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“Because it’s embarrassing! He probably thinks we’re weirdos.”
“Then you haven’t seen yourself when you’re being fucked, Atlas. If you saw what I saw, you would know there’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”
“Whatever.” I rolled my eyes. I was pissed at him but not more than myself at him for letting him break me down so completely.
Rowdy sighed. “The pilot knew all along, Atlas. The only one who wasn’t in on it from the beginning was you.”
“What?” My mind raced as I replayed every interaction from the beginning. “Is that why he wished us good luck? What did he mean?”
Rowdy grinned. “I told him you and I were recently married and having issues rekindling our flame after having our first kid. His only condition was that we keep our clothes on, and we keep him out of it.” Rowdy bucked his eyes at me, and I couldn’t help laughing at the outrageous yet kind-of-genius lie.
Our obvious age difference made it much more plausible that I was Rowdy’s daughter, not his wife, though.
My smile slowly fell, and then I was hit with a sudden tsunami-sized wave of nausea that ended with me hurling my guts all over the golf course.
“I’m fine,” I said, waving off Rowdy when he immediately crowded me.
Oh, God. I wasn’t fine. What the hell was that?
Maybe it was the change in elevation or motion sickness. Or…something. I stood and forced a smile that made Rowdy narrow his gaze for a split second before he carefully lifted me in his arms and carried me the rest of the way to the car.
“I can walk, you know.”
“I don’t know shit,” he told me and then tightened his hold.
I sighed and rested my head on his shoulders, letting him do what I was beginning to understand he did better than anyone else, including me—take care of me.
“What changed your mind about us?” I sleepily asked after a few minutes of getting lost in my thoughts.
Rowdy took so long to answer that I thought he hadn’t heard me. We reached the car, and he placed me in the passenger seat before squatting until he was eye level with me.
“Ever since I brought you home, you’ve had one foot out the door, and I didn’t like that shit. I kept telling myself you weren’t going anywhere, and it wasn’t because I wouldn’t let you but because you wouldn’t want to. And then you did. Keeping it real, you proving me wrong wasn’t even that big of a shock. Fear of who I am doesn’t stop you from calling me on my shit. It’s what drew me to you. That…and this,” he said, lightly tracing the discoloration on my face that, until recently, had been a great source of insecurity for me.
I wasn’t blind, and I wasn’t going to be fake humble by pretending I didn’t know I was a beautiful brown girl. Still, no one had ever made me feel as beautiful as Owen did every day since I’d met him—not even Sutton’s bitch-ass.
“My birthmark?” I asked, even though it was so much more than that. I’d been born with a rare case of congenital vitiligo that was mostly present on my breasts, thighs, belly, and feet.
The markings on my face, however, were different.
They were smaller and lighter, but the star-shaped patches couldn’t be missed. They traveled from my left cheek to my right temple in a pattern I could never quite put my finger on.
My mother said it reminded her of how sailors once used the stars to navigate and had named me Atlas because of it.
“Why?” I asked when Rowdy nodded.
“Because it’s proof that I was meant to find you.”
I gave him a crooked smile. “Technically, I found you.”
“You did,” he agreed with a nod. “And you were the map all along.” I blinked at him in shocked silence, wondering if he’d read my thoughts. “Do you believe in fate?” he asked me when I just gaped at him.
“I’m not sure. Maybe?”
“What if I told you the markings on your face follow the same pattern as one of the constellations?”
My belly dipped, and my breath rushed out of me as I searched his gaze for the answer. “I’d ask what constellation you’re referring to.”
But I didn’t. Because I already knew.
