Page 15 of Atlas Uncharted

I forced myself not to think of what he said.

I was good at compartmentalizing my weird interactions with Atlas now.

But later, sleep came in fragments.

I was haunted by dreams about having sex with Atlas, loving Atlas, carrying Atlas's baby.

I woke up to the sound of muffled moans and the creak of bedsprings.

Disoriented, I blinked into the darkness, my heart pounding.

Ashlen and Atlas never had sex in our shared room.

That was an unspoken rule, a boundary they had never crossed.

Until tonight.

I turned over, and through the dim light, I saw him—Atlas.

His eyes were fixed on me.

Our gazes locked for a charged moment before I turned away, my pulse racing.

I grabbed my noise-canceling headphones from under my pillow and jammed them over my ears.

Janet Jackson's "Any Time, Any Place" started playing—what a cruel fucking irony.

I pulled my pillow over my head, trying to block out everything—the sounds, the memory of his touch, the ache.

Was he trying to torture me?

Chapter 8

Atlas

The Florida sun was relentless, the heat clinging to everything, including me. Sweat trickled down my back, but I barely noticed it, my focus was entirely on Kairi as she moved across the quad. I followed her but kept my distance, careful to stay out of her line of sight and keep my head down. She seemed to always be able to feel my eyes when they were on her. But I couldn’t help but look. There was something about her that pulled me in, something that stuck with me no matter how hard I tried to shake it. And it had been that way from the very first day when she told me she hated Hemingway. I hated him too. I was expected to revere him, to quote him, to embody the kind of stoic masculinity his words dripped with. In my opinion, his characters had no depth, though. I wanted depth. I wanted to be real. I wanted to feel something real, something that made my heartbeat faster. Kairi was real.

I’d followed her before. I felt like a stalker but didn’t care. I liked to make sure she was safe. Especially at times like this.

She was heading toward the back of the English building, a part of campus that was practically deserted this time of day. People had been hurt back there. Was she meeting someone? My heart pounded in my chest. I hated the thought of anyone but me touching her. Even talking to her.

Kairi disappeared around the corner, and I quickened my pace.

From the first moment I saw her, I wanted her. But I knew my parents would never approve. Not because she was Black—they were too careful, too polished to say that out loud—but because she was poor, raised by only her father. That was the real sin in their eyes. My parents had me late in life, raised me with their expectations spoken with every breath.

I was supposed to take over for my father, to carry on the family legacy. It was instilled in me from birth that there was a certain... standard, a set of rules that governed who we were and who we could be with. I was supposed to end up with someone like Ashlen. They loved Ashlen. My father wanted to see me married to her and running his company before he died. He reminded me of this any time he thought I would do something with my life outside of what he wanted.

Having Kairi meant defying the very people who had shaped me, who had laid out the path I was meant to walk. And yet, I couldn’t stop wanting her, needing her.

I reached the corner of the building and paused, ducking behind a tree. My eyes were locked on her as she pulled out a small blanket from her backpack and laid it down, then she pulled out her notebook and pens.

She leaned back against the rough brick of the building, her eyes closing for a moment as if savoring the solitude. I wondered what she was thinking. Did she ever feel the weight of the world pressing down on her, the way I did?

In a yellow sundress and ballet flats, her curly hair hanging down her shoulders, she was so fucking beautiful. But she didn’t act like she was. She was down-to-earth and kind. Everybodysaw her. She was hard not to look at. She just didn’t notice them noticing her.

She’d be furious if she ever found out I was the reason the guys on campus kept their distance, the reason she’d go without dates for months. I made sure of that. I had gotten rid of Mike too. When he came back to apologize after the night he accused us of fucking, I made sure he understood I would always be around.

It wasn’t right, but I couldn’t stop myself. It was selfish, possessive, but it was the only way I could keep her close. I wanted to be her only option—the one she turned to, the one she leaned on, the one she let in when she needed.

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