Until Fools Find Gold (Providence Gold 1)

Shrugging, he said goodbye to us and walked toward the office. Just as he got to the door, Luna gasped and then burst out laughing so hard that I had to hold her to stop her from dropping to the door.

“Holy shit, he’s Rico Suave!”

Rich’s shoulders tensed, and then he slowly turned his head toward us and scowled. He was indeed Rico Suave, seeing as how the word rico was Spanish for ‘rich’.

Shooting him a shit-eating grin, I did my best to move her still laughing body into the car. Once I had her in and had shut the door on her snorting and gasping, I rounded the front of the vehicle and waved at Rich.

“Later, Rico!”

“Eat shit, asshole!” he snapped and then slammed the office door behind him.

He’d been the topic of many jokes, made worse by the fact that when he didn’t have to be in dirty jeans or coveralls, he dressed immaculately. His shirts were pressed, his clothes matched, and his shoes were cleaned to an almost OCD level.

Surprisingly, not many understood the hilarity in his name, but those of us who did liked to spread that knowledge wide.

Then there were the smart ones like Luna who figured it out without any prompting or help – those were the best ones. Especially when they reacted like she had.

Getting in behind the wheel, I started the engine and began to reverse and then turn around so that I could take her to our next location.

She’d stop laughing and breathe deeply, then her breath would start shuddering again and she’d lose the modicum of control she’d had and start laughing again. It was a repetitive cycle for the next ten minutes. I didn’t mind it one bit. One of my biggest worries had been that what she’d been through with her dad would change her personality and that maybe she’d have PTSD, but every day she regained more of her old self and I found it easier to breathe.

The first thing that I did as we got onto the open road was to put my hand back on her thigh, holding it in place like last time. Part of me did it for badness, the other part of me did it just so that I could feel her laughter and not interrupt it. I hadn’t been able to hear her laugh like this in years and it was one of the best things I’d ever heard and felt.

“What were his parents thinking?” she snickered finally.

“When he was born, I don’t think Rico Suave was a thing,” I explained, taking the turn onto the road to where one of her favorite places in the world was.

“Oh shit, can you imagine,” she started laughing again. “Your name suddenly becoming something like that?” I was laughing as she picked up my cell phone from the cup holder and started typing something into Safari. After a couple of seconds, her breath hitched making me wonder what the hell she was looking at. “Nooo,” she whined.

“What?”

“I forgot– Luna was a Harry Potter character!”

I tried to hold in my reaction, I really did, but I lost control and burst out laughing at the thought of the character in question.

“Hey, that’s cool,” I chuckled. “You can pick out Luna merchandise and you’ve got your name and Harry Potter’s linked together.”

I shouldn’t have laughed for as long as I did, but the sulking that followed this discovery was like kindling for the fire.

“Well, at least I didn’t have an ark,” she snapped. “And, you forgot the damn unicorns, you dick!”

Well, alrighty then!

Thirty minutes later when we pulled in front of Cinnabon, she finally gave up on the silent treatment and squealed.

“Am I forgiven?”

“Only if you get me a unicorn made out of Cinnabon,” she replied, already out of the car and closing the door in her excitement to get to her favorite place.

I doubted that her father had ever gotten her this stuff, especially after he’d done the dip out of town with her like a pussy.

That thought sobered me up and with a sigh, I got out of the car resigning myself to the fact I was going to have to find a way to get her a unicorn made of Cinnabon.4 Noah“Okay, what the fuck are you doing?” Levi snarled as he closed my office door behind him.

We’d gotten back an hour ago, and I hadn’t missed the glares he’d been shooting in my direction as Luna had settled herself down with her boxes of Cinnabon and a coffee. He wouldn’t say any of this in front of her though because she looked so happy and relaxed and, like me, he didn’t want to ruin that for her. Plus, she needed to put more weight back on. She’d always had curves on her tiny body, and although she wasn’t looking as emaciated as she initially had been, she still needed to gain more weight. Cinnabon wasn’t the healthiest choice to do that, I was well aware of this, but it made her smile, so I didn’t care.