Headstrong Like Us (Like Us, #6)

by Krista Ritchie

But I’m just happy that my parents are happy and healthy and together.

I’m going to marry the love of my life. One day. Someday. Soon.

He smiles against my mouth while we kiss

SCREAMS

“But here’s the thing, as long as you’re there with me, wolf scout, it’s impossible for our wedding day not to be perfect.”

“You know me better than any guy ever has. You’re my person.”

His love for his family has always been extremely sexy. And I’m going to be honest here: it makes me want to have kids with him. Badly.

“I stood out to you,” I repeat with a teasing smile. “Yeah. Like a lamppost, you know slightly rusted, flickering out, in need of some triple A batteries.” I let out a laugh. “Lampposts don’t take triple As, but it’s cute how I lit up your world.”

You should know that I can survive in any universe, but I only want to live in the ones with Farrow Redford Keene.

But I’ll always be more enamored with who he is—so good, so pure—and fuck, how he’s looking at me. Like I’m his world. His salvation.

“Aristotle says there are three types of friendships. Friends for usefulness. Friends for pleasure. And then there’s true friendship. Friends that do things in pursuit of good for each other. Not for any other reason.”

Aristotle said it best. Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies.

“My mom and dad raised me to fight the demons that they weren’t raised to fight. I’m strong because of my parents, and maybe that’s the point. They broke the cycle, and now I’m here to fight for him.”

“You asking Oscar too or what?” “To be a groomsman.” I nod. “But I only have one best man.” That rocks him back. “What?” His eyes redden, more overwhelmed. “Really?” It had to be Donnelly. Only Donnelly.

“There are going to be some things in life that you’re not going to be able to change. Or fix. And I don’t care if you don’t like it, but you’ll have to live with it.”

All I know now is that we’re jumping headfirst together.

He has this intrinsic need to protect his family, and he can’t live knowing he didn’t try. Fuck, he would be a shell, and I crave to give him everything that makes him whole.

oh how I get you, Moffy

Unpopular opinion time: I don’t hate them together.

NEITHER DO I

“Just let go, okay?” His eyes are welled up. “You don’t need to be titanium.”

Yearning surges through me. To be with Maximoff. To be with Ripley. When I should just be enjoying myself.

“For some damn reason,” Maximoff says, “I’d rather be dumb and talk about our life with him.”

I think maybe Charlie needed to feel needed, and I’m proud of him for sticking around for his brothers.

“All things must come to an end, and as much as I wished Gotham could be immortal, life isn’t infinite. But love is, and we loved him.” I take a beat. “And we’ll still love him.”

The older I get, the more I’m accepting the fact that I can change. And I am changing. Even if you want me to stay the same.

“Don’t you dare push me in the water, Richard,” Aunt Rose warns her husband, her voice carrying in the breeze. I can feel my uncle’s billion-dollar grin across the dock.

LMAO

My dad hugged me for a while, and I didn’t even question if he was doing well. He felt like my pillar, and I held onto him.

“I’ve got eyes on the Crow,” Donnelly says. “I repeat, I’ve got eyes on the Crow.” “Akara to Donnelly, don’t call Grandmother Calloway a crow.”

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

He giggles. In my arms. And he beams up at me with a toothless, effervescent smile that he reserves solely for Maximoff. It rocks me back, just seeing that smile facing me.

“We were just going to take a walk. We’re fifteen,”

they're ridiculous tbh

“I need you. Not just right now, not just yesterday—but long after this week, after I’m married. In ten years. Twenty. When you’re an old man, I’m still going to need you.” “Moffy—” “You’re my dad,” I say, choked. “And I don’t want my kids to grow up with you as a memory like I have of my grandfather. I need you here—and I promise that I’ll tell you shit from now on, if you promise you won’t ever see me as someone you can push away. Because I might have other people, but no one in the whole universe—in every fucking universe—could ever replace you from my life.”

There are reasons why Maximoff says his parents are the strongest people he knows. Why he believes in them endlessly and faithfully. Every time they’re kicked down, they crawl to a stance and fight towards courage. And I’m lucky as hell that I can call them my family.

Thatcher’s quiet. A stern, serious look on his face. Honestly, I feel like if I asked him, he’d murder the butterflies for me.

I turn my head to the right. Instinctively. Expectantly. I look across the wicker chairs to the other procession line. And he’s already looking at me. Farrow smiles that knowing smile, one that says, you can’t take your eyes off me, wolf scout.

Christ, everyone is watching us. We’re only watching each other.

I never want to forget that smile. Not for as long as I live. Bury me in the ground with these memories. Send me to the underworld with his face engrained in my head. I’d be a happy man.

“Moffy.” My dad’s voice pulls me, and he wraps an arm around my shoulder. I hug him tight, and before I can tell him I love him, he whispers, “You’ve made me so goddamn proud to call you my son.”

Love is born into every human being: it calls back the halves of our original nature together; it tries to make one out of two and heal the wound of human nature.’—I never understood this quote until I met you. Until you filled the incomplete parts of me.”

“You’re the person that my soul has been searching for because my head was too stubborn to do it.”

“Well, I’ve been searching for you my entire life, and if someone told me that we’d been together before, in another time or place, I wouldn’t question them. I’ve longed for you before I even knew you, and now that I’ve found you, there’s not a single day I want to live without you.”

Dum spiro, spero. While I breathe, I hope. I slip the black band on his tattooed finger, and as soon as I finish, Oscar declares, “By the powers vested in me, I now pronounce you husband and husband.” I don’t hear anything else. Farrow’s hand is on the back of my neck. Mine on his, and we unite in a soul-bearing kiss. All around us is clapping and lightning and thunder. And I’d like to think Plato was right. That in the beginning of time, it was Farrow and me, and we were once whole together. Our souls united. But like all humans, we were split down the middle. Separate halves wandering around this universe. We found each other. And finally, together, we became whole again.

Thank you for giving the guy who has the world all the parts that he’s never seen or felt before.

Dear World, thanks for the love. See you next time. Love your friendly neighborhood human, Maximoff Hale