Fearless Like Us

by Krista Ritchie

  College.

  I never gave too much thought to going. Academics took so much time away from swimming growing up that I just wanted to punt every school subject to another dimension. Far, far away from me.

  I’d be a big fucking liar if I said I suddenly acquired the drive to study. Cracking open a textbook sounds like the devil’s armpits.

  And thinking about my contempt for schoolwork is not helping ease my nerves. I glance up, like if I stare hard enough, I can see the rooftop pool. It feels miles away.

  Grow some courage, Sullivan Minnie Meadows. They’re your family, not your foes. I would’ve said the same about my dad—and look at us now.

  Exhaling, I face my cousins.

  Luna hops onto the long table, and Jane is rocking a sleepy LJ in her arms. She must’ve scooped the tabby from the bathroom. I’ve never seen a cat that loves to be cradled like a baby more than Little Jane.

  Moffy crosses his arms, stiff as a board, but through his tough exterior, his eyes—green like mine—seem to hold more questions than anger.

  While it might be easier to look at Luna and Jane, I find more comfort with Moffy. He’s the one I spent hours upon hours with at swim meets. The one who constantly had my back when assholes teased me about the hair on my arms.

  “Sulli the Sasquatch!”

  “Look at that gorilla!”

  The snickers, the laughter was met with fuck yous by Moffy. Even when I stuck up for myself, I always hoped to avoid confrontation. And I attribute the fact that I can control the burning rage inside me to Moffy. Hecklers, haters, fucksticks, and fartholes—he dealt with them so I didn’t have to.

  I let him fight a lot of my battles, and in doing so, he preserved something peaceful in me. Just like my dad did.

  I love Moffy so fucking much. But I’m older now.

  “I don’t fucking get why you needed to pull me away to talk to me,” I say as I climb up on the table beside Luna. I bring my foot up to the surface, knee bent. “We could’ve had this conversation in front of them. They’re our friends. Your husbands…”

  Moffy uncrosses his arms. “I just thought this might be easier. For all of us. Farrow, Thatcher—all of them—they didn’t go through what we all went through, Sul.” His eyes toughen on me. “The four of us. Growing up famous.”

  I touch my frayed ankle bracelet. “I guess that’s fucking true.”

  Luna sways into me with a consoling shoulder-nudge.

  I try to smile back.

  When it comes to my relationship, I only know where Quinn and Luna stand. If Jane and Moffy were strangers, I might not give a second thought about what they think. But having my cousins’ approval means something to me. At the very least, it’d make this easier.

  Especially since I don’t have my dad’s.

  Moffy adds, “Plus, I don’t really want to hear what Akara and Banks have to say. I’m more interested in your thoughts on all this.”

  “Me as well,” Jane says, her inquisitive, blue eyes on me, even as she curls LJ closer to her zebra-print sweater.

  I rest my chin on my knee. “My thoughts are that I’m with Banks and Akara. And I hope you guys can be happy for me.”

  Moffy is more tense. “How did this happen?” He gestures to his head. “I just can’t picture how it went down.”

  Fuck.

  How do I even rehash Yellowstone? “I’ll try to explain, but if you’re asking me to defend my relationship—”

  “You’re not on trial,” Moffy cuts in quickly. “I promise, Sul.” The look in his eyes reminds me of childhood. Where Moffy has always just wanted to protect me.

  If I needed him for anything, he was there, and I’m so fucking terrified of losing him like I might’ve lost my dad.

  But maybe I shouldn’t be afraid of anything. Maybe I should stop relying on family to save me and believe more in myself.

  So I take a breath and go through my first kiss with Banks in the motel, then the next morning my kiss with Akara. The “Bachelorette” style dating, the cougar attack, the night we spent together in a tent, and how we just grew closer. The three of us.

  And I couldn’t choose.

  I didn’t want to choose, and then what Beckett told me. And by the time I finish, the tabby cat is on the floor, and Jane has her fingers steepled to her lips, eyes wide. “Did you…?” She stops herself with the shake of her head. “Never mind. I can’t ask you that.” Her cheeks redden, but the curiosity is killing her.

  I stop picking at my anklet. “Did I what?”

  Jane asks slowly, “Lose…your virginity?”

  Oh fuck. Cum, shit. I watch Moffy crack his knuckles, more tensed—if that’s even fucking possible! He’s like the Tin Man right now.

  “You don’t have to answer,” Jane says quickly.

  “No, I can.” I drop my foot, legs hanging off the table, and I look Moffy right in the eye. “I had sex for the first time. Once with Akara, once with Banks. And it was epic, eye-rolling sex—stuff of legends, and I plan to do it again.”

  Luna is grinning.

  Moffy shifts his gaze, too many emotions rolling over his face. Like bewilderment. Confusion. Maybe wondering why I sound defensive.

  I realize this is everything I wish I could say to my dad. I know it’s so fucking wrong to use sex as a measure of my womanhood. But some part of me believes that others might view my virginity as being too immature, too naïve. I was none of those things while I was a virgin.

  I’m none of those things now, but if this is what it takes for my dad to see me as a woman. Then I wish I could yell off the rooftops, THEY FUCKED ME GOOD! AND I LOVED IT!

  “What’s going on with you, Sul?” Moffy asks with more concern. “You waited so long to have sex, and then just all of a sudden—”

  “It wasn’t all of a sudden,” I say strongly. “It felt right.”

  “Were they safe?” Moffy asks. “They wore condoms?”

  “Yeah, they did.” I actually welcome these overprotective questions. They’re better than any judgment.

  He motions to his head again. “I’m just processing.”

  Jane touches her cheeks. “It’s a shock—you, dating two men at once.”

  “Neither are my first boyfriend,” I remind them. “I dated Will Rochester, remember that? And even if they were my firsts—who fucking cares? Thatcher was your first non-friends-with-benefits, Jane. Farrow was your first boyfriend, Moffy. Everyone fucking starts somewhere!” I throw my hands up and jump off the desk.

  “We’re on your side, Sulli,” Luna tells me softly.

  “Then why does it feel like Jane and Moffy aren’t?”

  “It’s a shock,” Jane repeats like that’s an answer enough.

  Fucking sue me, because I just want more. What if they don’t approve, but they’re just acting like they do? What if that’s just my insecurities biting my butt?

  “We don’t care that you’re dating a bodyguard,” Moffy tells me.

  I huff. “Fucking cool because my dad really cared.”

  Jane gasps.

  “Wait, what?” Moffy narrows his eyes. “Uncle Ryke knows?”

  My face heats, and I stare at a fallen library book. “Yeah. It went really fucking badly…we’re not talking right now.”

  “Fuck,” Moffy breathes.

  Yep.

  “What about your mom?” Jane wonders.

  “I haven’t called her yet.” I explain how the blow-up happened earlier today.

  They seem to relax. It’s not like we kept this secret for that long.

  I tug at my T-shirt, sweat-stains dried. “I just want you all to be happy for me like you were happy for each other. Is that too much to ask?”

  “We are happy that you’re happy,” Jane professes, but she’s not smiling or jovial or hugging me like she did when she thought I was only with Banks.

  “There has to be a but,” I realize.

  Moffy rakes a hand across the back of his neck. “It’s different, Sulli. This is a colossal thin
g you’re undertaking that Jane and I have never taken.”

  They’re worried about me. No one has blazed this trail before, and so often, Moffy is the one out in front first.

  He adds, “It’d be different if it were just Akara or just Banks.”

  “Why?” I frown. “Because you think I’m too inexperienced to handle it?”

  “Because we’re not normal,” Maximoff says with so much power that his eyes nearly redden. “We’re not like everyone else, Sulli. The second the world knows you’re dating two men at once, you will lose complete and total privacy of your life.”

  I want to believe I can handle the change. I want to believe I’m someone who can walk into the dark unknown without Moffy leading and Jane carrying the torch so I can see.

  I listen to my heart, and I tell him, “None of that matters.”

  “None of that matters?” Moffy says in utter disbelief like I’m not the same person standing before him. “Sulli, you hate the paparazzi and the probing questions. You grew up without even being on We Are Calloway. You lived most of your early life with more privacy than any of us here did—and now it doesn’t matter?” He runs both his hands through his hair. To the ceiling, he asks, “What the fuck is going on? Have I teleported to another goddamn universe?”

  “I know what I signed up for, Moffy.” I step closer. “You don’t think I’m nervous? Alright, I am.” I breathe hard. “Seeing paparazzi hound you and Farrow made me never want to date in public. But my relationship with Will never made a single headline, and maybe I can do this all under the radar again.”

  Jane drums her lips. “What happens if you break-up? What happens if one of you splinters off? A lot of variables are here.” She seems worried, maybe for Banks, her brother-in-law.

  “I don’t know,” I breathe. “Hopefully we don’t break-up.”

  Moffy listens, his empathy calming me.

  “And I know that means eventually, we’d need to go public—but one thing at a time, right? We just started dating.”

  Moffy winces, stares at the ground, then up at me. Something rests behind his eyes that I try to understand, something that looks like years gone by. “I didn’t think about marriage or kids or what a future could look like when I first started dating Farrow. I just wanted to be in the moment, so I get it, Sul. I get it.”

  I breathe in.

  “But I’m worried if you don’t think about it, you’ll get in too deep.”

  I go cold.

  “You can’t legally marry both of them,” Moffy tells me.

  “And what about babies?” Jane asks.

  I blanch. “I’m twenty-one.”

  Jane tips her head. “You may be in your early twenties, but Akara and Banks aren’t. What if they want children?”

  My throat dries. We’ve only been dating for about a month. Not all relationships discuss heavy topics that early. And I think about what Beckett has told me. There shouldn’t be a roadmap for relationships. Everyone has their own path. Everyone is different.

  They just always believed they’d take the hard paths before any of us.

  Now I’m leap-frogging over them.

  I find my voice and answer, “I’ll cross that road with Akara and Banks when it comes.”

  Moffy nods repeatedly. “You should think about kids, Sul. You should be thinking about all this shit before it’s too late. The media—”

  “I don’t care about the fucking media,” I groan.

  “They’ll eat you alive,” Moffy professes, his eyes pleading with me to understand. “They will take everything you love and destroy it, Sulli. They might even pit Banks and Akara against each other—and then what? That leaves you with a bucket load of heartbreak. Shattered. The worst experience of your goddamn life. Headlines you can never run away from. Pain you can never take back.”

  Hot tears threaten to rise. “I love them…and I guess right now, that has to be enough.” I exhale a giant breath. “And do I even need your approval?”

  “No, but—” Moffy starts.

  I cut him off at the but. “I’m an adult.” My chest tightens with each word. Does every person in my life still see me as this little girl? “I know you both probably look at me like your little cousin, but I’m more than that.”

  He nods. “Sulli, I want to be happy for you, goddamn, I do.”

  “But,” I say, waiting for that word to drop again.

  “But I made a promise to your dad since you were little,” he says, “I promised to always protect you, and if I don’t warn you how this is going to go, then I’m failing at that.” He licks his cracked lips. “We’re American royalty. It doesn’t matter how much you love them, the world is going to tear you apart. Once you become media fodder, it’s too late. I can’t protect you anymore. Your dad can’t protect you. And you shouldn’t have to go through it in the first place.”

  I’m a Meadows.

  I’m supposed to stand on the edge of bridges. On the edge of cliffs. I’m supposed to take the leap of faith into the great, terrifying unknown. And I’m not supposed to do it alone.

  But I have Banks.

  I have Akara.

  Stop running away.

  “I want to be fearless with my life,” I say in a single breath, “like my parents were with theirs.”

  Moffy and Jane nearly smile, but I can see they’re afraid for me.

  Whatever waits at the end, even if it’s anguish and torment, I’ll have to survive. I inhale strongly, “And if this all goes fucking terribly wrong, I won’t need you or my dad to save me this time, Moffy.” I hold his gaze, our childhood racing through us. “This time, I’ll save myself.”

  I walk out of the library with those parting words.

  9

  BANKS MORETTI

  As soon as Sulli gets swept away by her cousins, Cinderella himself sweeps me off to the game room. Lights to the pinball machine glow, and two calico cats circle around Thatcher’s feet.

  People talk about love, but what most don’t understand is loving someone for all your life. From the moment I breathed air to the moment I die, I’ll love my brother.

  Hell, before I even knew what love was, I loved him.

  I followed him to war. I followed him to security. But for the first time in my life, I’m taking a different path than him. I’m voyaging into an unconventional relationship, and I can see on his face that he’s worried for me.

  “I expected as much,” I tell him.

  He frowns harder. “I haven’t said anything yet.”

  I wave at his face. “It’s all over your mug, Thatcher Alessio Moretti.”

  He lets out a gruff noise. “Are you just taking my facial expressions as gospel now or are we going to talk about this?”

  I lean up against the pool table. “We can talk about it, but I’m thinking you’re going to be saying the same shit you said a month ago when you knew I kissed her.”

  He shakes his head.

  Shock jolts me, and I grip the edge of the pool table. “Really? You have a different opinion then?”

  “Yeah,” he says. “I think you’re out of your damn mind.”

  I roll my eyes and release the tension in my hands. “Same opinion.”

  “No, this one is stronger,” he growls. “I get you want to ride this wave into a hurricane, but I’m telling you that you’re not the only one in line to get hurt now. Think about Sulli. Think about Akara.”

  I raise my brows. “You seriously want me to believe that you care more about their potential broken feelings than mine?” My brother would take a thousand swords for me. Christ, he’d become the sword. And sure, he’s the kind of guy that runs into a burning building for a guy like Tony. But when it comes down to it, I’m not sure he’d truly hurt for anyone else but me and Jane.

  He stares me cold in the eyes. “I’d tell you anything for you to pull your head out of your ass.” His South Philly lilt comes out.

  I smile. “Too bad. Head’s already firmly wedged up there.”

  He
breathes hard and runs two hands through his hair. “You’ve had a couple serious relationships in your life, and you think you can handle a polyamorous one?”

  “Whoa,” I hold up a hand. “You think I’ve had a couple serious relationships? When? Who?”

  He frowns and his hands fall to his sides. “High school? Clara?”

  I rock back. “Not serious, Thatcher. Not at all.” I raise my shoulders. “I think she was dating Bobby Donati the day after we slept together.”

  “What about Denise? Eleventh grade?”

  “That wasn’t even close to being a relationship. I didn’t let it get that far.”

  “Why not?”

  I shake my head a few times, thinking. “I don’t know. No spark? Wasn’t feeling it. I was a fucking kid, man.” I rub my unshaven jaw, then loosely thread my arms. “Nothing went anywhere but downhill, and I was fine with that. Less attachments.”

  He blinks hard. “Why’d I think those lasted longer?”

  I’m not surprised he read those situations wrong. “Probably because I didn’t care to talk about them. And probably because you wanted to think better of me than some playboy fucking around all the time.”

  Thatcher grimaces. “You weren’t a playboy, Banks.”

  I nod once. Looking back, I just needed an emotional connection to enjoy the sexual one. Wish I could tell Young Banks that before he went and had some miserable fuckin’ lays.

  My brother wipes his lips. “So to confirm, you’ve had zero serious relationships.”

  I bob my head. “Affirmative.”

  “Christ, Banks,” he says heavily. “And you think this is a good idea?”

  “It’s the only idea that makes any sense, Thatcher. Otherwise, I lose her and him. This way I get both. I want both.”

  His frown lines deepen. “Are you sleeping with Akara too?”

  “No,” I say casually, not hostile about it. “I’m not attracted to him like that. We’re just both sleeping with her.”

  A question bores through his intense eyes.