…but probably not.

“You sure?”

I slid him a look. Then I nodded.

Mr. Cooper raised those super thick, gray-white eyebrows at me, blinking bright blue eyes, his face deeply wrinkled and pretty freaking serious.

“I’m sure,” I confirmed as I started shoveling at the food with the fork my little sister had packed for me from home. I didn’t trust the other guys’ cleaning more than mugs at the shop, and she knew that.

My phone decided to ping from the front pocket of my jeans in that moment. “One sec,” I said to him as I pulled it out and glanced at the screen.

Thea: I’m going to stay in Dallas this weekend after all, but I’ll come down for Lily’s graduation for sure. Need to make some $$$.

I typed up my reply to my sister instantly, ignoring the pinch of disappointment I realistically knew I had no reason to feel when I understood why she wasn’t coming down to visit again. It was just that I hadn’t seen her in almost three months.

Me: Okay. Good luck.

A second passed before I got a response.

Thea: xx

“Kyra?” he asked, referring to the middle of my three younger sisters. The same one that Jason, the jerk, had dated.

“No, Thea,” I corrected him. Thea was the oldest after me at twenty-one. I pressed the home button on my phone to clear the app and then set my phone face down on the table between our food. “She’s not coming down this weekend after all,” I told him as I picked my fork back up.

He knew all about the last time she had promised to come and ended up bailing. Just like on this failed visit, I had marked myself off on the schedule so that everyone knew there was no way I was coming in over the weekend. It wasn’t unheard of for me to work on Saturdays. I had bills, no money tree and no sugar daddy; I was all about that overtime life. But I could be honest and say I’d been looking forward to having the time off to spend it with my sisters. Oh well. “I guess they offered her some more hours at the school or something.”

The way he said “Oh” told me he could see right through me. Mr. Cooper knew my sisters almost as well as I did. And because he did, and because I talked to him about them pretty often, he had a decent idea just how often Thea and Kyra cancelled on me.

Even though it was always for a good reason.

I gave him another tight smile before giving my food a poke. “She said she’s for sure coming down for Lily’s graduation next week though, so that’s good.”

“That is good,” he agreed… a lot more softly than he needed to because it really wasn’t a big deal that she wasn’t coming to visit after all.

It wasn’t.

“I can’t believe that girl is finally graduating. I’d swear she’s still eleven.”

That made me smile. “Me too, Mr. C, me too.” Just a few weeks ago, we had gone to scope out apartments for her in Lubbock.

Either Mr. Cooper realized that I didn’t want to think about it anymore, or he understood that there wasn’t anything more to say, because he took another bite of his tuna sandwich before mumbling, “I meant to tell you someone called this morning asking for you.”

I scrunched up my face as I looked down at my food.

“It was a man.”

I blinked.

“I asked a few times for a name, but he wouldn’t give me one,” he went on.

There was no way it was a customer, because I rarely ever met any of them. I might walk through the shop while one or two were inside talking to Mr. Cooper or Rip about a car we were working on for them or a car they wanted to buy from them, but it was rare that they let customers onto the main floor during work hours. But me personally speaking to any of them? No way. The only people I had to listen to were Mr. Cooper and Ripley.

“I wasn’t sure if maybe you were trying to pull a line of credit or if someone was trying to verify your employment—” He let out this adorable chuff like he couldn’t imagine me applying to work anywhere else. “—but I also didn’t want to confirm that you work here. You know, just in case.” We both knew what he meant by a just in case situation. Just in case it was someone I didn’t want to speak to. Just in case it was someone who I wouldn’t mind assuming I was dead. “I asked him who I was speaking to, then he asked again if he could speak to you. We went back and forth before he thanked me, then hung up, but something about it sounded professional.”

Hmm.

There was no logical reason why anyone would be calling looking for me.

At least not anyone that I wanted.

“I’ll let you know if they call again,” he told me. “I’ll do the same thing. I won’t say you don’t work here, but I won’t say you do either.”

“Thanks, Mr. C,” I muttered, trying to think, but also taking a bite of the food my little sister had prepared for lunch. I let my gaze slide over to him, picking up on the tension in his own shoulders. I had an idea what the cause was. “You okay? I was pretty surprised when you announced that Rogelio is leaving.”

The older man grunted as he chewed. The last thing he’d said during our meeting had been that one of the shop’s longtime employees was leaving to start his own mechanic shop. “I’m happy for him,” he finally said, and I knew he was telling the truth. “But you know how hard good workers are to find, and now I need to get someone else before he leaves. We’ll be hurting if we end up short-staffed.”

We were always almost hurting, and with one person less?

He shrugged the shoulder closest to me. “I’ll find someone. I get resumes all the time from kids straight out of school.”

I smiled at him. “If there’s anything I can do, let me know.”

Mr. Cooper put his arm around my shoulders and hugged me to his side.

He rarely ever did that, and it caught me by surprise so much I barely had time to smile over at him.

His quiet laugh had me glancing down at where his eyes were focused: on my wrist. On the bracelet of linked, tiny plastic donuts with colorful icing on my left hand to be specific. “I was wondering what your fun thing of the day was.”

I gave my hand a shake. “Lily bought it for me,” I explained.

“That’s pretty fun, little moon,” the older man confirmed with a warm smile.

“Luna,” came a familiar male voice that had me looking toward the door just as Mr. C’s arm started to retreat.

Sure enough, Rip’s massive body took up the width of the doorframe as he stood there, a piece of grease-stained paper in his hand, his gaze intent on me. Totally ignoring Mr. Cooper sitting beside me, pulling his arm back toward his side. He wasn’t frowning, but there was something about his expression….

“Hey, Rip,” I said, giving him a smile as I straightened.

He tipped his chin up, making my eyes flick to the lines alongside his mouth from all the scowling he did. His voice was gruff and irritated. “You get started on that Thunderbird yet?”

“Not yet.” Should I tell him about what happened? I eyed his shirt once more and thought about how grumpy he’d been at the meeting that morning. Because of Jason’s screw up, it pushed back me getting to the car he was asking about.

“Do me a solid.” His eyes stayed on me so intently it made me feel like I’d done something wrong by letting Mr. Cooper give me a hug. But I hadn’t, and Rip was well aware of the father-daughter relationship I had with the older man. I had invited him to my house twice for Thanksgiving, making it clear that Mr. Cooper and his wife would be there too so that he wouldn’t think I was trying to flirt with him. He didn’t show up either time. “I changed my mind about it and left a new work order for it on your desk. Take a look at it. I know we’ve got the color in the back, so use that one instead, got me?”

I nodded. New work order. New color. He was using that barking, something-up-his-butt voice. All right.

Ripley’s blue-green eyes narrowed as he watched me from the doorway, pointedly still not looking at the man beside me. “Do you need to write it down?” he asked, dipping into that condescending tone just a little.

I let it slide right off me. “No, I’ll remember.”