“I need to go, love. I’ll see you when you get home. You and Abel have fun, you deserve it.”
“Bye, Wylder!” Abel’s scream in the background is drowned by Evie’s laughter as she tells me goodbye, saying they’ll be home later tonight.
When I slide the phone back into my pocket, it’s Atlas that walks up to me, an apology in his eyes. “Listen…I’m sorry about that. I just…this is a lot to process and you kind of triggered something and I…” His voice chokes up with his next words, “I have a son.”
His words are all jumbled together, but I get the gist. He’s confused. He’s hurt. He’s surprised by the fact that he has a son, and it looks like he’s got fucking PTSD.
I understand it all. I just don’t know how Evie wants to proceed with all this.
Atlas was the man she wanted dead for ten years, and now he shows up on her doorstep with an apology and a heart that still beats only for her. He wasn’t the villain she believed him to be at all.
Kortez isn’t dead. Her best friend and her first love. Her first heartbreak. He’s alive and well, staring at me with eyes that I can tell will see more than I ever want them to.
And Roman. The man who was supposed to be just a job. A means to an end. Instead, feelings grew. Did she fuck Roman just to get him out of her system? Did she do it because she wants more?
I admit, if he was just a one-time thing, I’m going to be hurt. A one-time thing with another man means she isn’t takingusseriously. It means she’s sleeping with anyone she wants to fuck out of her system.
On the other hand, if she really cares for him and wants a future with him, too…then this could possibly be the beginning of a relationship none of us bargained for.
She didn’t tell me how to play this.
For two years, she’s let me in on her secret. She told me her plans and how to act in front of others. She told me the short game, the long game, and everything in between.
But this was the one contingency we never plannedfor.
Now, I’m on my own.
All three of them are watching, waiting on me to say something – anything. So, I say the first thing that comes into my head.
“Congratu-fucking-lations.”
Atlas stares at me opened mouth as I walk past them and to the front door, waving them all along. “Come on, I’ll show you where you’ll be living for the unforeseen future.”
They all follow, Atlas first with Kortez close on his heels with Roman making up the rear to close up Evie’s house. Atlas catches up to me; his eyes scrunched in confusion as he looks over. “What the hell did you mean by that?”
I scoff, shaking my head and simultaneously realizing how much I donotwant to have this conversation with him.
I realize I don’t have to, though, when Roman jogs up to us with a smirk on his face and says, “It means he wishes he had a kid with Evie and he’s pissed that even after three years, he hasn’t thought of switching out her birth control yet. Fucker's got amassivebreeding kink.”
Kortez joins Roman on his other side, the four of us walking up my front porch steps as Roman’s laughter echoes throughout the whole neighborhood.
“Shut the fuck up. It’s none of your business.”
Roman leans against my doorframe as I unlock the door, “None of my business? You practically invited me to watch and turned on a glowing neon sign that said, ‘breeding in progress’.”
Atlas is stunned to silence as we walk through my entryway, the lights off as I haven’t been home for a while, but Kortez surprises me by speaking up, his lowvoice murmuring, “Well, if we’re talking about children, I think I would like Evie to have one of mine.”
I spin around to see Roman pinning Kortez against the wall, “No! No, no, no! I already called dibs!”
Atlas walks over and pulls Roman off of Kortez, slapping him in the back of the head. “Idiot. You can’t call dibs.”
“Well…you can’t.” All eyes turn to me as I shrug. “You already have one.”
Roman’s laugher follows us deeper into the house as I show them where everything is. There’s two bedrooms and two bathrooms, but luckily, I have a pull-out couch in my living room from when some of my brothers come to stay or when Viv, Tara, and Deric want to crash after a cookout.
By the time I get back to the kitchen, Kortez is the only one still with me. Roman went to go get his stuff from Evie’s and Atlas demanded a shower as soon as he saw my double headed nozzles. “There’s some food in the pantry, but you’ll have to go shopping for more because I took most of everything over to Evie’s.”
Kortez nods, his eyes scanning every inch of my house and I know he’ll have the whole place searched before he gets a wink of sleep tonight. It’s what I would do.
