Page 1 of Atlas

Chapter 1

Willa

This man sitting beside me, hating every minute of this truck ride, has turned into my absolute everything and he’ll never, ever know it.

I’ve never met anyone who hates vehicles more than Atlas. I suppose bikers call them cages for a reason. He sits ramrod straight in the passenger seat of my truck, both hands grasping his knees, eyes roving the road ahead of us like we’ve gone back to the time of dinosaurs and a big behemoth is about to come out of nowhere and crush us. If we were in my pink station wagon, I’d have us handled, but this old truck isn’t made for sharp corners and speeding.

The silence between us isn’t forced, ominous, or oppressive. It’s easy. It’s always easy.

Even in his discomfort, he’s still the most beautiful human. It’s his riot of sun-streaked naturally blond hair, eyes as deep blue as the summer sky, and perfectly sculpted features. He has cheekbones and a jawline to die for, sandy brows that seem to anchor his endlessly long eyelashes, a strong nose, and a sinful mouth. He’s perfectly sculpted, tall and muscular, but he has that streamlined build of a born athlete.

The real secret to Atlas’ beauty isn’t his Hollywood good looks or that he belongs to a biker club. It’s not his inked arms or the cocky grins he loves to give.

His secret is on theinside.

His heart. His kindness. Atlas loves his family deeply. He’s fiercely loyal to anyone he calls a friend. Men who look like he does are usually so arrogant you can’t get within twenty feet of them before they start churning your stomach with how much they’re obviously in love with themselves, but not Atlas.

He’d do anything for anyone. Case in point, why he’s death gripping his legs right now. He’s riding in my truck forme. He was just at Lynette and Bullet’s house forme. He bought the old factory that we renovated so that I could chasemydreams. He’s poured every ounce of his free time into transforming that building, but also my world. He got his club on board with the whole thing. The grand opening today is as much theirs as it is mine.

There’s going to be a cookout, and the big silver beast of a grill in the back of the truck creaks ominously with the next turn.

Atlas starts, his hand whipping out like he can grab it from in here and set it upright. He points quickly at the side of the road. “You can pull over up there and I’ll check the straps.”

We’re still not even out of the residential area where Bullet and Lynette live. My antique store is on the other side of Hart. It might not be a big city, but it’s still a fifteen to twenty minute hike without traffic.

I guide the truck over to the curb, but I barely have it in park before Atlas throws open the door and bails. I can literally hear his deep breathing, like he’s trying not to barf, before he shuts the door and leaps up into the box of the truck using the tire in the most artistic display of athletic ease and male virility that I’ve ever seen.

Stop it. Do not. Do not turn around and look at his ass.

Of course I do, but the grill is pressed right up against the glass, so I can’t see anything from this angle and the side mirrors don’t help.

I unbuckle and get out. The truck hums away. It’s an old gas one ton, which was all I could afford. Lynette lent me money to buy it, since my line of credit that she also co-signed for to get the business up and running was pretty much maxed after I used it to buy the enclosed trailer for picks and filled the store up with antiques. Sure, I found them at a bargain because that’s what picking is about, but they weren’t free, and the store is huge. It took a lot to fill it up.

Atlas is tightening one of the bright green ratchet straps that Bullet let us borrow along with their gas grill.

“Do you need some help?”

“I’ve got it. I think we were just a little bit distracted putting it in.”

Right. While he and Bullet were loading it up, that’s when Lynette got sick.

It’s all hands on deck this morning for my grand opening. Instead of doing the stuff he probably wanted to be doing, Atlas was at Bullet and Lynette’s house at the freaking crack of dawn to load this up and help me get set up before his club brothers start arriving. It makes my eyes hot and my throat tight that Atlas’ club is that amazing. Lynette is my older sister and she’s Bullet’s old lady, but other than that, I really don’t have a connection to the club. Atlas and I are just friends, and even that was born of necessity.

He started as my bodyguard when Lynette and I were forced to move to Hart because we got tangled up with theclub’s crazy ex-lawyer who tried to extort money from them. We weren’t safe in Seattle and the club offered us protection. Atlas was assigned as my bodyguard. I started college and so did he. I hated it. He loved it.

We’re opposites in every way, but for some reason, we just fit.

I drag in a deep breath and let it out in increments, a deep, stabbing pain twisting my insides. That’s just the thing. Atlas is my friend, maybe even my best friend, but he’s notmine.

Just. Friends. I know my sister thinks we’ve slept together, but we haven’t. We’ve never even kissed.

We’ll probably always bejust friends. He’s not ready for anything more. It doesn’t matter that I’ve been pathetically in love with him for months now, spiraling down out of friendship into a deeper abyss of endless longing and heartsickness.

That’s a me problem.

Atlas tightens the strap a little more, then loops the end over the taut part and ties a knot. “That should do it.” He pats the top. “You’ve still got work to do in the form of cooking twenty gazillion hot dogs.”

My hands grip the rough plastic along the top of the truck box. Atlas turns and checks the other straps, though I can tell they’re obviously tight.

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