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know that I have only one life, and I need to live for what I love.
I don’t love him because he’s a coveted piece of art to the thousands here and the millions outside. I love him because he’s so pure it hurts, so moral it aches, and so strong-willed it kills me not to speak to him, not to be near him, not to look at him or to protect him.
Love is like having a mortal wound and you’re bleeding out and no matter how hard you look, you can never find the goddamn cut.” He never broke eye contact. I kept looking. Listening, feeling his words. “It’s its own special brand of pain,”
“Love is pain, and you know what…I feel sorry for anyone who hasn’t met it yet.”
I know him as Ben, sometimes Pippy, the youngest and most free-spirited Cobalt boy and my little cousin.
“I’m lightning then, and you’re thunder. You always follow me every time I appear.”
“Why do you like him?” “You jealous?” I try my hand at teasing my boyfriend. His brows slowly lift at me like I’m the geekiest fucking geek that ever did geek. “Of a dead Roman philosopher?” “Yeah.” “No,” he says like I’ve lost my mind. “There’s no competition living or dead.”
Farrow raises the book somewhat, just to read, “‘However short your life may be, it will still be long enough to live honestly and decently.’” He looks at me. “Sounds like you.”
I am in pain, but he’s making me forget what hurts. A perk to having a brain that pretty much cums over his mere presence.
“I love you, Maximoff,” he says. “And I know you overthink because that’s what you do, and this is new for you. But I love you. And I know it fucking hurts to see someone from my past because it fucking hurt when I went through your NDAs. So if you need me to tell you five-thousand times, a million, that I’m so fucking in love with you, I will.”
I live my life for most of the world to see—for you to see—but there are a lot of moments just meant for him. And this is one.
“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.’
“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.
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.
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.
“But after the crash, I’ve been thinking a lot more about the rest of my life. Where I go from here, and now I can’t stop thinking about us and it.” “Marriage,” he says matter-of-factly. “Marriage
“I want everything you said in the rain. All of it.” Farrow easily recalls each word, and his eyes stroke mine in hot, tender affection. “That’s good because it looks like we want the same thing.”
“When I love someone,” he says in a rough whisper, “I love them proudly, and you deserve the achingly normal, romantic shit more than anyone. Everything you’ve never had. All the pictures you post, all the videos you do on your own, I want to be in them—and it’d kill me not to give you that. Especially now that we’re public.”
“Did your mom and I not teach you the art of being a couch potato? Jesus Christ, I’ve truly failed as a parent.”
Maximoff. He calls out to me every second of every minute of every day, and to willingly turn my back and race away from him is unfathomable. Because it’d tear me apart. I’d sooner drop to my knees and scream, and then I’d dig my way back into his arms. If losing him is a consequence of what I choose to do next, I physically can’t do it. It’d hurt less to ignore this pull than to lose him.
“Choose the path where you’re not fighting yourself, don’t be afraid of change, don’t live for less than what you love—those are your words, Farrow. To me, it’s obvious what you need to do.”
the hardest things are usually the right things.”
“Farrow.” Maximoff captures my gaze. “You better choose medicine. Because if you don’t, I’m going to kick your ass.”
Farrow Redford Keene is infuriatingly cool, and God, I can’t believe he’s mine. I’ll never get over it. To think that I’d be here one day. On a public date with the only guy I’ve ever truly needed or wanted—it’s a dream.
But out of all nights, I don’t want this night to be short-lived. So I drape my left arm over his shoulders and ignore the thumping in my sore muscle. Farrow slouches a bit so my arm drops to a lower angle. Ten times less strain on my shoulder, but I’m still holding him. His inked fingers dip beneath my jean’s band, not going far. Just enough to warm the skin on my waist with his skin. We tune out the gawking and the lenses. And we watch ice hockey in public. Clearly romantically linked. It’s the most casual, ordinary thing. You have no idea how much this means to me.
And I’ve realized something. My dad raised me to be like Ryke. Because he loved his brother more than he loved himself.
