My brows pull together on instinct. Miller is a dope dude, and if I liked dick, well, I’d date him. “Why not?”
He grows quiet like the response is glass on his tongue. A beat passes and from behind us, Atticus answers.
“Because he’sjust a mechanic.”
“Fu-uck, that’s not cool.”
“I told him he was better off. That she’s a bitch anyway.”
Ahh. It makes sense now. At this precise moment, Delane pushes through the glass doors, an overly full frothy, whipped cream coated coffee in one hand and her phone in the other.
“Don’t even say a word. You guys are always coming and going as you please.”
I look at Atticus. “I need to talk to you.”
“No, don’t get upset with him, he was just being a good friend,” Miller declares. I hit him in the side of his arm.
“Nah, it’s not about that. But man, he’s right. Anyone who doesn’t support what you wanna do with your life is not someone who should be in your life.”
He nods, but something in his expression tells me he’s still battling with it; being dumped or being told a mechanic isn’t good enough. Either way, I make a note to steal some time with Miller in the next week or so and see where his head is at.
* * *
A couple of hours later,I’m on my back with a big heavy beauty above me; insides bared to me.
“He’s replacing a catalytic converter,” Miller says to someone, assuming he’s scheduling me for another repair or taking a message for a phone call. Then I hear the panicked voice of Beck.
Sliding out from under the old Mercury Cougar, I’m twisting my hands in the red oil rag as my eyes settle on Beck.
She’s smiling but flushed, and a red-cheeked Jett is in her arms. They both look a little… shaken, and instantly it puts me into a tailspin. Dropping the rag, I find myself rushing toward them both, pulse zooming, stomach in knots.
“Beck, is everything okay?” I take Jett from her arms like he’s mine, analyzing his cheeks and mouth before pressing my lips to his forehead, gauging his temperature. He doesn’t feel warm. She smooths her hand up Jett’s back as she talks to me.
“We’re okay. Everything is okay. He just… fell, and I got really scared, and after we calmed back down, he just kept saying your name.” A tear glissades down her cheek. “He really wanted to see you when he got hurt.”
Atticus comes out of nowhere, saying nothing but producing two bottles of water and a small bag of chocolate chip cookies. I’m so focused on Jetpack that I leave him hanging, but Beck thanks him and takes the stuff, opening and drinking one of the waters right away.
Jett repeats my name as he nuzzles into my neck. My fingers spear through his soft blonde hair until they trace a small lump, where he bonked when he fell.
I stare down at him while focusing on the strange feelings left in the wake of the minute of chaos. That minute where I thought something was wrong. Those terrifying moments when I thought that sweet boy was hurting or in pain.
He says my name, and suddenly, it all makes sense.
Graham loved me like I was his because Iwashis.
The same way I love Jett because he’s mine.
Maybe he told me as a way to teach me about love, and how it doesn’t have to look a certain way. I don’t know. But I feel my dad more than I have in a long time as I stand there on the Wrench Kings shop floor, swaying with my boy.
22
Beck
“Are we gonna talk about the tears?”
It's been the best month of my life.
I mean, the day Jett was born was obviously the best day of my life. But this last month of Jett and I being with Beau, either at my house or his every night? So fucking good.