Page 3 of Atlas

“Okay. I promise I’ll drive as fast as possible so you can spend less time in the truck, earn at least eight speeding tickets, upend the grill, and nearly cause three separate accidents so that we get there faster.”

He knows I’m kidding. The one thing I’ve never done is drive like an asshole.

He still white-knuckles his knees when we get back into the truck, but at least his voice has an undercurrent of humor. “Make it nearly four accidents and earn at least ten tickets or it’s not worth it.”

I unroll my window and let the crisp morning air rush in. It smells like spring, sunshine, and my old oily truck. It smells like the promise of everything I’ve ever wanted within my grasp.

Well… almost everything.

I choke out a response and focus extra hard on the road. “Deal.”

Chapter 2

Willa

After we unload the grill near the front grassy patch where others will join it soon as some of Atlas’ club brothers arrive to set up, I beg and plead for him to come back into the store with me. To be fair, it doesn’t take much begging or pleading. I know Atlas hates surprises and he can tell that I pretty much have pure devilment in mind.

I get behind the front sales counter and dig my favorite find ever out of the box on one of the shelves. I pullPearlfrom the tissue paper I wrapped her in to keep her safe.

Atlas jerks back. All six foot two inches of his glorious sun-kissed body recoils in horror. He’s a full patched in member of his club, a biker through and through. No one would dare call him anything but a badass, but little old Pearl scares him shitless.

“Gah! What thefuckis that thing?”

I stroke Pearl’s not so fuzzy head. She used to be flocked, but most of the fuzz has been loved smooth over the years. She’s missing an eye, but I don’t hold that against her. She lived a few turbulent years where someone either loved her to decapitation, or some punk kid decided she’d be better off parted from her head. A few crusty lines of yellowed tape now hold it onto her moldering body.

“She’s a monkey. Can’t you tell?”

A shudder ripples through him. “Looks like an instrument of the devil.”

“Says a man who proudly calls himself a member of the Satan’s Angels.”

“I didn’t pick the name! And our logo is a fallen stone angel.” He whips around, pointing over his shoulder at the large patch on his leather jacket.

I try to focus on the details of the angel’s bowed face and her furled, lifelike wings, and not on the rippling muscle just below that jacket, or the rock hard ass in a pair of jeans that I’d like to remove with my teeth before running my tongue over the twin moons and delving between them.

No, salad isn’t my favorite meal, but there’s something about this god of a man who is so damn beautiful that he could easily bring masses of women to their knees and spontaneously soak panties everywhere, that makes me want to do dark, dirty, sinful things.

“I know you love the cursed things, the uglier the better, but that is too much. Hold on.” He grabs his phone out of his pocket. “Let me call up a priest to come perform an exorcism.”

I kiss Pearl’s worn, horrific face and Atlas gags for real. “Don’t listen to him,” I tell her. “I love you just the way you are.”Aaaargh, don’t say things like that. He’s right there and he’s going to know you don’t just mean the damn monkey.“Besides, when you have no soul, you don’t have to worry about demons entering your body and taking it over.”

Thankfully, he’s distracted by that. “Pretty sure that’s not how it works.”

“She’s going to join my collection of homely things.”

The weird and wonderful shit that I find doesn’t usually make the sales floor. Not when it’s so much more joyful to fill up my new, sprawling, two thousand square apartment on the top floor of this warehouse.

I tuck Pearl back into her box, covering her reverently with the tissue paper to keep her fragile body safe. She’s almost a hundred years old. Atlas would probably say she looks more like centuries old, something dug up by grave robbers.

“You have that look on your face. That sappy, soft, slightly sad, indiscernible look that borderline freaks me out,” he accuses.

“That would be witchcraft, darling,” I return, going for my best stage actress dramatic flair impression.

He snorts. “Seriously, though. Are you thinking about Lynette?”

Atlas is one of those people who masks his pain and pushes forward no matter what. I don’t know if he’s talked to anyone in his club about Jodie in the ten months since they split. I have a feeling he hasn’t really. If he’d talk to anyone, it would be his parents or maybe even his older sister. They’re a close knit family. A happy, middle=class, average, white picket fence style mom and dad who rounded up the two point two kids to three, and had more than one family dog growing up and a few cats.

You’d think that they wouldn’t be happy with their son’s chosen path, but I’ve met Josephine and Darwin a few times and they’re good people. Salt of the earth, wonderful, sweet, people who adore their children. They’re proud that he’s a part of the club. They supported Atlas’ older sister through college—she’s a teacher in Seattle now, and when his younger brother wanted to be a surfer down in California, they paid for him to go andbought him his board and everything. I don’t know if he’s going to make it any professional sense, but according to Atlas, Clem loves living down there and he’s happy working at a surf shop not far from the beach.

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