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“Just open it,” Rowdy snapped.
Roc snickered and snatched it from me before ripping open the envelope. I watched his gaze widen when he pulled out the papers and realized what it was, and then they frantically scanned the page.
“Out loud!” Rowdy and I yelled at the same time.
By now, Golden and Joren had wandered over too. My heart was beating out of my chest, and Rowdy must have sensed it because he pulled me into him.
“Maybe we should do this upstairs where it’s private?” I said when I noticed all the prying eyes of the other mechanics.
“Aye, ya’ll clear the room for a minute,” Rowdy ordered. The other mechanics and technicians looked at their bosses huddled in a circle and then at each other in confusion. “Get the fuck out!” Rowdy barked when they didn’t move fast enough. I covered my face with my hand and shook my head while they scrambled for the door.
He was so damn rude.
“What does it say?” I urged once we were alone. Roc met my gaze, and my heart dropped at the look in his eyes, the contrition. “No,” I gasped.
“Jada’s your mom,” Roc blurted. I leaned back against Rowdy in order to stay on my feet. He inhaled sharply and tightened his arms around me.
“And me?” Rowdy urged. “What does it say about me?”
“In the case of twenty-year-old Atlas Beck, Owen Wray…you arenotthe father!”
I pried myself out of Rowdy’s grip and grabbed Roc’s work shirt. “What did you say?”
Roc smirked. “He’s not your pops, little sis. Congrats and condolences.”
I screamed and threw my arms around Roc’s neck, holding on for dear life when he picked me up and twirled me around and around.
“You two want to get a room, or can I have my fucking girl back, bruh?”
Roc sucked his teeth and called Rowdy a hater before letting me go.
I ran back to my man and wrapped my arms and legs around him. “I knew it,” I cried as I kissed his handsome face all over.
“No,Iknew it. Your ass was keeping me up, crying every other night,” Rowdy said, putting me on blast.
“Shut up, Owen.”
He set me down, and we both just stared at each other for a long while until Golden cleared his throat. “Congrats,” he whispered in his raspy voice before walking away.
Roc had already fucked off back to his station, which left Joren, who was wore a haunted look as he stared off into space.
His expression was pretty much how one would expect a person to look after they’d just been told the world was ending.
“Are you okay?” I asked him.
Joren’s dark gaze that was so much like mine traveled to me, and for the first time, there was no animosity there. Only devastation. Regret. His lips parted, but when words seemed to fail him, he walked off.
Joren didn’t return to his station, though.
He stormed from the workshop, and I gulped. After Rowdy and I returned from Ossella, Joren had attempted to talk to me a few times, to start over, but I’d made it clear each time that I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be. I couldn’t forget the way he’d treated me, how many times he tried to convince Rowdy to cheat on me, or how eager he’d been to dispose of me after finding that photo. But…it wasn’timpossible. Maybe one day I could forgive him for all of it, but that day was not today.
“Someone should probably make sure he’s not about to go kill his wife.”
Rowdy shook his head. “I doubt it. Jada left him after that night everything came out.”
“Oh.” My heart gave an unexpected and perhaps guilty twist. If I had never played Sissy’s—Professor Saunders’s—games, Jada and Joren might still be together. They still wouldn’t be happy, but together and making each other miserable nonetheless. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“It will work itself out,” Rowdy returned. There was still a lot of tension between Joren and Rowdy, who hadn’t spoken to each other without coming to blows since Rowdy confessed to fucking Joren’s wife for their entire marriage.
