His forehead almost touches mine, our lips nearly skimming as he whispers, “You’re holding me.” His husky voice quakes, his hand clutching my jaw. “And my arms are tight around you, and your chest is against my chest.”
Tears scald our eyes, and we breathe and breathe, and I whisper, “You know, my heart is in your hand.”
His lips are agonizingly close. “I hope not. Because then you’d be dead.” He kisses me before I react. Just one tender kiss, leaving me longing for more.
My good hand rises to the back of his neck, our breaths slowing together. I murmur, “Cicero said, ‘The life of the dead is placed on the memories of the living. The love you gave in life keeps people alive beyond their time.’”
Farrow almost smiles. “That one is just okay.”
I eye him. “What’s your favorite then?” I’m sure he can recall whatever he fucking skimmed.
He leans closer, kisses me—and I kiss back stronger, my lips swelling beneath the pressure. Until he has to pull away so I won’t fuck up my shoulder.
His chest rises and falls heavily, his thumb stroking my cheekbone, and he finally tells me, “Dum spiro, spero.”
I circled that phrase in my paperback. I know he took Latin in college, but I ask anyway, “You know what that means—”
“‘While I breathe,’” he translates, “‘I hope.’”
It overwhelms me.
Hope.
Him.
Love.
Pain.
I inch closer, but a knock sounds at the door. We both rub our wet faces, and as our bloodshot eyes meet again, I know and he knows that what we share is greater and stronger than whatever the world has to throw at us.
We won’t end here.
9
MAXIMOFF HALE
Anesthesia fogs me, especially after my surgery. I can’t recall how I ended up back at my townhouse. Maybe I apparated or a teleportation power kicked in. I do know that I slept most of the day.
At 7:56 p.m., I’m more coherent, but I’m sweating.
I kick down my orange comforter. A red sling braces my right arm to my chest, mostly secured by a cross-body strap and a wide band velcroed around my upper abdomen.
Noise booms from downstairs. Music mixed with tons of chatter—it echoes off the brick walls of my small attic bedroom, but I’m alone up here.
I sit up more—the room spins three-sixty-degrees. So damn lightheaded. Breathing through my nose, I move to the edge of the bed. My bare feet hit the floorboards, but I don’t stand.
Dear World, you should know this is the worst pain I’ve ever felt. Worst Regards, a pained human.
Every muscle screams at me, sore from the crash. But sharp stabbing radiates in my shoulder.
I’ve broken my ribs before, and I had a minor ankle fracture when I was thirteen, sliced my palm pretty badly on a rock, and I’ve torn my hamstring.
None of those required a metal plate and screws. None of those immobilized me this badly. I want my shirt off, the white fabric drenched in sweat.
So I reach back and try to unwrap the sling’s band. I’m struggling when the door opens.
My mouth falls. “Your hair.”
Farrow subconsciously combs his inked fingers through bleach-white strands which contrast his brown eyebrows. He looks beyond fucking sexy. His Third Eye Blind V-neck molds his muscles and reveals his neck, throat and chest tattoos. Black pants fit snug on his legs and package.
And I’m sitting on the edge of my bed. Sweating my ass off.
But I also notice the concern that grips his eyes while he studies me.
“I just dyed it,” Farrow explains, kicking the door shut and drowning out the downstairs commotion. “You’re breaking a rule.”
“What rule?” I ask as he nears me.
His brows ratchet up. “You’re not supposed to take your sling off for four to six weeks.” Off my confusion, he realizes, “You didn’t hear the post-op instructions.”
I want to combat him, but I’m in too much pain. “A lot is hazy. I gotta get out of this shirt,” I tell my boyfriend, slowly rising to my feet. I’m unsteady—Farrow reaches me, his sturdy hand on my waist.
We’re practically eye level.
“Let me,” he says, his tone like rough sex.
I watch him reach behind my back and detach the band. Gently, he slips the strap off my neck. My pulse thumps, and I’m a billion times hotter.
I’m not even protesting and saying I can do it myself. Right now, I need him.
Farrow helps me take my arms out of my shirt and fills in the hazy pieces of my memory. “You can’t pull, lift, or stretch with your right arm for about eight weeks. Stretch rehab starts after that. In three months, you can add strength exercises.”
Three months.
That seems like forever without full mobility and swimming. Butterfly stroke requires total range of motion on both shoulders.
“Christ,” I mutter, and I try to pull my shirt over my head, my gray drawstring pants low on my hips. “What else did I miss?”
He frees me of my soaked shirt. “You were groggy after you woke up from surgery, and your dad asked you how you were.” Farrow tosses my shirt aside and starts carefully reattaching the band around my bruised abs.
I’m hanging on his every word, and he notices. He’s irritatingly drawing this out.
“What the fuck did I say?” I have to ask.
Farrow is close to laughter. “You told your dad you’re naming your son Batman.”
My eyes pop out of my head. “No I didn’t.” He has to be fucking with me.
“Yeah, you did,” Farrow smiles wide. “Your dad asked you, what son? And you said the one in the Batmobile.”
I blink slowly. “I killed my dad. He’s dead, right? Death by Batman talk.” I’m dying right now because the one time Farrow and I have spoken about our future like marriage and kids—it was last night. When I was lying beside the wreckage. And we haven’t resurfaced what Farrow told me in the rain.
Except my anesthesia-brain decided to talk about a fictional kid named Batman. Of all damn things.
I feel like I’m bathing in a broiler.
“Your dad is alive,” Farrow says easily, “but he said your son sounds like a little prick.”
I nod stiffly. “That’s definitely something my dad would say about a kid named Batman.”
“I think you mean your kid,” he corrects.
“No,” I shake my head. “I wouldn’t name my kid Batman. Can’t be mine.” I attempt to retie my drawstring pants with one hand. They slip way too low on my waist. I struggle to get the job done.
My pulse is beating out of my chest in his silence.
Farrow takes the strings from me, stepping closer. “That’s good because that couldn’t have been mine either.”
I lick my lips, a smile trying to pull my mouth. I nod stronger, and we’re looking at each other more deeply. His fingers are perilously close to my dick, and he knots the strings.
Any other time, I’d ache for those fingers to go lower. But right now, I cringe at the sensation in my collarbone. Like a knife is staking me on repeat.
“What’s your pain level?” Farrow asks.
“Zero,” I joke. “I feel absolutely amazing. Like I body-swapped with an angel.” I force a smile.
“You look like shit,” he tells me and puts a hand to my damp forehead. His other hand falls to my ass.
I make a face. “Pretty sure I look gorgeous, bangable, like hot shit.”
He rolls his eyes. “Okay, smartass. You sure you don’t want Vicodin or Oxy? Because ibuprofen isn’t cutting it.”
“I’m alright,” I say more seriously. “I can handle it.” With a family history of addiction, I don’t want to mess with any addictive painkillers. It’s a personal choice that my dad and my uncle have made before. Though, I’m weighing my sanity because this isn’t a cakewalk.
Farrow combs his hand through his hair again. “Truthfully, I hate seeing you in this much pain.
You understand that’s why you’re sweating?”
I nod a couple times. “But it’s also hot in the attic.”
Farrow reluctantly pulls away from me. Just to reach the thermostat attached to the brick wall. Near my dresser.
I sink down on the bed. With my right arm imprisoned to my chest, I use my left to scoot back against the headboard. Gauze is taped to my right collarbone, and I haven’t peeled it back to check the stitches yet.
I’m about to ask about my cousins and my siblings, but I hear the old stairs creaking. People are coming up here.
Farrow nears the bed. “I’m going to get a fan and an ice pack. Need anything else, wolf scout?”
He’s the only one who really ever asks me that. But I can’t forget how he was in the crash too. How he had to talk to a porn star at the auction, how he apparently sold his motorcycle for me, how he’s given me so damn much—and he deserves every good thing.
“I’m alright,” I say. “You need anything?”
Farrow smiles at me like I stole his line, but he rubs his bottom lip with his thumb and tells me, “For right now, I’m good. No one’s crying, no one’s dying.”
Life moves on.
I nod, and he walks backwards and taps the doorframe like he’d rather stay longer. But he turns and leaves. From the stairwell, I hear Farrow say, “Walrus, you little bastard.”
Not long after, a calico cat darts into the attic and leaps onto my bed. Walrus nudges my foot with his furry head, but I can’t reach out to scratch him—I look up at a noise.
Charlie raps the doorframe with his crutch. Music still booms downstairs, so I’m assuming more family must be hanging out at my townhouse.
“Hey,” I say, surprised to see him. But the Charlie Cobalt Disappearing Act has been dying down since the FanCon. “How’s the leg?”
Charlie supports his weight on both crutches and comes closer. His entire right leg is bound in a white cast, and he rolled his sweats to his thigh.
I seriously can’t remember the last time I’ve seen Charlie in sweatpants.
“I don’t know,” Charlie answers and lowers on my bed. Sitting near me, he leans his crutches on my end table. “I’m too high to feel anything.” He scans my black and blue abs, sweat beaded up on my skin.
“I’m okay,” I tell him.
“Swallow a Vicodin, Moffy. There is a list of weak people in our families who’d drown in a craving, and you’re not one of them.”
I tense at that backhanded compliment. He just called my parents weak and whoever else he’s pinpointed as vulnerable to addiction. I shake my head on instinct.
Charlie arches a mocking brow. “The world will still see you as noble and gallant if you take a painkiller.”
I let out a laugh. “Christ, Charlie. This isn’t me being performative. I’m not trying to gain sympathy or kudos. You have no fucking clue how afraid I am…” I trail off and sit up a bit more, grimacing. Hating that my right hand is restricted.
Charlie said that I’m not on his list of weak people. But I don’t know if I am strong enough to beat a craving. And I don’t want to find out. My dad and my uncle have made the same decision as me with painkillers.
Alcoholism runs in the Hale and Meadows families. You know that.
Everyone knows that.
My dad has lectured me about addiction my entire goddamn life, and I’m terrified to awaken that monster inside of me. It’s been dormant for twenty-two years.
Charlie stares up at the ceiling rafters, tiny lights wound around the beams. “For almost anyone else, your choice would be a smart one. For you, it’s stupid.”
“Thank you,” I say sharply. I’m not sure he’ll ever understand me fully. I like to be in control, and that’s partly why I’m so afraid of an addiction. Of this monstrous thing controlling me.
Walrus hops on his lap, and Charlie strokes the cat. “You’re stupid and you’re strong.”
I give him a look. “Who are you?”
“I am a fractured leg,” he says. “And I’m drugged.” He plants a hand on the bed to keep from sliding off the edge. “I didn’t come here to chat about Vicodin.” Charlie lowers his voice. “I wanted to see how you were doing with the whole Xander situation.”
The Xander situation.
My lungs burn, and he doesn’t break eye contact from me. I don’t see empathy staring back, but I know he’s not asking out of some sort of sick curiosity or to stir up trouble. He wouldn’t do that. Not when it’s about my brother.
“Why do you care?” I just straight out ask.
He opens his mouth and then closes it, rethinking something. He shakes his head and says, “I don’t understand what it’s like to be so desperate for friendships that I’d give my pills away, just so people can like me.”
I want to curse him out, but I’m doing this new thing with Charlie, where I let him talk. Where I wait.
After a short pause, he continues, “But I do understand what it’s like to be a big brother, and your position isn’t enviable.” He angles his head. “If you want to talk it through…”
“Okay,” I say, not hesitating.
His lips part, shocked.
I reach for my half empty water bottle next to my bedside clock. I accidentally knock over one of his crutches.
Charlie lets it clatter to the floor. “You really want my advice?” he reaffirms. “Or at the end of all of this, are you just going to tell me how I can’t relate because my baby brother is only four years younger than me, and yours is seven years younger than you?”
“Charlie, I wasn’t even thinking that,” I tell him. I’ve always valued his opinion, but sometimes it comes after running through barbed wire and dodging explosives. I’m not always equipped for that kind of obstacle course.
I try to unscrew the water bottle cap with one hand.
Charlie watches me struggle and asks, “Are you going to tell your parents?”
I’ve thought that through about a billion times. My mom and dad know that my siblings and I keep some shit just between us. In fact, they like that we all have a close bond, but this is big. And I’m unsure if it’d be worse for Xander, if I let them know. Plus, it’d kill my dad…my mom, and I know they’re strong, but maybe it’s better if I just talk to my brother and get him to stop without involving them.
“I haven’t decided,” I admit. Then I wonder, “If it were your brother, would you tell your parents?”
“No.” It’s a direct and flat no. It leaves more questions than answers.
“That’s it?” I ask. “It’s that easy?” Why am I struggling with this then? There’s a right and wrong path here, and I don’t want to take the one that leaves more wreckage.
He sighs heavily like I’m slow to catch on. “You tell your parents, and it’ll travel to my parents and then reach Aunt Daisy and Uncle Ryke’s ears. You have the six of them involved, and it’ll proliferate into a bigger mess for Xander.” His yellow-green eyes puncture me. “It’s just a conversation with him, right? He loves you. That’s why he calls you every day. Talk to him. He’ll listen to you. Everyone in this family does.”
I hear the bite on that last comment.
He makes everything seem so easy.
Maybe it is. Maybe I’m just overthinking.
“Not everyone listens to me, by the way,” I tell him.
He barely blinks. “I’d listen if you had better things to say.”
I shake my head and finally unscrew the bottle cap—my hand slips and I spill water all over my bare chest and sling. “Fuck,” I curse, picking up the bottle fast. I mop up my wet chest with the comforter. The cold water actually feels good on my hot skin.
Charlie watches for a short beat before eyeing the door. “Seeing you struggle isn’t as entertaining as I thought it’d be.”
“Thanks?” I chug what’s left of my water. A teeny tiny sip.
Stairs creak.
Quickly, Charlie says, “I won’t be heartbroken if you don’t take my advice. It’s there f
or you to stupidly ignore if you wish.”
“Good talk,” I tell him dryly and pat his hard cast. This wasn’t a particular painful conversation. Progress?
But he also called me stupid today.
So, slow progress.
Walrus skips across Charlie’s lap as my old door squeaks. Being pushed wider open, Beckett emerges and carries two rolled air mattresses that need inflating. My twenty-year-old cousin makes lugging hefty objects look beyond graceful.
He practically glides into my room. Black cotton pants are tied low on his waist, and arm tattoos peek out of his Carraways band tee.
“You look bad,” Beckett instantly tells me.
“I feel great,” I say sarcastically. “How are you doing with the auction?” I learned from Jane that another of our grandmother’s socialite friends won Beckett, and even Charlie, who was bid on without being present.
Beckett drops the air mattresses. “I deal with Grandmother Calloway’s crotchety friends at the ballet almost every week. I can fake nice for a night.”
“I can’t,” Charlie admits.
Beckett passes his twin brother the fallen crutch, and Charlie hoists himself off my bed with both crutches. The mattress undulates without his weight, and a shrill pang stabs my shoulder and ribs. I shut my eyes tightly and clench my teeth. Breathing hard through my nose.
“He looks extraordinarily awful.”
“The fucking worst.”
Those aren’t the Cobalt brothers. I open one eye to see pajama-clad Jane and Sulli. Standing at the foot of my bed, they cradle pastel beanbags, pillows, and fuzzy blankets. Charlie and Beckett flank the girls. All four staring at me. Sympathetically. Charlie, more so pityingly.
I’ve had every teenager, every kid in the family, make me promise that I wouldn’t die on them. These four are the ones that see me less like Captain America and more like an imperfect human.
I need them in my world.
I can admit that.
“I’m alive,” I say with a sharp breath.
“Sadly,” Charlie quips.
“Charlie,” they all chastise.
A pretentiously coy grin plays at his lips. “Only joking.”
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