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It had taken me a couple of days to decipher his message and the mistakes he’d warned me away from making.
Harry should have retired years ago, but somewhere along the way, he’d forgotten to ask himself who he was doing it for. His only hope of keeping his legacy alive was now in the hands of…me.
I wasn’t his son, but I was the closest thing to it, even though our relationship had been mostly business. I scratched his back, and he scratched mine. I was sure it would have meant more to him to leave the car wash in the hands of someone with whom he shared deeper ties.
I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it.
The future.
Once I set my mind on something, there was no changing it, and I’d decided a long time ago that marriage and baby carriages were not for me. Still, the thought of ending up like Harry made my stomach hurt.
I was stuck.
Atlas said I wasn’t worth falling in love with, and even though it stung more than I let on, she’d seen more of me in three weeks than most of the people who’d known me my entire life.
I guess that was why I wasn’t surprised when it was her face that I pictured the moment I began to even mildly entertain the idea of starting a family. The image of Atlas with my ring on her finger and a baby in her belly popped into my head with crystal-fucking-clarity.
It disappeared when I remembered she wasn’t even old enough to drink yet.
I highly doubted she was ready for that kind of commitment when I was nearly twice her age and struggling with the concept myself.
I wasn’t the type to half-ass things either.
It was the reason I’d hesitated pursuing her, knowing I’d develop tunnel vision, and nothing but an act of God could sway me. I was even starting to think that was what Atlas’s sudden presence in my life represented.
An act of God.
It had been two days since my failed attempt to take her on a date.
She hadn’t known my intentions, and I was grateful for it now. After the disaster of Friday night, I’d gone out of my way to avoid her, knowing I would only make things worse.
Initially, I’d only been trying to get her to bust it open for me, but then she tried to kill me and everything changed. I couldn’t stop replaying how she looked standing on that table, full of jealous rage, and wielding a golf club meant to end me.
It was the moment that I knew claiming her body wouldn’t be enough—would never be enough. I needed it all—her mind, heart, body…her fucking soul.
Fuck.
I was getting ahead of myself.
First, I had to figure out what she was up to before I did something irreversible like marry her immediately.
I was beginning to think Golden might have been on to something. Since I wasn’t the type to sit on my ass, I made use of my day off to drive to the only place I could think of to get answers. It had taken a few hours but—
“Your destination is on the right,” my GPS announced as I crept through the middle-class suburban neighborhood.
I turned it off and parked a few houses down before hopping out and pulling my ski mask over my head. It was just after midnight, so the street was quiet as I stuck to the shadows and ran to the modest blue and white house I’d spotted when I drove past.
It stuck out like a sore thumb among the other manicured lawns. The grass and small hedges separating the property lines were overgrown. The wilting flowers strategically planted to line the driveway on either side looked like someone might have loved them once, and the mailbox at the end of the drive overflowed with mail while more piled up on the front porch in front of the door.
I cut around the side of the house until I was in the backyard and tried the back door with no luck. Eventually, I found an unlocked window and hauled myself inside. Regaining my feet, I looked around and realized I was in the kitchen. A smaller stack of mail sat on the counter, so I crossed over to it and picked up the first envelope with my gloved hand.
It was an overdue hospital bill addressed to Kareena and Tyler Beck.
Atlas’s parents.
I set the mail back down and tiptoed deeper into the quiet house. The air was stale, with a thick layer of dust coating the furniture and picture frames I found hanging in the hallway.
It was obvious the house hadn’t been lived in for a while.
