Total pages in book: 176
Estimated words: 167257 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 836(@200wpm)___ 669(@250wpm)___ 558(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 167257 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 836(@200wpm)___ 669(@250wpm)___ 558(@300wpm)
“What’s up, Dream? What is it? Someone fucked with you? Let me get my gun.” I caught his arm when he turned to do just that.
So crazy.
I wouldn’t have him any other way.
Panting, I wordlessly held up the sealed blue envelope I’d been clutching for dear life all the way from home. “It’s here,” I told him when I finally caught my breath.
“It’s here,” he echoed slowly, still not catching on. The light went off in his head when I nodded and bounced up and down on my toes. His next breath left him in a rush. “About fucking time.”
What we thought would take weeks had taken months, and it was finally here. The answer to if God had either blessed our union or forsaken it. We’d already had our appointment with the lab and were still waiting for those results to reconfirm the ones that were already in my hand.
“Well, what does it say? Did you open it?”
“No. I wanted to wait for you.” Our eyes met, and we both seemed to ask each other the same question. Do we, or don’t we? “It worked for a while,” I whispered eventually. “But we can’t stay, Owen. We can’t live in the gray. We don’t belong here. I had a father. I don’t need another. I’m going to love you no matter what.”
Rowdy sucked in a breath, pushed me against the truck, and laid his forehead against mine. “And I’m going to marry you someday, Dream. No matter what.”
I swallowed down the pain of the happiness his promise had evoked. “So we do this.”
He pecked my lips. “We do this.”
“Together.”
“Together.”
“What’s going on?” Roc’s nosy ass had ambled over before I could open the envelope.
A light bulb went off in my head, and I pushed Rowdy aside and thrust the envelope out at his boy. “Open this.”
Roc’s ignorant ass looked me up and down. “Your hands don’t look broke.”
“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 are not the 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, I knew 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’t impossible. Maybe one day I could forgive him for all of it, but that day was not today.