Loren Hale exits the saloon, passing the eating area, and once he leaves the shaded part of the deck and enters the sun, I see that his target is his mother-in-law.
I’m glad he’s intervening.
Lo sends her a seething glare. “I don’t know what you’re saying, Samantha, but unless you’re here to wish my son a happy birthday, you need to move along.”
She prickles. “I was here to wish my grandson a happy birthday, Loren. But come to find out he’s been underwater doing things that your wife used to do when she had problems.”
“Can you please stop talking about her like that?” Maximoff says like his heart is breaking into a million pieces, and at the same time, like he’s constructing iron walls around his world.
I cup his neck, and before Lo asks, I say the truth, “He was just under the water.” Shit, I’m twenty-eight; I never thought I’d need to defend something like this. We’re part of the older crew here. We’re not the teenagers.
Grandmother Calloway scoffs at me, like I just lied under oath. But believe me, if Maximoff had actually blown me under the water, she would’ve fucking known.
Lo makes a face at me. “It doesn’t matter what you were doing or not doing. You’re fine.” He narrows in on the grandmother. “What did you say to my son?”
“I told him the truth,” she says irritably. “I offered to raise him in my home while Lily recovered from sex addiction, and you both rejected that offer. He can’t be blamed for how he’s turned out—”
“Jesus Christ, you’re going to break her goddamn heart,” Lo says, shaking his head in disbelief with the same shocked disappointment that struck Maximoff.
“Like I told Max—” she starts.
“You’re off the damn boat,” Lo snaps. “This family has no room for your hate or judgment. I’ve told you that before. Go straight down to the rib: it’s the smaller boat that’ll take you to the city. I’ll have a stewardess pack your bags.” He’s about to leave but then he stops and turns back. “If you try to talk to Lily before you go, I will make sure your tombstone reads here lies Samantha Calloway, the worst goddamn mother in all of the century. And don’t fucking kid yourself, I will do it.”
Her neck flushes red. “My daughters will be more upset that you’re throwing me out like garbage.”
Lo flashes a bitter smile. “Decades later, and you still don’t know your own daughters.”
She scowls before strutting away to the saloon.
Maximoff watches her leave, and I draw circles on his neck with my thumb. He leans some of his weight against my hand.
“Thanks, Dad,” he says.
Lo searches his son for signs of breakage. Right now, he’s one-hundred percent stoic, jaw set sharp and eyes carrying little to no emotion. But I know Maximoff will only show more in front of me.
His dad opens his mouth, but Maximoff beats him to speak. “Can you just go be with Mom?” he asks.
Lo nods. “Yeah,” he sighs. “I’m sorry, bud.” He focuses on me. “Whatever Samantha said to you, her opinions are light-years away from ours.” I’m positive “ours” encompasses all the families.
“I know,” I say.
After another short goodbye, Lo leaves. And Maximoff and I turn to each other, water lapping around us, especially with the yacht cruising through the sea.
I sheath his cheek with my hand, his emotion fighting to break through. Fuck, I just want to hold him. Love him. Be there for him when his aristocratic grandmother turns heel.
“What are you thinking?” I breathe.
He pulls my chest closer to his chest in the pool. His buff arms around my shoulders, hands riding up my neck. His forest-greens start to stroke my eyes. Like hot caresses flooded with comfort and warmth. “It feels like every time I try to come up for air, someone else shits on you or me or us, and the only time I can breathe is when I’m looking at you.”
My chest swells, feeling his words before my lips slowly rise. “If that were true, wolf scout, you would’ve died from asphyxiation every time I left the room.”
He groans out his irritation, but then he breaks into deep laughter.
“I made him laugh,” I say matter-of-factly, and fuck, that sound is gorgeous. He looks surprised that the noise left his lips. That unannounced visit at the villa is still raw for me too. And I don’t regret stripping our clothes outside.
I don’t regret one thing we did.
I always take risks. I always live by my actions, not other people’s fucked-up ones. And out of everything, it just fucking rips me apart that the full frontal was of him and not me. So easily, it could’ve been me, and I would’ve done absolutely anything to change that, to protect him, to save him.
And I know I fell short this time.
34
MAXIMOFF HALE
“You what?” I still can’t believe what Farrow just said.
We’re on one of the sleek couches that surround the glowing pool. Stars shine in the pitch black night, lanterns on the main deck illuminating the yacht. My siblings and cousins are spread out: some reading on chairs, others soaking in the hot tub. Upstairs in the sky lounge, all of our parents are having a “meeting” to discuss Grandmother Calloway’s abrupt departure.
Out of all my siblings and cousins, I have the least contact with our grandmother. That’s my mom’s doing. I understand why, and I love her for protecting me. But I wish I could protect her from hurt. From that pain.
My dad would tell me that it’s not my job. Still, I want the superpower to erase everything my grandmother said. Banish the words from fucking existence.
Maybe that should’ve been my birthday wish. Guess I still have time since it’s not midnight.
July 13th isn’t over yet.
Despite some bad parts, there is so much good here. And I hang onto every damn piece. Especially the small moments in between.
Like now.
Farrow is slouched against me on the couch, most of his weight anchored off my chest. He’s mindful of my injury but not to the point where it’d frustrate me. His amusement fucking mushrooms. Like he just beat me at some sort of listening competition.
“I heard you,” I refute while I try to raise my right arm vertically. In a stretch. But I still can’t reach all the way up without intense stress on the muscle. “I just need you to say it again so it can sink in.”
He slowly chews mint gum. “I wrote him a letter, wolf scout. You know: paper, pen. The Cobalt way.”
“I got that,” I say. “But why?”
The second we sank down onto the couch together, Farrow admitted that he gave Beckett a letter, but I have no fucking idea the reasons or the contents.
Farrow sits up straighter. Turning more towards me, his inked hand slides along my thigh.
Christ, I like that.
He smiles knowingly. “Because Beckett is the family member who keeps questioning my intentions with you, and normally I’d just say fuck him and move on. But our relationship should bring you closer to your family, not farther away. So I gently explained some things in a manner I thought a Cobalt would appreciate.”
Wow.
He did that.
I breathe in, my chest expanding with something powerful. “Thank you,” I say seriously, lifting my arm at a forty-five degree angle. I glance at his mouth.
His know-it-all smile has returned. “You want me to kiss you?”
“Or maybe I just want to fuck you,” I combat.
He shifts, his gaze falling down me. “If you want to fuck me, you can fuck me later.”
My blood heats. Goddamn. I can never tell if I love or hate flirting. The impatient parts of my brain loathe it, but the rest of me would gladly do this for millenniums with him.
“I said maybe,” I retort.
“I said if,” he says. “Man, your listening skills are worsening.”
I give him a middle finger while my arm ascends to a sixty-degree angle. “Where’s your copy of this fucking letter?”
Now he’s
really laughing. “You think I made a copy for you to read?”
“Not for me. Just in general,” I lie.
Yeah, okay, I thought he would’ve made an extra one for me.
Farrow lifts his foot to the couch, balancing his arm on his bent knee. We’ve dried off from a night swim earlier, but he’s still in black bathing suit trunks, and my form-fitting green suit is a boxer-brief cut.
He smiles at me and says, “There’s only one. If you want to read it, you’re going to have to get it from Beckett.”
Janie bounds over to us in a peach tankini, wavy hair knotted in a high bun. “Are we talking about the letter?” she asks, overhearing the end of our conversation. She cups a steaming mug and gracefully plops down on the ottoman, ankles crossed. “Moffy, it was truly beautiful.”
I frown. “You’ve read it?”
“Oui,” she says like it’s nothing.
My desire to find this letter has now escalated to a million.
A buzzing phone slices into our conversation. Farrow finds his vibrating cell on the cushion. I catch the Caller ID on the illuminated screen: Oscar Oliveira.
Farrow clutches the phone without answering. For a long moment. Wavering on picking up the call.
Security is on a separate smaller yacht that cruises in line with ours. And not all of our bodyguards are there. Some stayed back on land in Mykonos. Others take care of our properties in Philly.
But all of SFO are on that yacht, and it’s one short boat ride on the rib to board it.
Farrow hasn’t gone over there once. It’s different now that he’s a concierge doctor and not at Philly General all day. He’s confronted face-to-face with his old life on security a hundred times more.
And he has no radio for that quick hotline into SFO, and he’ll tell you that he didn’t lose anything that really mattered because he has me.
But in reality, he’s lost that part of his life, and I’m not sure he’ll ever get it back.
It hurts thinking about it, and luckily, his ringing phone breaks apart my thoughts.
“You going to answer that?” I ask.
He keeps his forearm on his knee and flips his phone in his hand a few times. “He’s most likely just inviting me to security’s boat.” He makes a choice though and presses speaker. Answering the call.
Music blasts in the background. “Redford!” Oscar yells. “Get your ass over here! Bring the Boyfriend!”
The Boyfriend. I’ve heard Oscar call me that a billion times, and I’m not gonna lie, it still fucking gets to me. In a good way. I’m someone’s boyfriend.
Maybe, in time, that title can be something more. The ring box is in my yacht cabin, but I don’t want to propose on my birthday.
I’m still waiting for the moment.
“You’re on speaker, and I’m relaxing, Oliveira,” Farrow says. “You’re killing my mood.”
Oscar laughs. “Come on. Donnelly and Kitsuwon miss your face, and my little bro is acting like he lost his favorite Golden Retriever.”
“Eh, no,” Farrow says like that’s that.
Maybe he doesn’t want to confront what he lost by being on security’s boat. “You guys can come over here,” I tell Oscar. “Bring SFO.”
Farrow tilts his head at me, but a smile plays at the corners of his mouth.
“The parents awake?” Oscar asks. “Most of us have been drinking. We’re off-duty tonight, but five-sixths of us care about making bad impressions.”
“Who’s the one-sixth?” Jane asks curiously, knuckles to her chin as she leans closer to the cell.
“Donnelly,” Farrow tells her.
“They’re not on the main deck,” I tell Oscar. “They’re probably not even going to be out here for the rest of the night.”
“Good enough for all of us,” Oscar says. “See you in fifteen.”
I stand off the couch, swinging my right arm in another stretch.
Farrow tosses aside his phone and watches me.
My feet are close to the pool. “You know I’m better than you at back-flipping,” I banter.
He pops a bubble in his mouth. “Marginally.”
“Colossally,” I rebut.
He’s about to respond, but the sliding glass doors push open. My little brother storms barefoot onto the main deck in sweatpants and an old New Mutants tee.
I solidify.
Some of Xander’s favorite vacations are on the yacht. No pressure to leave the boat, no strangers hounding him, and for the most part, he’s been in good spirits.
The way he approaches me with a darkening scowl—I’m aware that something is vitally wrong.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Janie setting down her coffee and standing off the ottoman. Farrow also rises to his feet.
I turn towards my brother. “You okay, Summers?”
“You tell me,” Xander snaps loudly, his phone gripped in a fist, knuckles whitened.
The chatty girl squad in the hot tub suddenly falls silent. On another set of couches, Eliot, Luna, and Tom are smoking—and their heads turn. Charlie, Beckett, and Sullivan look up from their game of Catan at an outdoor table. And Ben Cobalt stops reading his book on nature conservatories, only two lounge chairs away.
You tell me.
I shake my head once, confused. It’s not like Xander to draw attention to himself, but I’m witnessing so much hurt twisting up his face. And I step forward. “Xander?”
His chest rises and falls heavily. “So you didn’t knock on Easton Mulligan’s door and accuse him of taking my meds?”
Christ. “Xander—”
“Fuck you,” he says. And that rips me open, but he can’t see. Tears gather in his reddened eyes while I build barriers between me and my emotions.
I want to protect him, but I’ve never been in a situation where I’ve needed to protect him from something I did. From my choice, his mistake.
Our mistakes—I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.
“You’re my brother,” Xander says like that word means life itself. He pushes the longer strands of his hair back, and I step one more foot closer.
He grew another inch this summer. We’re the same height now, but I look at him and I just see my fragile little brother. And this is not what I wanted for him.
This is not how I saw things going.
I don’t have a chance to speak yet; he’s still getting it out.
“How could you even…?” His chin quakes. “…why wouldn’t you…” His face is beet-red, and Jane nears us like she’s about to put her arms around him.
Xander points his phone at her, the one in his death-grip. “Don’t.”
She skids to a stop. A couple feet from me.
“I don’t need you two doing that thing you do,” he says in short breaths, “where you act like you’re the big siblings who want to protect us.”
“What you did was wrong,” I say, my throat swollen. “And I am trying to protect you. I can’t change that.”
“I know what I did was wrong!” Xander screams and chokes on his words. “And I hate myself for it. And what are you even trying to protect me from?” He inhales sharply. “Myself? You can’t protect me from myself. It’s up here.” He points to his head. “It’s in here.” He jabs his cell to his chest. “It’s bigger than you or me. And you should have just…” His voice cracks. “…you should have come to me first. Not a kid down the street. Fucking…” He puts his hands on his head and glares at the night sky.
“I’m so sorry, Summers,” I say, my hand outstretched to him. He’s fighting tears that threaten to fall, and it hurts to watch. Hurts to speak, but I control everything for him. He doesn’t need me to scream and sob. “I should have confronted you. I should’ve, but it’s a heavy accusation. And I was fucking afraid. If you were supplying kids with drugs—”
“I stopped,” Xander says, pained. “That’s over.” But he suddenly frowns, head hanging in a weighted thought. “You’re going to tell Dad.” It’s not a question.
“No,” I
say. “You said it’s over. I believe you.”
“But what if I don’t believe you,” he says and walks backwards towards the saloon. He grinds down on his teeth and rubs his forearm to his watery eye.
I try to follow.
“No. I can’t—I don’t want to be around you,” he cries. He’s crying.
I nod stiffly. “Alright.” I almost sway back, and Farrow nears me—and I shake my head at him. If he touches me, I will burst open and probably scream or cry or both. He’s the only one that can make me come undone, and I’m not unraveling in front of all the teenagers.
Luna jogs across the deck to reach Xander. Her light brown hair whipping behind her, and she’s still doing the plain outfit thing, no thanks to her asshole boyfriend. But Luna didn’t invite Andrew on the trip. You should know that our dad hates him just as much as me, and he hasn’t even met Andrew yet. Or seen how pushy and undercutting he is.
I met him once and I almost punched him after he told my sister, “You’re so much prettier when you don’t swing your arms when you walk.” Even though she doesn’t see him as much, Luna said that I wasn’t allowed to hang with them anymore. So there’s that fallout. I’m just doing great with my siblings lately.
Perfect big brother.
The best, let me tell you.
I watch Luna hug Xander, and his body shudders against her gangly frame. And then Kinney climbs out of the hot tub in a black one-piece swimsuit. My youngest sister joins Luna and Xander, and they all leave into the main saloon. Glass doors sliding closed behind them.
I blink. Those are my three siblings.
All the Hales.
And I’m left here. I hurt him. I hurt him. I crack my taut neck, pressure on my chest.
“Maximoff,” Farrow breathes.
I turn to face my boyfriend, chatter starting back up around the main deck. “You told me this would happen,” I whisper, rubbing my knuckles. I see how he wants to take my hand in his hand. I see how he wants to bring me to his chest. It hurts even more to not draw closer, to not let him touch me, but I also can’t—not here.
He inhales. “I said it was a bad idea. I didn’t say this would happen.”
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