67

~Darlina's POV~

I entered Jac's mechanic shop after I got off of work on Monday, knowing that Atlas' shift wasn't over yet. Lately I had been finishing my shifts earlier than expected, which meant I often had nothing to do when I arrived here but to wait until Atlas could go home with me. Therefore, I decided I would just wait inside again while he worked.

My eyes landed on Atlas' large frame as he worked on something beneath the hood of a car, his shirt sleeves pushed up to his elbows, exposing his tattooed forearms. I smiled and fixed my hair, glancing down at my outfit to make sure I looked okay still.

Today I had worn a white cropped button-up shirt with long sleeves that had frill along the edges and a vintage denim skirt which had two little pockets on the front, a pair of my go-to white converse on my feet. It was a simple, comfortable outfit but I still found it cute.

Content with my appearance now that I was sure I looked okay, I strided across the mechanic shop to Atlas, not even thinking to announce myself before I wrapped my arms around his waist in a hug.

He jerked away from me and turned around with a scowl, looking as though he was about to start scolding me rather harshly. That look fell away, however, when he saw it was only me. A grunt left him and he shook his head as he peered down at me, raising one of his eyebrows. "Jesus, Lina. Almost starting cussin' you the fuck out." He told me, causing a sheepish smile to form on my lips.

"I'm sorry." I apologized with a soft laugh. "Did I scare you?" I asked, curiously cocking my head to the side.

Atlas shook his head and wiped his dirty, stained hands on the pants of his overall uniform, leaving black marks behind on the fabric. "No." He said honestly. "I just thought you were some random person and I don't exactly like being touched." He stated with a shrug of his shoulders, my lips giving way to a tiny grin.

"You let me touch you." I pointed out, causing him to give me a flat, unamused look due to my attempt at teasing him. "Yeah, because you're you. I...I like when you're affectionate, and I like that you cling to me sometimes. Haven't I told you this before, smalls?" He grumbled, glancing away as if embarrassed to admit it to me aloud. My cheeks warmed at his honesty, flustered that he would say that so casually. It never failed to make my heart race and butterflies to batter around in my stomach, hearing him say things like this.

"O-Once or twice." I responded quietly, blushing as I peered up at him, fiddling with the sleeves of my shirt nervously. He glanced down at me, eyeing my lips closely before he leaned down, pressing his lips against mine in a brief kiss. I tried to lean in to deepen the kiss, but he pulled away before I could, turning back to the car he was working on.

"I'm guessin' you got off early again today?" He assumed, beginning to mess around beneath the hood with things I had no idea about. I rounded the car so I was standing beside the open hood, watching the movements of his tattooed hands closely. Even though I didn't know what on earth he was doing, I thought he looked rather hot doing it anyway. "Yeah." I affirmed somewhat distractedly.

His brows furrowed as he focused, our conversation falling short, being that I didn't want to keep trying to talk to him when he was working. I made my way over to the nearby table and hopped on it, my legs dangling in the air as they weren't long enough to reach the floor. My mind began to wander as I sat there, silently watching him. He and I were supposed to go see his mom in only a matter of four days, and he hadn't said a single word about it since I had agreed to going with him. I wondered if he was nervous, or if possibly there was some part of him that could be excited to see her.

And as I was thinking about the matter, I began to realize I still didn't know very much about his mom aside from the fact that she seemed to be upset with him for what he'd done to Doug, even though he had done it for her protection. I didn't even know her name, somehow. It had seemingly slipped the minds of both of us.

When Atlas rose from his bent position over the hood, he again wiped his hands on the pants of his overalls and then looked over at me. "I'm gonna go get changed and then we can go home, yeah?" He noted to me, wandering off when I nodded my head in understanding. I hopped off the table, standing by the car so he'd know where I was when he came back.

"You're the girl we always see dropping Atlas off, right?" Someone spoke to me suddenly, causing me to glance over my shoulder with a confused furrow in my brows. Three men stood there and I stepped away when I noticed how close we were, nodding my head. "Oh, um, yes." I confirmed, glancing between the three men. I'd seen their faces around the shop due to the amount of times I had been here, but I didn't know them at all. However, I had seen them speaking to Atlas a couple of times, so I assumed they knew him somewhat.

"I'm Tomas, and this is Lance." The one in the middle said, gesturing to the man on his right. "This is Fin." Tomas added as he pointed to the man to his left. I gave them a small smile as a greeting, glancing between the three of them. "I'm Darlina." I introduced myself, but Tomas just smiled at me and nodded. "We know. Atlas told us a couple days ago." He told me, the fact that Atlas had spoken of me to them causing my cheeks to warm.

"He did?" I asked, a little bit surprised. Tomas nodded and grinned, nodding his head in the direction that Atlas had disappeared in. "Yeah. Said he'd beat my ass, too, because I thought you were hot." He said, catching me off guard with how casually he had said it, as if it were the weather he was relaying to me.

I blinked at the strange man, unsure how exactly to respond to that. "Oh." I responded awkwardly, wringing my fingers together. As I was trying to figure out what to say, I heard the sound of footsteps approaching me from behind before a strong arm was thrown around my shoulders, pulling me into a firm chest. The familiar scent of vanilla and lemon was all I needed to know that it was Atlas, making me relax significantly.

"You're back." I said as I glanced up at him with a smile, happy to see him. "Are you ready to go?" I asked him, completely forgetting about the three men that had just been talking to me.

Atlas glared at the three men before he looked down at me, eyes softening upon meeting mine. "Yeah." He said, otherwise ignoring them to instead begin leading me out of the mechanic shop with his arm possessively wrapped around me. "Weren't those your friends?" I asked him as we headed to my car. "Why were you looking at them like that?"

A snort left him. "I'd hardly say any of them are friends of mine, but yeah, we're on good terms at least. Doesn't mean they can't be annoying shits." He grunted, glancing down at me. I frowned, subconsciously leaning more into his side. "That guy said you threatened to beat him up." I mentioned, raising my brows at him in an accusative manner.

"Yeah, I did." He admitted with a shrug of his shoulders as I dug one hand into my skirt pocket to grab my keys. I gave him an incredulous look and shook my head, pressing a button to unlock my car. "Atlas, you can't just threaten people." I scolded him, gently smacking his chest. All he did was smile in amusement, clearly not finding it as much of a big deal as I did. "Maybe he shouldn't be checking you out and making comments if he doesn't wanna get threatened by me." He retorted simply.

My face burned and I had nothing that I could say in response to that, so I just remained quiet. If I was being honest, and maybe there was something wrong with me for this, I found it a little sweet that he had been upset over that guy evidently checking me out.

"Well, even if I don't agree with your decision to threaten him," I said, shyly glancing away when he looked into my eyes. "Thank you...for saying something."