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Realizing she was testing my gangsta, I said nothing and only smirked back as I held the front door open and let her ass walk out like that.
“You’ll see,” I told her when she waited for my answer.
A few minutes later, I pulled into a quiet neighborhood nestled deep in Sunnyside, turning a few corners until I reached the house I’d partially grown up in. I could feel Atlas’s gaze on me and her nervous energy as I pulled into the driveway.
“Where are we, Owen? Whose house is this?”
I killed the engine and made sure to pocket the keys before I answered her. “It’s my parents’ home.”
Atlas’s reaction was about what I’d expected.
She visibly balked. “Your…what?”
This girl is trying me today, I swear.
“I’m not going to tell you again!” I yelled from the front door of my parents’ home. “Bring your ass in here, Atlas!”
“I don’t know what the hell all of this yelling is about,” my mother scolded from the kitchen, “but I know you’re going to stop cussing in my goddamn house.”
I didn’t point out that she was cursing herself since I knew that would only get me cussed out worse. “Sorry, ma.”
Shaking my head, I laughed as I continued to watch Atlas. Her stubborn ass was still sitting in that hot car with her arms crossed since she refused to get out after I made it clear I wasn’t just stopping by.
I’d brought her here to meet my parents.
“Are you crazy?” Atlas shrieked. “I can’t meet your parents dressed like this. Take me home so I can change.”
“Nah, I gave your ass a chance. You didn’t want to listen.”
“Because I thought you were being a controlling jerk—like always!”
“Well…” I snickered. “Now you know.”
“Hey, hey. What’s going on?” my father demanded. His deep and authoritative voice had drifted from one of the back rooms where he’d been chilling.
I looked over my shoulder to see him leaving the den and swaggering down the dark hallway toward me. His head damn near touched the ceiling since he was the only man I knew whose height matched mine.
I sucked my teeth and grumbled, “I brought my girlfriend to meet ya’ll, but she won’t get out of the car.”
My father’s green eyes, which I’d inherited from him, assessed me. “Why? What did you do to that girl?”
“Me? Pops, she’s the one you need to talk to. I swear this girl wakes up every day thinking of ways to piss me off.”
“I see.” He chuckled. “Well, your mother mentioned that she was young.”
Inwardly, I cringed since I hadn’t told them just how young Atlas was. I was already preparing myself for a lecture from my pops once he got me alone, mostly because my mom would make him.
“I can tell you from experience that it’s because your girl wants to know she can. You’re my son, so I know you,” he said—a fatherly way of admitting he knew I wasn’t shit. “If you didn’t care this deeply about her, you wouldn’t get so upset, and she knows it. I’m guessing you haven’t told her you loved her yet?”
Uncomfortable with the subject, I shifted my feet. “Nah.”
My father nodded. “Then, for now, this is her only way of assuring herself that you do.”
“If you say so.”
My dad sighed and shook his head at me the same way I often found myself shaking mine at Atlas whenever her skull got too thick to penetrate. “Move, boy.”
I shifted to the side, letting him step out onto the porch. My scowl only deepened when my father slowly approached the car, like he was afraid Atlas would get spooked and run away.
