Luna and the Lie

You gave me these pieces of you I know you haven’t given to anybody else, and they’re mine. You can’t take ’em back. I need them more than you do, you hear me?

People think they have to be lions or lambs, but I’ve always just wanted to be something in between.” I bit my lip and lifted a shoulder. “Something that still has sharp teeth, just in case.

I swear to God, you’re a fucking puzzle I thought was all in the box, but every damn day I find a piece or two hidden all over the place.

I want my goddamn Luna back,” he breathed, stealing the air from my lungs. “I don’t want you to leave me alone. I want you bugging my ass for random shit again. I wanna see your fucking face first thing in the morning, even if you don’t bring me my coffee anymore. I wanna make you something to eat so you don’t end up with Salmonella from that shit you try to cook,

You want to meet someone to be your best friend and your fucking partner? I’m right fucking here, baby girl.

The best decisions of my life had been those I’d jumped into terrified even though some part of me knew they were necessary.

I was loved, I had a home, I had money, and I had a job now. I was safe. I was happy.

The funny thing about life is that there’s a lot you don’t get to choose. You don’t get to choose whom you’re related to. You don’t get to choose your hair color, your height, or what natural talents you are given. You don’t get to choose where you are born, or who or what the world will see when they look at you. But the best part of life is that in the end, none of that matters. You get to choose who you become. Who you love. You can change your hair color and, to an extent, you can even change your eye color and height. You can learn to be great at something.

You only miss all the shots you don’t take in life,

life was a gift—sometimes one you wanted to return, and other times one you’d want to keep forever, but it was still a gift. The grass might look greener on the other side, but at least you still had grass. There were places in the world that didn’t have any to begin with.

Fear, I thought, was more like a hallucinogenic. It was all in your mind, and there was nothing to really be scared of as long as you knew and expected the worst and the best.

Life was too short to hang yourself up loving someone who would never love you back,

What a sweet, lovely man-child, said no one ever.

Everyone deserves love, but there are people that don’t want it, no matter how desperately and truly you might give it to them.

You like having all those teeth in your mouth? Or you good with going home, missing a few of them?

You haven’t listened to a single fucking thing I’ve said, have you? Seen a single thing I’ve done? You the only person who hasn’t put shit together?” I breathed in through my nose and heard it rattle right out of me. “I don’t know how to give you flowery words and shit like that, Luna. I don’t know how to tell you what you want or need to hear. It’s been a long fucking time since I’ve given a fuck about anybody. Do you understand that?

I’m sorry for making it seem like you broke my heart. Sometimes I forget it got broken a long time before I met you.

You came and you tried to hurt me, and I’ll live with that. But I told you at the funeral if you ever put your hands on me again, I was going to break your hand.

You want me to pretend we’re getting married or something?

It was Lily who chose to ignore I’d said anything. She slapped the flat of her hand against the table before yelling, “SO HOW ARE WE GOING TO DO THIS? I CAN SEND EVERYONE A LINK TO A GOOGLE FORM WHERE WE CAN SIGN UP LUNA FOR DATES ON CERTAIN DAYS OR WE CAN DO A GROUP MESSAGE.

But I want it back anyway.” Like an idiot, I asked, “What do you want back?” “I want my goddamn Luna back,” he breathed, stealing the air from my lungs. “I don’t want you to leave me alone. I want you bugging my ass for random shit again. I wanna see your fucking face first thing in the morning, even if you don’t bring me my coffee anymore. I wanna make you something to eat so you don’t end up with Salmonella from that shit you try to cook,” he said in this strangely calm voice that seemed like the opposite of what someone using a jackhammer on my entire existence would have been. And he told me carefully, too carefully, “Two fucking weeks and I want it back. You gave me these pieces of you I know you haven’t given to anybody else, and they’re mine. You can’t take ’em back. I need them more than you do, you hear me?

I sighed again. “It was just one little lie, Ripley.” “You lied to the fucking cops for me, Luna. That’s a felony if you didn’t know. There’s nothing little about that.

You are the goodest, sweetest thing I have ever had in my life, and I don’t want you to go screaming the other way, you understand me? One day I’ll tell you about everything,” he said softly.

Figure it out, Luna. I don’t wanna be sixty when you decide.” I pressed my lips together. Don’t do it, Luna. Everything is not fine and dandy. Don’t do it. Don’t— Let it go. Let it— I didn’t. “So I have… two years… before then?” I whispered, grimacing at the joke that I shouldn’t have made so that we could focus on the serious topic of our conversation. So I could hold on to the distance I was supposed to put between us because he was my boss. What I got was silence. Freaking silence. The sigh that came out of him reminded me of what I figured a hot air balloon would sound like if it deflated. “I should’ve fired you the other day.” I sucked in a breath, and my entire upper body turned to him. He was smirking. He thought he was being funny. He was… joking. These mocking, laughing eyes I had never seen before slid over to me, and the second they spotted my expression, they changed. My name came out a grumble. “I was playing.” Sure, he’d been. His mouth went so tight, it was edged in white. “I was messing with you,” he insisted, seriously. He was messing with me. Those long fingers flexed again. “You that mad at me?” he asked. “I’m not mad at you.” “Upset with me?” I didn’t look at him as I said, “No.” I wasn’t. I wasn’t. “I just…” What could I say? “You don’t ever joke around with me. I’m just surprised.” I started to crack my knuckles but stopped. “Okay, maybe I am a little upset with you, but I’m almost over it.” Out of the corner of my eye, I watched him glance at me again, and I could barely hear his voice when he spoke again. “I joke around outside of work,” he said softly. I wasn’t going to overthink it. Did that come out defensively, or was it my imagination? “That’s good.” I was such a sucker. I really was.

Life was a choice. You get to choose how you handle things. You get to choose how you deal with those things. You get to choose if a rose is beautiful or if its thorns are a menace to your fingers.

You want me to pretend we’re getting married or something?” Yeah. My mouth opened. Then it closed. It was my turn to stare at him. My turn to press my lips together. Then, and only then, did I tip my face up to the ceiling and freaking laugh.

Is anyone else coming?” I asked him when he didn’t say anything after setting his glass back down on the table. I’d overheard a couple of the guys talking about Rip’s half-hearted invitation when I had taken a bathroom break, but I hadn’t heard more than that. His gaze hadn’t left mine from the moment he had spotted me, and it didn’t go anywhere as he shrugged and said, “Doubt it.” I must have made a face because he added, casually, “I’m not exactly anybody’s favorite, Luna.” The smile fell right off my mouth, and I couldn’t help but frown at him. At the harshness of his words. At the… fact-like nature of them. That wasn’t very nice for him to assume. That wasn’t very nice to assume at all, and it bothered me… even if it was true that Mr. Cooper was my favorite person at the shop. And I was his. And Miguel’s— Crap. “I’m sure—“ I started before getting cut off. “I’m not,” he told me, tapping his short fingernails against the glass. Rip tipped his chin up a millimeter, giving me a slightly better view of the shading tucked up against his jawline. He swallowed, everything about his body language saying that he was telling me these words in this way because it wasn’t a big deal to him. He didn’t care. Why should he? His body said. His next words confirmed it. “I’m not around to be anybody’s friend.” All righty then. I wanted to tell him something that would make it seem that it wasn’t like anyone hated him or disliked him. Most of the guys were just… wary. Even I was wary, and he didn’t scare or intimidate me… unless I screwed up. But I didn’t know what to say to that comment. I hated liars as much as I hated aggressive drunk people and cooked carrots. So I did the only thing I could think of: I smiled at him and shrugged. He didn’t look even a little put out or hurt by what he’d been saying. Who was I to make it a big deal if he claimed he didn’t care? “Did you like your cake?

But most grudges were a waste of time. They were a vortex where you lost time, energy, and happiness. Time, energy, and happiness you could apply toward something that was good, something that your whole life benefited from. Something that could actually make you happy.

I couldn’t even find it in me a little bit to be embarrassed as I wrapped my arms around his waist. “I’ve wanted to do this a hundred times.” “What?” he asked quietly. “Hug you.” It took a moment, but the second his palms landed on the top of my head, I pressed my cheek against him. One of those big palms cupped the back of my head while the other landed right between my shoulder blades, and his voice was hoarse as he whispered, “Baby girl.