

I didn’t miss the way his eyes slid in my direction, his expression mirroring the tone of his voice—thoughtful, different. “You don’t look good.”

He didn’t need to know that I didn’t feel good about this whole thing. So, I made a face. Then I shrugged the shoulder closest to him. “I’m just…”

Should I tell him?

Nah. I was greedy and enough of a liar to keep the bad to myself since we were so close already. Plus, he was being a liar about being fine coming with me, when it was clear he wasn’t.

“I haven’t been home… to San Antonio,” I corrected myself, hating that I called this city home, “in a long time.”

His hands flexed on the steering wheel once more, and I wasn’t sure I imagined that his voice seemed to get deeper, losing that almost sweet edge to it. “You used to live here?”

“Yeah,” I told him vaguely. “I grew up here.”

Those teal-colored eyes came my way again, and a muscle in his cheek tensed. “When’d you move away?” he grumbled the question. These were more personal questions than he’d asked me in the three years we had known each other.

I squeezed my fingers together. “A few months before my eighteenth birthday. So that’s nine years.”

He made another thoughtful face that had his eyebrows knitting together and that little dash between his eyebrows indenting, probably wondering why I would have moved away at that age. So when he asked, “You got family here?” I figured he was trying to figure out just that.

While I might have told him everything a week ago… I didn’t want to do it then.

I looked forward and stopped myself from frowning. “My grandmother’s the only person I would still call family here, and I haven’t seen her in years. I just found out about the funeral on Monday right before I asked you to come with me.”

His eyebrows did that thoughtful thing again, and some more guilt filled my stomach.

Should I tell him? At least warn him? If I was in his position….

I should tell him. I had never been good at playing games. I had never liked other people playing games with me either. It was the right thing to do.

“Rip?“

“Hmm?”

I could do it.

“Look, I want you to know that I have people I’m related to that might be at the funeral and… things are complicated with them… and I asked you to come with me because you’re the biggest person I know, and I don’t think anybody would willingly mess with you, and I don’t think you’d let anyone mess with me too much if you were around, even if… you know… you didn’t think you owed me one…,” I rambled, trying to think of my words and not sure what the hell else to say that wouldn’t be me admitting just how much my family sucked.

I squeezed my fingers again. “My plan is to mind my own business, go to the funeral, and head back home. I just want you to know why we’re sitting by ourselves. I don’t want to talk to any of them if they are there,” I told him, leaving out the part that warned him that half the people in the room might end up looking at us like they wanted to kill me.

There. He couldn’t say I hadn’t warned him. That’s what I was going to tell myself at least.

The last thing I expected was the smirk-like quirking way the corner of his mouth went to the side.

Then I waited until he let out a sigh that wasn’t unhappy exactly because… because he was still doing that smirk thing.