"None of us are looking for that," Fallon insisted.
"You think we were?" Reign asked, smiling. "Some woman is going to blow into your life and knock you on your ass. And any woman capable of doing that deserves a ring on her finger."
"I think he's already met that woman," Hope said, voice low.
"What are you talking about?" I asked, brows furrowed. You never found Fallon with a woman for more than a night.
To that, she gave me a smirk.
"I'm saying buckle up, it's bound to be a bumpy ride," she told me, walking away.
I wanted to know what she was talking about.
But I wanted to see my woman more.
Because, of course, Reign was right.
When you find the right woman, she knocks you on your ass.
I never wanted to get back up again.
Epilogue
Andi - 3 Days
"What are these for?" I asked, running my finger over the geographical coordinates over his heart.
We'd been lounging in bed for hours. We'd climbed out first thing in the morning to walk Nugget, to grab coffee, tea, and some snacks, then got right back in, watching movies, talking about our lives we hadn't shared in the in-between, then, finally, giving each other orgasms until we had no energy left.
My body had only just agreed to respond to commands, allowing me to push up and look down at his.
I'd been curious about his tattoos since I'd first seen them that night after the fight, but there had always just been so many other things to do, to talk about, that I hadn't gotten around to it yet.
"Top one is the coordinates to my mom's birthplace. Second is my dad's."
"And the third?" I asked. When he didn't answer, my gaze slipped up, finding his on me, intense.
"Yours, Andi," he said, voice low.
"Mine?" I asked, feeling a tightness start to constrict my chest. "You tattooed my birth coordinates on your chest?" I asked, eyes starting to sting.
"Who the hell else would ever belong right here?" he asked, pressing his hand over mine which was resting just over his heart.
"When?" I asked, my heart feeling like it was swelling in my chest.
"The summer before you went off to college," he told me, making me flash back to practically begging him to go to the beach with me in those final days before I left, but him refusing, coming up with other plans. At the time, I thought he was being stubborn. I remember being frustrated with him about it. All the while, he was hiding his tattoo from me, likely so it would heal, but also so I wouldn't ask questions.
Taking a deep breath, my hand slid over to the flower on his arm. "And this one?"
"Daisy," he said, shrugging.
"My favorite flower."
"Yes."
"And this one?" I went on, tracing the crack on the clock face.
To that, he took a deep breath.
"It's the time," he told me.
"The time on the clock?" I clarified. "What does it stand for?"
"Remember that night," he started, voice a little far away. "When you called me after that dickwad broke up with you?"
"I, ah, yeah." It was a time-warped memory. At the time, it had felt like my entire world was falling apart around me. Time had shown me just how wrong I had been about that boy, about how much he would eventually mean in the story of my life. He was hardly a footnote now.
"It was that night that I realized I had to let you go."
"So you tattooed the time of that on you? That's... that's the saddest thing I've ever heard. Why would you do that?"
"As a reminder. It was not easy. Especially at the beginning. To let go. You were a huge part of my life. Those were the days before the fighting. It helped to have a reminder every time I looked in the mirror."
"See," I said, trying to make my voice light even if my heart ached for that younger version of him. "This is why you don't get things like that tattooed on you. What are you going to do now?"
"It's still a factor, a part of my life," he told me, shrugging. "I guess now I can just get happier ones moving forward."
"You know," I said, lips pursing. "Nugget was telling me that he's a little disappointed that neither of his parents love him enough to have a tattoo for him."
"Well, maybe we should fix that," he said, tucking my hair behind my ear. "You finally gonna get some ink?"
"What can I say? You've been a terrible influence on me," I teased, pressing my lips into the center of his chest, moving slowly downward.
"Hm, can't say I mind that one bit," he teased. But then my lips closed over him, and there was no more talking.
Niro - 3 weeks
"This seems completely unnecessary at this point," Andi said, finally frustrated enough with her security detail to snap about it.