Chapter 23
The only thing I will force in my life is my jeans over my ass. Not friends, and certainly not relationships.
— Pepper to her brothers
PEPPER
3 weeks later
The ‘ding-ding-ding’ of the bell had me glancing up from the display case I was reorganizing with what was left of our cookies, to the man ringing the bell.
A wide grin spread across my face.
I knew with how evenly the bell was rung who it was, but it still was a shock to my system.
“ Hey ,” I was definitely smiling too wide. “ On your way to work?”
He leaned into the counter, his body pressed to the glass display case.
I idly checked out the way his shirt rode up, exposing the trail of hair that started at his navel and disappeared into his jeans.
“ I am,” he rumbled, sending a shiver down the length of my spine. One full of pleasure and excitement and intense need.
It’d been three weeks since Sage was fired. Three weeks since the DA decided that they didn’t have enough evidence to prosecute her. Three weeks since Atlas had told me we were doing this… but slowly.
Sage and Emory hadn’t shown in twenty-one blissful days, and I almost got lulled into the perfectness of my life.
“ Do you want something for a snack?” I asked,
He pulled his eyes away from me, then bent down to look at the display case.
“ Peach scone?” he asked hopefully.
I rolled my eyes and moved to the bag I’d already set out for him before they’d all sold.
Maven had been here and gone. She had a doctor’s appointment, then mid-afternoon plans with Garnett and Shayne .
I was all on my lonesome, and since I wasn’t too sure I’d remember to not sell the last one, I’d set it back for him for when I knew he’d come by before work.
“ Obviously ,” I said as I handed it to him. “ How did Forest do today at drop off?”
“ Mom said he went in like a dream,” he rolled his eyes. “ Apparently it’s only me that he makes feel terrible when I leave him.”
He’d started at the daycare last week. He’d been dropped off by me once, Atlas four times, and Garnett the rest of those times. For me, he went willingly, excited and happy. For Atlas , he’d cried the tears of nightmares, and Atlas had felt bad the entire day. For Garnett , again he was happy.
“ That just means he loves you,” I leaned onto the counter. “ I’ll be picking him up today. I’m almost sold out. If these aren’t sold in the next five minutes, I’m closing up shop and dropping these off at the shelter.”
“ Load ’em up for me, then,” he said. “ I’ll take them to the SWAT meeting I’m being forced to hold today because of ‘team morale’ or some bullshit like that. Orders came down from the upper management.”
AKA his father.
I got everything into the biggest box I had, then handed it over.
“ How much?” he asked.
“ Umm ,” I hesitated. “ Usually that would be like three bucks a cookie. But Maven has a Carter allowance now.”
Atlas shook his head, then pulled out two twenty-dollar bills from his wallet.
He tossed them on the counter, then leaned forward so our faces were inches away from each other.
“ Come see me before you take off with my kid,” he ordered.
I would do that.
“ All right,” I said.
When he pushed away and headed for the door with his food, I asked, “ Is it time yet?”
He tossed me a look over his right shoulder and said, “ You’ll know.”
I was getting darn tired of hearing ‘you’ll know.’
I left within ten minutes, leaving Maven the cleanup like she asked me to.
The drive to Forest’s school was a breeze, every person on the road just as determined as I was to get where we needed to go.
Forest lit up like a Roman candle when he saw me there to pick him up and ran as fast as his little legs would take him as he barreled into me.
I caught my little Atlas Junior up in my arms and hugged him tight.
“ Hey there, little guy,” I said. “ You want to go see Daddy at the police station before we go back to the house and play in the pool?”
“ Daddy ! Peas ! Pool !” he chirped as I grabbed his stuff, waved to the teacher, and headed out.
The station was a short drive from the school—as planned—and took us two minutes to get there.
I walked into the station, my eyes moving every which way, in a desperate attempt to see someone I knew.
Since I’d never been in the station on my own before, and I didn’t see a single Carter in sight, I moved toward the chief’s office, which happened to be the only place I knew exactly where it was at.
I had to bypass the front desk, and the woman behind it dismissed me, either recognizing me, or not caring enough to stop me.
Either way, I walked directly to Germaine’s office and knocked on the door.
“ Enter ,” I heard the deep voice order.
I ‘entered’ and waved at Germaine , who looked surprised to see me.
He got up and walked toward me, hands out for Forest .
Forest went, excited to see him, and started babbling a mile a minute as he was wont to do.
“ Is that right?” Germaine asked, then turned to me. “ You get any of that?”
I snickered. “ I got ‘teacher’ and ‘police station’ as well as ‘daddy’ and ‘pool.’”
“ Ahh ,” he chuckled. “ I guess I didn’t even get that.”
I shrugged. “ He’s good. Don’t get me wrong. He talks a whole lot. But I still don’t have the knack for translating two-year-old.”
“ Well that makes two of us,” he said. “ Not that I’m not happy to see y’all, but is there something wrong?”
“ Oh , no.” I shook my head quickly. “ I’m just here to visit for a few seconds. Atlas asked me to stop by.”
“ Gotcha ,” he nodded.
“ And I have no clue where I’m going. Yours is the only office I knew how to get to. I figured you could point the way,” I admitted.
His brows rose. “ Did the receptionist not tell you how to get to the SWAT area?”
“ Uh ,” I hesitated. “ She didn’t acknowledge me at all. And watched as I walked right by.”
His eyes narrowed, and I immediately felt bad for throwing her under the bus.
“ Errm ,” I looked anywhere but at him. “ I’m sorry.”
He sighed. “ It’s like this generation just doesn’t give a fuck anymore. It’s so hard to find quality workers that want to be here. This new generation just wants money, and time off. I don’t think they know that to get both, they have to actually work.”
I shrugged. “ I wouldn’t know how that feels.”
He threw his arm around me, and led me through the many, many hallways of the station.
Several people stopped him, asking about Forest and Atlas . Several were interested in me, too. Germaine , however, was very skilled at turning them all away and guiding them away from him without so much as saying it.
When we got to the ‘ SWAT wing’ as he’d coined it, I came to a sudden, frozen halt in the doorway.
Why ?
Because there were a bunch of half-naked men, sweating and working out.
There were black guys, white guys, Mexican guys, a few Asian and Indian as well.
And every single one of them was ripped.
My gaze was bouncing around the room like a freakin’ pinball, unsure what to focus on.
But that indecision stopped when Germaine whistled, causing every last one of them to focus on us.
“ Daddy !” Forest screeched, wiggling hard.
Germaine set Forest down on his feet, and showing he didn’t have the same issue as me, he went right to Atlas at the back of the room.
He wasn’t as sweaty as the others, but he had his shirt off as well as a soft smile on his face.
Before Forest got there, he stopped, ripped his shirt off, then kept running.
Germaine and I laughed at that, as did almost all of the guys.
But wait… nope.
I was wrong.
There were several females in there as well.
Shirtless as well, still just as fit, but wearing bras and short shorts.
“ Awww ,” one of them said. “ How cute is that?”
“ Who is this little man?” the other female asked.
“ Elise , Fatima ,” Atlas stood up with Forest in his arms. “ I’d like you to meet my son, Forest . Forest , this is Fatima ,” he pointed at the stunning Black woman. “ And this is Elise ,” he pointed to the bombshell Latina .
They oohed and awed over him, all of the men coming over to do fist bumps before going back to working out.
It took Atlas ten minutes to head back toward us.
In those ten minutes, Germaine gave a quick overview of the SWAT team to me, introducing people, explaining what they were doing, and giving an overall understanding that I didn’t have before.
Atlas stopped in front of us, then placed Forest on the ground before saying, “ Hey , buddy. Go get your shirt. You want to swim, don’t you?”
“ Pool . Yes !” he decreed, heading back for his shirt.
He stopped to tap one of the bald-headed men doing push-ups on the head before continuing on toward his shirt.
“ I’ve never seen a kid approach Thuy like that,” Germaine admitted. “ Kid has balls.”
“ He’s my kid. Of course he does.” Atlas chuckled.
Forest came back, shirt on backwards and inside out, and held his hands up to Atlas .
No longer was I the favorite.
I kind of loved that a lot.
Atlas had him in his arms as he asked, “ What’s the plan for the rest of your day?”
I shrugged. “ I thought I’d go to the chicken place that shall not be named,” I admitted. “ When I was done with that, I planned on using the pool for a bit. Helping him learn how to swim some more.”
Atlas looked over at his child.
The one who went nuts over Chick - Fil - A .
The first time we’d given it to him a few weeks ago, he’d acted like he’d never been before. Now he wanted it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
And asked for it… a lot.
Since I happened to love it myself, I chose to indulge both of us for lunch.
“ He’ll like that,” he murmured. “ I’ll see you in a little bit, buddy. Okay ?”
“’ Kay !” He threw his arms around his father’s neck and squeezed.
Atlas’s eyes closed, and the silent man at my side said, “ Best fuckin’ feeling in the world.”
I looked over at him. “ What ?”
“ Having your son love you.”
A pang of longing hit me.
Yeah , I bet that was the best feeling in the world.
I was in such a good mood after picking Forest up from daycare that I never expected to run straight into the psycho coming out of Chick - Fil - A .
There were eighteen freakin’ Chick - Fil - As in the DFW area, and she happened to be at the one that I would frequent in Sunnyvale ?
Doubtful .
Forest was busy playing with his book, talking up a storm, when we came face to face with Sage .
“ Well , well, well,” Sage drawled, her eyes intent. “ Look who we have here. Does Emory know you’re playing mommy?”
I tried to go around her, but she stepped in my way, stopping my forward progress.
My phone rang, and I ignored it, too intent on dealing with the bullshit in front of me.
“ I’m not comfortable speaking with you,” I said carefully.
“ Well , that’s too damn ba…” she started, but like a freakin’ avenging angel, Auden swooped in and planted himself in front of me and Forest .
Thank fuck.
I nearly dropped my head on the spot between his shoulder blades as he said, “ I think that you might need to go, Sage .”
“ I’m not hurting anyone,” she argued.
I looked over to see Maven waving her hand at me wildly.
I backed up and went back into the restaurant, breathing a sigh of relief when Maven caught up to me. “ I hate her.”
“ I hate her, too,” I grumbled. “ When did y’all get here?”
“ We were in the bathroom. We came from Dallas , and I was dying.”
“ Oh ,” I said. “ That’s good. I’m glad that you were here. I can’t deal with her. She makes me nervous when I have Forest .”
More than nervous. As if there was a bomb waiting to go off when she was around.
“ I guess you’re lucky that you didn’t run into her before now.” She looked past me out the window. “ What’re the odds that she shows up at this Chick - Fil - A ?”
“ That’s what I thought!” I agreed.
I glanced over to see Auden walking back inside, Sage storming off through the parking lot to her car—a new car I hadn’t seen before.
Auden walked up to me and snatched Forest from my arms, bending over and blowing raspberries into his neck.
“ Stop ! Stop ! Unca Daddy !” he cried.
That was new, too.
Last week, Forest consistently started to call Atlas Daddy instead of ‘peas offer.’
The next day, he’d called Auden Uncle Daddy , and we’d all had a good laugh.
From then on, that’d been what Auden had been referred to.
I was so focused on Auden , Maven , and Forest , that I didn’t see the woman coming up behind me until she was all the way past me.
“ Oh , isn’t this rich?” Emory said as she came into the middle of all of us. “ Just one big happy family with a stolen child.”
Forest , with his scared little eyes, all but disappeared into Auden’s solid frame.
Anger at the way Forest reacted upon being faced with his mother had me fuming.
“ What the fuck?” Emory sneered. “ Let me see him!”
Auden turned so that his body was shielding Forest , obviously seeing what I saw.
Maven stepped in front of Auden , blocking both with her angry form, leaving me to move around the two to head toward Forest .
“ Let me have him,” I said softly. “ Can you help deal with that?”
I knew that Atlas wouldn’t agree with my entertaining her in any way, and Auden was a whole lot more competent seeing as he was a police officer—and in uniform at that.
“ Thanks ,” he murmured, handing Forest over.
Forest transferred his hold to my neck and buried his face under my hair.
I was so very angry.
I was getting angrier by the second when Emory argued with Auden , saying she had every right to see her child and that we’d stolen him from her.
I looked out the window, trying to get myself under control, and saw my sister leaning against her car smoking a cigarette.
Upon catching my eyes, she wiggled her fingers at me in a ‘fuck you’ gesture.
Of course she’d orchestrated this. Of . Course .
I flipped her off, then moved farther into the hallway close to the bathrooms when Emory’s shrill, angry yells got louder.
I took Forest into the bathroom and sat him on the counter.
His eyes were filled with tears as he said, “ Mommy mad.”
I seriously could happily punch her right in the face.
“ Uncle Daddy can take care of your so-called mother,” I grumbled. “ In the meantime, let’s wash our hands. Do you want to try to go to the bathroom?”
That was another development last week.
After watching not one, but four of the uncles pee outside of their houses in the last week, he’d declared that he was done with diapers.
Crazy enough, he took to it naturally, and we’d only had one accident at night since he’d declared himself diaper-free.
“ No .” He shook his head adamantly.
We washed our hands, and while I was drying my own my phone rang.
I immediately answered since it was my brother.
“ Hey , sis,” Tarrant greeted. “ Dad’s Dad today.”
I closed my eyes as my good day returned.
Nobody could ruin this day for me.
No one.