Headstrong Like Us (Like Us, #6)

by Krista Ritchie

I feel extremely fucking lucky to be engaged to him. To be fully a part of his world and gain his comic-book-obsessed, bizarre-as-fuck family as my family—shit, I’m staying in his childhood house. A home that is warmer and packed with more unconditional love than mine ever was.

“You know me better than any guy ever has. You’re my person.” His chest collapses in a breath. “You know I feel the same.”

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.

My mouth curves upward, and soon, a force of nature enters like he’s Atlas bracing a world on his shoulders. And when his eyes meet mine, his muscles begin to loosen. His chest rises in a breath that I can almost feel expand my lungs. I smile more. “Look what the wind threw up.” His eyes redden. He remembers saying that to me. Years ago in this store. The first day I became his bodyguard.

He stares at my lips. “Nothing’s hard for you.” His brows knit. “Except”—his eyes fall to my cock—“you know, whenever you’re around me.”

A trail of famous ones and bodyguards fill the store. Jack Highland, the exec producer of the docuseries, greets Akara with a bro-hug. I catch Oscar eyeing Jack in a way that concerns me, as his friend. He turns forward, eyes on me. I give him a look. “Be careful.” Jack has said he’s straight, and there’s no faster way to a broken heart than crushing on a straight, unattainable guy.

A magnetic force has been at play between me and him, and I can’t see a scenario where we wouldn’t come together. “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.”

Thatcher Moretti is in my ear, and surprisingly, his strict voice isn’t as grating as it used to be. “Thatcher to Farrow, the bakery’s location has been leaked.” Obviously.

Last month, he told me he made Ben Cobalt vegan pancakes, and in his words, “The kid spit it out like I served him cow shit.” I couldn’t stop laughing. The Cobalt who would eat dirt-covered cardboard couldn’t stomach Thatcher’s cooking. Which is above average. Back when we lived together, he used to make meals for the townhouse, and I’ve tried some of his chicken parm.

“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.

Jane hooks an arm around my elbow, and I smile down at my best friend. Her blue eyes glimmer up at me. “It’s just you and me, old chap. Plus, our future husbands, two alpha chicks, and a hellion baby.” Her eyes water and mine sear. Recognition passing between us.

We’re two bodies melding into one. Souls fusing, and he cups my face, our eyes excavating to the core. I’m pinned to the mattress. His arms wrapped around the back of my neck in a tight hold. The peak nears as his thrusts quicken. My cock sliding against his stomach with scalding friction.

Pre-wedding bells have already made me too sappy in front of my childhood crush. I’m trying to contain some sap so I don’t turn into a fucking maple tree before the ceremony.

Farrow draws down the scarf, his lips parted in a shocked O, and Ripley lets out a soft, uncertain laugh. So Farrow brings the scarf back up, then down. His lips are playfully downturned. Ripley giggles more, entranced. He does the peekaboo move again, only he gasps into a cheek-to-cheek, breathtaking smile. Ripley wiggles excitedly in my arms and looks up at me like, did you see that? I saw him. I’ve seen him. My lungs flood. Don’t turn into a maple tree. Do not turn into a goddamn maple tree.

My eyes brush over him, my smile fucking killing me. “What?” His arm curves around my shoulder. I hook mine around his shoulders too, but I turn us towards the vehicle, walking down casually. “The untrained fighter trying to protect the trained one.” He’s doing his best not to smile. “I held my own, man.” “You’re getting better,” I agree. “Still not as good as me.”

He acts like I lifted the weight off this night. But he’s the reason this weightlessness exists inside of me, the reason I smiled in the first place, and I’m not sure he realizes it.

Farrow rubs water off his face, eyelashes collecting beads, and he looks me over more seriously. Surprise shoots up his brows. “You didn’t write it down?” he asks under his breath. Another bolt flashes, and rain descends heavier again. I tell him, “I’ve learned a thing or two from some guy I know.” “Some guy,” he repeats.

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.”

“I was empty. So empty, and I didn’t even know it, Farrow.”

“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.”

“Your love is the most precious, valuable thing to me on the face of this fucking world, and I’ll love you today, tomorrow, and decades longer. When we’re old men and smiling about yesterdays, I’ll still love you and your pure heart and your good soul.”

Drenched, Farrow pushes back my sopping hair, and I’m a maple tree. Officially. Sap has become me.

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.

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.

“Being shot down for a kiss is like face-planting when you’re trying to accept a participation award. And it was legitimately awkward. You know what, he stared at me for a full-second like I spoke fucking Thebulan from Luna’s tentacle smut.”

He looks from me to the flowers and candles, like he’s still in a fucking dream. And I’m the dreamlike thing that has awoken and given him an unbelievable reality. Chock-full of romantic clichés. Typical, ordinary shit that he’s missed until me. His first boyfriend, first love, first and only husband.

I’ve ached to give Maximoff Hale everything he’s ever missed, and I love that I can and will give him these cliché days and nights and minutes for the rest of our lives.

“You weren’t afraid that I’d tease you for doing a really fucking cheesy thing?” “No, I knew you’d tease the fuck out of me for eternity, but I wanted to anyway.”

“Are you trying to throw me a life jacket before I read your card?” “Not a life jacket,” he combats. “A flashlight.” I pluck the card. “And here, I thought I was your lamppost.” “Flickering out lamppost.”

If you’re reading this, it means we’re now married, and the sky didn’t fall in. We didn’t die before we could slip rings on each other. No doomsday or curse or hateful entity stopped us or separated us. It means you’re now Farrow Redford Keene Hale, and I can wake up knowing you’re mine forever. Thank you for giving the guy who has the world all the parts that he’s never seen or felt before. I love you. P.S. if this is too damn sappy, trash it. - Maximoff

I feel like I’ve never had him—like this is our first time again. First time inside him, first time making love, first, first, first.

How the fuck can someone make me feel like every moment is as significant and powerful as the last? How can this be possible?

God, I’ve never been so comfortable with one singular person in all aspects of my life. I trust Farrow with every part of my body and fucking soul. He’s my husband.

He wraps an arm over my shoulder and focuses a bit on the movie. I take it all in. Roses, candles, epic physical and emotional sex, eating leftover wedding cake in bed afterwards, showering together—watching a movie. Ordinary. Romantic. And timeless. It’s always been the little things.