Nobody Like Us (Like Us #13)

by Krista Ritchie

“Look,” Uncle Ryke says, shifting forward, and his back now partially blocks our view of others. “Sulli has a fucking career. Winona’s just a kid. So that leaves me and Daisy out of this whole fucking thing. If Greg wanted an heir, he should have brought it up when he was alive.”

I mean yeah he should’ve wtf Greg

“Wait, wait,” my dad cuts in with cinched brows. “Are we just going to ignore the goddamn fact he was old? My brother is right. I don’t care if Greg could run a 5k without huffing on an oxygen tank. Anything could’ve happened at his age—Christ, at any age. He should’ve had these conversations with us while he was still breathing. Like a decade ago.”

preach

“Agreed,” Aunt Rose says frostily. My dad cringes at being on the same page as her. They act like mortal enemies, but I like to imagine they’re a ride-or-die pairing in disguise.

and they are 🥹

“I have talked with Greg over the years,” Uncle Stokes says, “about a successor.” “Wow,” Uncle Garrison mutters before my dad, Uncle Ryke, and Aunt Rose go off. “What the fuck, Sammy?” “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” “And you never thought to tell us?”

I’ve come to realize more about my grandfather in these short seconds than maybe my entire lifetime. He feared conflict within his family so much that he took a bomb to his grave. He’d rather implode it when he couldn’t feel its destruction. Then again, maybe the bomb isn’t a bomb. It was just his dreams and desires.

I think Grandmother Calloway created enough friction with their daughters that he felt like any more from him would be fatal. So he was quiet and kind and nonconfrontational, and his true wishes could only be surfaced after he was gone. It’s kind of sad he lived his life without truly expressing himself and with fearing what would happen if he did.

“Can you really blame him?” Aunt Poppy tells the group. “You all go from zero to a thousand.” “Well, Poppy,” Dad snaps. “It kind of comes with the territory when you have old men with cameras breathing down your kids’ necks and your daughter is kidnapped.” I freeze, avoiding Charlie’s quick glance to me. “But sure, let’s go from zero to two. We’ll huddl...

Uncle Stokes says, “That’s exactly what she’s talking about. Just take a breath.” “I’m taking many goddamn breaths, Sammy. Why don’t you go suck on an inhaler?”

yeah SAMMY 😤

“No, see, we did this before.” My dad releases his grip off the workbench and steps forward. “I had to compete with my brother, with Daisy, with Lily for the CEO position at Hale Co. And it was a hell that none of us wanted but we were fighting for—and I’m not doing that to my kids. Over my dead fucking body.”

Aunt Rose has stopped pacing. “They need to be informed that this choice will come with a gallon-sized tank of pressure. No sugar-coating shit. Taking over an entire company for some of them will be more like an ugly fifty-pound lesion growing on their back. Whatever future they want, it won’t look like how they’ve imagined. It’ll be fucking obliterated. Forever changed and spoken for, by a legacy they never wanted or asked for.”

Uncle Garrison clears his throat. “Not that this isn’t the wildest and weirdest thing I’ve been a part of all day—Willow and I have no stake in this. We’re related to the Hale side, not the Calloways. But I figured you invited us here as the cool aunt and uncle, and seeing as how we’re the youngest and understand what the geriatrics might not⁠—” Dad interjects, “I wish we all had glaucoma so we could unsee the ugly blob on your neck.” It’s a Batman tattoo.

Uncle Garrison lets out a dry laugh. “All I’m saying is that I remember being twentysomething-whatever and being faced with crossroads. I didn’t always know exactly what I was going to do with my life, but having options opens door...

Aunt Willow nudges up her glasses. “They might’ve thought Sam would never step down.”

I love Willow sm this is the Gillow content I’ve been dying for for 12 books now

“And what is your perception?” Jane asks me from a rickety rocking chair. It creaks as she sits forward in curiosity, her fingers beneath her chin. She is somehow both feminine grace and clumsiness, a unique amalgamation.

Charlie speaks to me in a made-up language. That I made. It’s the ancient language of the blood court on the planet Demos in the Thebulan saga. It shocks me at first, especially that he even knows how to pronounce the words like I intended. He said, Tell them.

“Save your brother. Save my brothers. Save your little sister.” His eyes flash to me, and in that one look, the world slows…and I sense that Charlie already knows how this will end before it does—that this is the fifth move in a chess match he’s completed ten minutes ago. I wonder if he granted me passage into his mind, or if I have a tiny morsel of the power that only Beckett shares. I can almost see through Charlie Keating Cobalt.

He’s already made a beautiful home on his favorite planet, while I’m orbiting the stars with Donnelly. It’s not fair for Moffy to always have to be there for everyone. And it makes me so happy to know that he has Farrow, who will always be there for him.

“I’ll be okay,” I whisper. “Believe in me.” Moffy slowly nods, and he finally says, “I don’t want it.” It’s not that he can’t take it, because he can. Maximoff Hale can do anything. It is known. I begin to smile. The brother of the present continues to be even better than the brother of the past, and I wish he knew this as strongly as I do.

I press my hand in the moondust. I can almost hear their thoughts. She’s been through enough already. She can’t even remember three years ago. She’s being dragged in the media. How is she fit to run a company? I don’t know if I am. But I’m going to try.

“I can take it,” I say. “I don’t have much going on career-wise.” “And just like that, my name is in the ring,” Charlie says dryly, then he looks right at Maximoff. “You’re welcome.” “Thank you,” he says deeply. And I realize I’ve been anxious about their relationship for nothing. Moffy isn’t jealous or hurt that Charlie is looking out for me—he wants him to.

Donnelly You good? Heard you’re communing with attic dust bunnies.

I smile thinking about him downstairs in the lake house, spending the holidays with me, and I send a second text. Moon bunnies are good company but nothing like yours, space explorer.

“What are you looking for?” Xander asks Eliot, who’s rifling through more cardboard boxes. “Something interesting. Something contraband. Maybe decades’ old weed.” I ask, “Which one of our parents do you think stashed weed up here?” “You can’t tell me Uncle Garrison wasn’t a pot head,” Eliot says, hoisting a white tee that says carpe that fucking diem. He tosses it over his shoulder,

Red devil horns and a white angel halo. “For you, dear brother.” He tosses Beckett the angel. “And you.” He throws Charlie the devil horns. While Beckett easily catches his, Charlie never reaches out, and the devil horns drop to the floor at his feet. “They’re backwards,” I murmur to myself—very, very quietly, I might add. But Xander is close enough to hear, and he scrunches his face at me like I’ve lost sense of reality. No one would call Beckett a devil and his twin the angel. No one but I guess myself. He bends closer to whisper, “Did Charlie put a hex on you or something?” “Not that I’m aware

“For Luna.” I blink out of the stupor, and I look up in enough time to catch the blue toy lightsaber Eliot hurls my way. Smiling, I twirl it a little, and then I click the button to power it on. The batteries are dead. Must be super old. Beckett wears the halo with such cool nonchalance that he reminds me of Christian Slater from Heathers. Charlie leaves the horns on the floor.

He sent a photo! I grin and bite my lip. Not just any photo. A sexy bathroom selfie. In the pic, Donnelly sticks his tongue between his fingers that are spread in a V. He’s also lifting up his shirt, and his abs are worthy of being chiseled into marbled busts, revered outside galactic coliseums.

You are a blistering hot human, space explorer. I’d do you.

Which planet are we fucking on?

All of them.

“This is a cause for a formal apology.” He rattles the toy at Jane. “I never dumped your precious Mr. Lion down the garbage disposal.” She apologizes in swift French. “Now can I have him, please?” She sparkles her fingers. Eliot chucks it in her direction, but Jane fumbles the catch. “Merde.”

Charlie checks the time on his phone. “At what point are we calling it?” “He said he’s coming,” Beckett says. “Just give him a second.” “It’s been fifteen minutes. Send him an email.”

“I’ve found something,” Eliot says while I’ve been making moondust angels. The impulse was too strong to ignore.

“They’re so young.” “He’s my age,” Moffy says in realization. “Dad. He’s twenty-five there.” “How do you know?” Sulli asks. “Because that’s me.” He’s the baby trying to rip the present. My heart swells and it just about bursts when we hear the person behind the camera narrate, “Moffy descends upon the box with a strong, baby grip and a devilish twinkle in his eye.” “That’s my mom,” Sulli says, her voice cracking with emotion.

“Devilish?” Mom’s eyes widen. “He doesn’t look devilish.” Dad aids baby Moffy in unwrapping his gift. “Moffy looks adorable,” Dad confirms. “The devilish baby is sitting on the devil’s lap.” We all laugh, especially as the camera swings to Aunt Rose’s pursed lips and fiery yellow-green eyes. Uncle Connor has a mega-watt, cocky grin. “You do realize this is being recorded, Loren?” Aunt Rose grimaces into a smile. “So now your niece will see how much of a dick you are.” Jane raises the stuffed lion like a champagne glass. “We still love him.” “And now she’ll hear her mom’s foul-mouth,” Dad retorts and then slow claps. Eliot says something in French, and I imagine it’s, And we still love her.

Uncle Ryke joins the slow-clap in the video. Aunt Daisy is good at capturing everyone’s reactions, even Aunt Rose’s ice-cold glare staking Ryke. He raises his hands in defense. “I’m in support of foul fucking language.” Sulli laughs, her eyes glittering and glassing seeing her dad. Young and still rough around the edges.

“I can edit it,” Aunt Daisy offers, but trails off at Rose’s glare. “I don’t want Jane’s first Christmas edited.” Aunt Daisy mock gasps. “Who suggested such a thing. They should be fined with a dozen chocolate chip cookies.” Uncle Ryke makes a gesture for Au...

Even though I believed in Santa Claus as a child, I never needed to feel loved through a fairytale. I felt love in the smiles and laughter around the tree. In the way Aunt Daisy would gift T-shirts with holiday slogans to everyone. In the way we’d spend hours building gingerbread houses, only for most of them to fall apart in the end. In the way we’d stay up as late as we could, just to drink hot chocolate and fight over which holiday movie to watch. The Grinch and Home Alone and Peter Pan (the 2003 film, which my mom is adamant is a Christmas movie in disguise). There was always a surplus of love. It was the best gift every single year.

Dad sighs. “Come on, man. Being a kid means getting to believe in the impossible. It means believing that fairies exist along with spells and magic, and that on your eleventh birthday you’ll receive a letter from Hogwarts. It means thinking your presents arrived from a workshop in the North Pole and not the store down the street. And Connor…” His face twists at a thought. “I’m really sorry your mom took that shit from you. If you had even a semblance of it growing up, you would realize how special it is. Don’t take that away from Jane.” Jane smiles fondly at the TV. “He didn’t.”

In the video, Aunt Rose says, “You know, we can see who figures out the truth first: Moffy or Jane.” Mom crinkles her nose. “That’s evil.” “Well, it is coming from the devil,” Dad says, then purposefully mugs the camera with a half-smile. “And Jane, if you’re watching this when you’re older, just know it comes from a place of love.” We all laugh, and Xander asks our brother, “Who figured it out first? You or Jane?” “Jane,” Moffy says with a laugh at the memory. “She told me like five seconds after she saw Uncle Ryke wrapping a present with a From Santa Claus tag.” “We were four,” Jane explains. Of course the Queen of Curiosity would’ve solved that mystery at such a young age. She is a Cobalt, after all. “We agreed we’d keep up the ruse so none of you would know.”

“Did you believe in Santa?” I ask Charlie. “No.” That’s all he says, but like Jane and Moffy, he also neve...

Panic reminds me of a knitted sweater unspooling into a snarled messy heap, and Beckett Cobalt is so put-together. There are no holes, no unwoven strands—the yarn is so tight, I wonder how there’s room to breathe.

“Do you really want it?” I ask Eliot, because if he does—I might be willing to pull my name out of the hat so he can claim the title. “Why not?” Eliot plants a foot on the armrest, propping his elbow on his kneecap. “I could do damage in the corporate world.” A gleam touches his eyes. Ben asks, “By lighting Fizzle on fire?” “Chaos is good for the soul.”

“Wolf scout,” Farrow calls up, carrying a trauma bag. He assesses his husband quickly. “I can breathe. I’m standing,” Moffy says fast. “I see that.” He chews on a piece of gum, then drops the bag at Moffy’s feet, unzipping it. “Take off your jacket.” “Fornicating while we’re in the room, the scandal,” Eliot jokes with a grin. “I’m leaving,” Charlie decrees. “Announcing your own exit is beneath you, brother!” Eliot calls after Charlie as he disappears down the stairs.

But I’d make Luna my CEO of just about anything. She’s smarter than anyone gives her credit for, even herself.

“What’s the weight capacity on that thing?” Tom asks me, and I snap my gaze off my girlfriend. Earlier, I heaved Orion up on the top bunk. The dog wanted up, and granted, he could put his paws on the mattress just standing on his hind legs. Probably could’ve done a doggie pull-up, but I assisted. Now the big furry Newfie is lying next to me, panting up a storm like he was the one who heaved his hundred-plus pounds up here. I pat his side. He’s a good boy. “Are you calling her son fat?” I joke.

Luna collects herself alright, sitting more upright and shrugging. “It’s okay. It’s not like OG Luna had this moment. I have less, maybe, but I’m slowly getting more.”

“We both picked horses in the race for CEO. Eliot bet on himself.” “Toujours,” Eliot says. Been around the Cobalts enough to know it means always.

“What are your name options? Anything good?” “I’m still brainstorming. Vegetables are on the table,” Eliot says, leaning back on a hand.

“Cabbage patch babies are dope,” I say into a swig. “Yep. And then there’s pumpkin babies. Northern baby beans.” “Baby broccoli.” “Little baby bro,” Luna sing-songs. We all laugh. She is my kind of girl. She always has been.

“I’ve got goals.” She looks up at me, and I can see her asking, I’m in them, right? I never want her to question what she means to me. “This girl’s in the best ones.” I grin down at her. Her smile reemerges, and I could last all night looking at it. Looking at her.