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.

“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, but this? 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.

He was my boss, and I had forgotten that again. That was on me. No one else.

No. I wasn’t going to think about Rip being the cause, because I wasn’t going to feel this way longer than... five minutes. I’d do this for five minutes, and that was it.

That was it.

This ache in my throat… five minutes.

This BS sense of betrayal… five freaking minutes and that was it.

I’d been yelled at enough in my life. Rip was going to get to be just another person who succeeded in making me feel this way.

I didn’t want to start over. I had screwed up. Fine. But I hadn’t screwed up that badly.

“Please don’t fire me,” I repeated myself, hating myself for even being in this position in the first place.

A minute dragged by. Maybe even two minutes. Just as I started to accept that he wasn’t saying anything for a reason, I took a step backward, feeling… nearly as bad as I had Friday night. Then, finally, Rip spoke up. “I’m not firing you,” he claimed in a voice that was pretty damn close to a growl.

It didn’t seem like he wasn’t firing me.

“I’m not,” he repeated himself.

The saliva in my mouth started to taste sweet as I stayed right where I was in every way. “Are you sure?” I forced myself to ask.

Rip’s voice was low as he murmured, “Yes.”

Okay then.

He wasn’t firing me for someone else’s mistake.

Feeling the frustration—and the hurt—in the backs of my eyes, I sucked in a breath and nodded. I could feel my nostrils flaring as I took another step back. Then another.

I’d gotten what I wanted. I had no reason to be upset. Not because this was unfair. Not because he had just hurt my feelings by reminding me that he was my boss and that was all there was between us.

Not because he had held me while I cried over my sister shooing me out of her life.

“Luna,” came my name in that murmured, rough voice that I usually enjoyed, except in that moment.

I ignored it.

“Will you help me carry it out of here?” I asked him instead, my own voice low.

There was a beat of silence, and I had no idea if he was looking at me, doing the sign of the cross, or rolling his eyes. I wasn’t fired, and that was all that was going to matter then.

Lenny had rescheduled my date for that night, and even though I wasn’t super excited over it, it was something to look forward to. That could be the best part of my day, even if nothing came of it. Because at least I was trying to make my life better. Every day, I tried to make my life better, and that had to mean something. It would.

“Luna?”

My heart started beating faster, but I ignored that too and managed to ask, “Can we please do it so I can start?”

There was a pause and then a soft, “Sure.”

I swallowed and kept my gaze on that little button. “Okay. Let’s do it.”

There was a deeper sigh. A longer one. Another “Luna…” that reminded me of a shooting star with a long tail behind it. A dying meteor. That’s what it was in a way. I would forgive him. I would move on, but that Luna wouldn’t change what it really was.