Rip parked his truck in the nearly empty lot and we both got out. I was busy thinking about what colors he might be interested in—trying not to think about the day before too, if I was going to be honest—that I just barely managed to tell him “thank you” when he held the door open for me.

Once we were both inside, I finally asked, “Are you feeling a light or a dark color?”

His eyes seemed to scan the shop, and I had to ask myself if he’d ever actually been here, period. I didn’t think so. He usually just chose colors from samples. It was Mr. Cooper who had come with me in the past if he wanted something custom, but even then, that was rare. Custom paints were a lot more expensive than the thousands of options you could choose directly from a catalogue, but sometimes with certain types of cars they bought, it was worth doing something really custom. The two cars he had bought at the auction were totally worth it, so I didn’t blame him for wanting to do something original.

“I’ll know when I see it,” he answered as he turned down an aisle that held brushes.

I almost crossed my eyes. Then I asked myself why he was in the brush section to begin with. Then I reminded myself that I didn’t need to wonder over it.

“Sup, Luna?” a voice called out from behind the counter at the back of the store.

I couldn’t help but immediately smile as I craned my neck toward the counter along the far back wall of the paint store. “Hi, Hector.”

“I had a feeling today was gonna be my lucky day,” the really good-looking man, who had worked at the shop for as long as I could remember, replied from where he stood. He was already smiling that giant, white smile that had to be one of the nicest I’d ever seen.

I snorted. “You say that to everybody.”

“Only you.” He grinned. “Whatcha need?”

I stopped right in front of the counter and took a peek over my shoulder as I said, “My boss wants to do something custom for two cars he’s going to start working on, so I had to bring him to the best.” Standing on the tips of my toes, I called out, “Rip?”

What might have been a grunt answered me from the direction of where I had last seen him. The storefront was pretty small. I wasn’t positive what he was looking at, or why I couldn’t see him, but all right.

I turned back to my friend and rocked onto my heels. “He’ll be here in a sec.”

Hector leaned forward, planting his elbows on the counter between us, and asked the same question he always did when I came to see him. “What are you doing for lunch?”

Then I told him the same thing I always did. “I already had lunch. What are you doing for lunch?”

He laughed, like this was new, and it was just as nice as his smile. Just as nice as everything about him. “Nothin’ now that you aren’t coming with me.”

“You’re so full of it.” I snorted again and glanced over my shoulder once more. Rip still hadn’t come. I turned back to the other man before asking, with my eyebrows raised, “You got one?”

He raised his eyebrows right back. “I always got one for you,” he said, making it sound way flirtier than it was.

He always had them, period, but this was our game.

I dug through my purse for a dollar, then thought twice about it and grabbed another one before holding both between us. “Can I have two, please?”

“Two?” he asked as he took the bill, then opened a drawer on the other side of the counter and pulled what I wanted out as he traded it for the money. “She’s saving for a bike now.”

“A bike? What happened to the cell phone she wanted?”

Hector snickered as he closed the drawer. “That’s how long it’s been since you dropped by. She already sold enough of those things to buy her cell.”

“No way!”

“You probably paid for a quarter of it,” he said.

The sound of a throat clearing behind me told me Rip had appeared, and when I turned, I was more than a little surprised to find him looking past me. He was staring.

At Hector.

And because I knew his features well enough, I knew that face that might look carefully blank to everyone else was a lie.

He was irritated.

But by what, I had no clue.

And it wasn’t any of my business.

“How’s it goin’?” Hector asked, being as friendly as usual. “What can I help you with?”

When a moment passed and my boss didn’t say anything, I glanced at the other man and said, “Hector, this is my boss.” Like that would explain everything. “Rip, this is Hector.”

Rip though, didn’t respond, and his eyes still didn’t stray from the dead-eyed stare he was shooting the man on the other side of the counter.

Okay.

I needed to get this in gear.

I gestured toward my boss. “Ah, Rip? You want to come over here so you can narrow down some ideas?”

He didn’t move, and he didn’t look away from the other man. All right.

“Here you go, Luna,” Hector said from the other side of the counter, tapping what I knew were mango-flavored chili-covered lollipops against my forearm.

I bought one from him—from his niece to be exact—every time I came in.

Taking them, I smiled and said, “Thank you,” before pulling the plastic off the top off one and shoving the whole thing into my mouth before holding the other one out toward Rip.

His body still hadn’t moved, but those blue-green eyes had. To the lollipop. Then back over to Hector.

“I got it for you,” I told him around the pop as I balled up the wrapper with my other hand and handed it to the one man in the room who had never hurt my feelings.

“Luna said you were wanting a custom color for a couple of cars,” Hector piped up as he threw the trash away.

Rip took the lollipop from me and shoved it into his free pocket.

His eyes slid to me, and somehow I managed to raise my eyebrows at him because I didn’t get what had irritated him. “You okay?”

He tipped his chin, and I noticed the way he let out a deep breath. Noticed the way his shoulders were shoved back as he came toward the counter. Then I definitely couldn’t miss the way he stood next to me, his upper arm touching my shoulder. His boot against the side of my boot.

Maybe he did feel bad about yesterday.

It wasn’t like he ever jerked away from me before, but he’d never come up to standing right beside me either unless there was a reason. That reason being me being upset if the last two times counted. That was something to think about.

“Any ideas what you’re lookin’ for?” Hector asked, his eyes bouncing back and forth between Rip and me in a way I wasn’t sure how to take.

Just as I opened my mouth, Rip beat me to it. “Red. Blood red.”

I’m sure I looked up at him with my mouth open in surprise. Where the hell had that come from? I had literally asked him in the car if he had any ideas.

“Almost black, but not,” Rip kept going.

Hector seemed to think about it for a second before he nodded. “I can work with that. What about the other one?”

That handsome face tipped down to look at me, those intense eyes lingering on my hair for a moment before they finished the trek down to mine, and he asked, “What’s your favorite color?”

My favorite color?

Hector answered for me. “It’s white, isn’t it?”

I nodded, but I was going to blame the lollipop in my mouth for why I did. We’d had plenty of conversations about colors over the years. Of course he knew.

Rip’s gaze swung back around to me, his forehead furrowed. “White?”

I nodded again.

“Why?” he asked like even he couldn’t believe it.

I shrugged and took the lollipop out of my mouth long enough to say, “It’s classy. Everything looks good in white.”

He blinked.

“If you mix the three primaries together, you get white. I think it’s cool.” I smiled at him, for real that time. “And I’ve only painted one white car in years. I’m not sick of it yet.”

“What kind of white can you do then?” my boss asked the other man, but his gaze remained on me.