Atlas

ᴛʜɪʀᴛʏ-ɴɪɴᴇ

"You know you could have been a bit nicer," I say right after we leave the store. Somehow I managed to fill four bags with clothes. Clothes. Allie will be grown out of them all way too fast. "Kenny seems nice, you should be friends."

"He touched you," is all he says.

"And it's not like I've died." I stop walking, staring at the Starbucks across from us. "Can we get coffee?"

Atlas nods, sighing right when a soft smile tugs at his lips. But before we would walk into yet another store, his eyes meet mine with nothing but seriousness. "Don't talk about your death, the thought alone gives me a heart attack."

Now my heart might be experiencing some sort of heat attack. He can't say things like that, not when I'm not ready to wrap my arms around his neck, kiss him until we're breathless while I whisper "I love you" right into his mouth.

I really wish I could, but for whatever reasons, my head says I can't. I love Atlas, I know I do. But something just doesn't seem right yet. I feel as though there's still things to happen that'll ruin everything. It's been far too fairytale-like right from the start. Something that's this good...it can only be too good to be true. The catch is yet to come. Like an ex-girlfriend, for instance.

"Promise." I grin at him, then push the stroller filled with four bags of baby clothes down the street to get the three of us, and the clothes, over to our car. Better to put those away before walking into Starbucks, right?

As we approach the car, Atlas unlocks it, helping me—with one hand only—to get the bags into the car. As the stroller has to go into the trunk, the bags will have to go to the backseats. But still out of reach for Alison. God knows, these bags might crush that poor thing.

"Oh, Atlas." I turn to him as I close the door, fidgeting with my fingers. "This is kind of awkward, but..." He smirks like he knows exactly what I'm going to say. But he can't possibly know of it. "For whatever reasons, my bank account no longer exists. Which is odd because I still have tons of debt to pay off. Anyway, you might have to pay for coffee." Yup. Awkward. And seriously embarrassing.

He presses his lips together, not saying anything for a minute straight. Then, he decides to nod and holds a hand out for me to take. As I take it, his lips brush my knuckles before he drops our interlocked hands and we start walking back towards Starbucks.

-♡-

"You're not indebted, Sierra," Atlas speaks as he walks into the kitchen. Allie is asleep in her crib upstairs, or so I hope. Atlas wanted to put her down as it seems she prefers Atlas doing that. In the meantime, I decided to bake a few chocolate chip cookies.