Headstrong Like Us

by Krista Ritchie

  “I’m not pretending.” He lets go of my waist. “There should be some stuff in the garage to patch this up.”

  It dawns on me. “You’ve put a hole in the wall before?”

  “Yeah, and I’m not proud of it.” He walks past the spread of turkey, ham, bread, and vegetables on the island counter. We were in the middle of making sandwiches before we started fucking around.

  I rotate my red apple in my hand. “What’s the story there?” I skim him up and down, his muscles flexed and his jaw sharpened. I don’t love seeing him upset.

  The longer we live here, the more I’ve been inadvertently digging up pieces of his childhood that haven’t surfaced yet. It’d happen to me if we were at my father’s place, but we’re stuck in his time capsule, not mine.

  His Adam’s apple bobs.

  I head to Maximoff. “That bad?”

  His hand is glued to a doorknob that leads to the garage. “It’s the same old shit. I was fourteen, and I read something on the internet about my mom. I can’t even remember what it was. Maybe a fake rumor about how she was so horny that she cheated on my dad.”

  I nod slowly, understanding. “So you were pissed and punched a wall.”

  He sighs out a heavy breath. “Like you’ve never punched a fucking wall before.”

  Fuck, my smile is killing my face. “He wants to be just like me.”

  Maximoff releases his grip of the knob, just to give me two middle fingers, and he stands more against the door.

  I’m so close that I place a hand on the wood, right above his broad shoulder. Our eyes latch strongly. More serious in the next beat. “I didn’t put my fist through plaster as a teenager,” I tell him. “I had other shit to hit, like the boxing bag in my room.”

  He contemplates this. “In retrospect, I should’ve just jumped in the pool. It was the best de-stresser.”

  I picture him cutting lithely through water like he was born to swim, and I smile. “That’s too bad that you want to change the past.”

  “Why?”

  “Because then you wouldn’t know how to patch a hole in the wall.”

  He smiles like he beat me at something. “So I’m the better repairman.”

  I lift my brows at him in a wave. “We’ll see.” I bite into the apple and start to reach around his waist for the knob. But his gaze drifts off and his mouth downturns. Where’d you go?

  His eyes meet mine, and I notice how his gaze tightens. Almost like he’s wincing, plus mortaring on a strong front.

  I swallow the bite of fruit. “What are you thinking, wolf scout?”

  He shakes his head once. “We’re getting married soon, and I should’ve known that you’ve never punched a wall.”

  I frown, and my pulse spikes for a split-second. Concerned he’s getting cold feet. “Some shit we’re still going to be uncovering in our eighties. It doesn’t mean you don’t know me, Maximoff. Or vice versa.” I cup his jaw while his hand warms the back of my neck. “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.”

  I nod, but I ask to be sure, “You’re not getting cold feet—”

  “No,” he says with force. “Jesus, I’d go to a courthouse and marry you tomorrow if that’s what you wanted.”

  This is about us, and I’m not ready to dictate every fucking aspect of this ceremony. “Is that what you want?” He’s joked about eloping before. “To just go to a courthouse?”

  He drops his hand off my neck and touches the black tungsten band on his finger. He’s rubbed that ring so often since our engagement in Greece, like a piece of me is attached to him. And he’s trying to protect what it signifies and means.

  Our stubborn love, our future together.

  Maximoff starts shaking his head slowly, then faster. “No. I want what my parents had, the whole ceremony, and I’ve put together enough charity events that I know I can organize a wedding, especially with Janie helping. But for charity functions, I always wanted the press around. For our wedding, I’d rather fly paparazzi to the fucking moon and have them videotape craters all day.” He touches his chest. “Dodging the media is something I don’t actively do. It’s like banging your head against a brick wall.”

  “I know.”

  He nods. “So at times, the courthouse seems easier. But it’s not what I want.”

  Understood. “Don’t worry about the media. Security will be on top of that shit, and we’re not staying in Philly.” If we go international, it’ll be harder for paparazzi to track us down and reach us. To be honest, I’m dying to give Maximoff the most normal, romantic ceremony in the world.

  I know he wants this to be perfect for me, but I also want this to be right for him.

  We head into the garage and hunt through an old workstation. Searching for sheetrock mud and joint compound, which Maximoff is certain exists somewhere.

  I squat down and open a wooden cupboard, taking another bite of apple. I’d love to patch up this hole before Lily and Lo come home from work. They don’t exactly know how much Maximoff and I innocently fool around—how many times their son believes he can grapple better than me and tries to pin me to a fucking wall. Those are moments just between us. And I don’t want his parents to jump to wild, overreaching conclusions.

  Like that I’m abusive and struck the wall out of anger.

  Even the thought sickens the fuck out of me.

  I push aside a red paint canister, and my eyes focus on a hefty stack of tabloids. Shoved in the very back. Shit. I care about the Hale family, more than any other (even my blood relatives), and it looks like someone is hoarding gossip magazines knowing they shouldn’t be reading them.

  Obsessing over public perception isn’t healthy. I’ve been there, hating the anonymous trolls that butt into my life and criticize my relationship. This brand of fame perpetuates a toxicity that can easily cling and leech. And last thing I want is for this toxic shit to leech onto one of his siblings.

  Maximoff is busy scouring through drawers, metal tools clinking, and I pull out probably ninety-plus issues of Celebrity Crush.

  “Where the hell did you get those?” Maximoff sees the tabloids.

  “Back there.” I point at the cupboard with my apple, and I read the dates on the top issues. “These are recent.”

  “How recent?”

  I wave an issue. “This one was printed last week.”

  He ambles over and snatches it out of my hand. He’s tapping into over-protective, big-brother mode. 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 eye him in a quick sweep, then I stand up. “Your sisters and brother made a collage for us using magazine photos.” I remind him about the Christmas present.

  “Made, as in past tense. These tabloids are new.” He flips one open.

  “It burned in the fire,” I say like a fact, but the air heavies. We lost the recent Christmas gift his siblings crafted us: a framed collage of me and him. It was cute as fuck. “They could be making another one.”

  “None of these pictures are cut out.”

  “Not yet,” I tell him. “And if someone really wanted to hide this, wouldn’t they just browse the magazines online? No evidence left behind.”

  “There are different articles in the print ones…” He drills a glare onto a page.

  I sidle next to him and read the headline. My jaw muscle twitches.

  LUNA HALE SEEN KISSING THREE MYSTERY BOYS IN ONE NIGHT! SEX ADDICT ALERT!

  “Fuuuck,” Maximoff curses hotly.

  I pry the tabloid out of his hands before he chucks it at his dad’s red Bugatti. And I skim the article. “This was two nights ago in New York.”

  His nose flares. “I should’ve known she went out to a club with Eliot and Tom.” He hates learning about his family in tabloids.

  “She’s nineteen. You’re not her keeper.” I skim more.
“The pictures look real, but they’re grainy as hell.” Luna is definitely lip-locked with three different guys. They’re not that hot. “She could do better.” I look up and Maximoff stares hard at me like I’ve inhaled too many paint fumes.

  He gestures to my chest. “That’s really what you’re gathering from all of this?”

  No. “The media is slut-shaming your little sister and implying she’s a sex addict. Trust me, I hate that as much as you, but we can’t fight these fuckers. The magazines are already printed.”

  Maximoff nods. “I don’t want her to deal with this alone if the headlines are bothering her, Farrow. She could be the one collecting the tabloids.” He pulls out his phone to text his sister since she went to Superheroes & Scones for lunch.

  I’m usually not in my head that often, but I start remembering the conversation I had with Donnelly after the Scotland trip. I asked him about whether he hooked up with Luna, and he admitted to the entire thing.

  “I wouldn’t hurt her,” Donnelly emphasized.

  “Man, you don’t have to convince me.” I know how he is with one-night stands. I know how he is with women. He’d let a girl walk all over him before even contemplating walking all over her. “I just didn’t think you’d go there with Luna Hale.” Flirting, I understood.

  Actually giving her head, I thought he’d push the brakes. For one, I’ve never seen him with a girl that young—not since he was that young. For another, he knows Maximoff would be pissed—and Maximoff is attached to me. Donnelly hasn’t really tested our friendship like this before.

  I didn’t believe he would.

  “It happened,” Donnelly said with a tight shrug. “It was just one time. She asked me.” He tried to gauge my reaction. “Are we good?” I could feel his worry.

  “Yeah, we’re good.” They’re both adults, but I definitely felt bad for reassuring Maximoff that nothing would happen between them when something clearly did.

  I thought I knew Donnelly better than that.

  Maximoff had a talk with Luna once we were all back in Philly too. Apparently, she just kept reassuring him that the hook-up was a “one-time” thing.

  In the garage, I close the tabloid and stick up for my friend. “Donnelly would treat her better than three mystery guys in a Manhattan club.”

  Maximoff tucks his phone in his back pocket. “He’s twenty-seven. My dad will murder him, Farrow.”

  I toss the magazine on the stack. “True.”

  “And Luna prefers one-night stands. She might not even want to hook up with Donnelly again.”

  “Yeah,” I say, but I feel for Donnelly. If he risked our friendship to be with Luna, there’s a good chance he really likes her.

  Another five minutes tick by before we find sheetrock mud and joint compound, and we return to the kitchen. But we’re not alone anymore.

  “Have you been making another collage for me and Farrow?” Maximoff asks his sixteen-year-old brother. He wastes no time being a hardass. Xander hasn’t even popped his head out of the freezer yet.

  I set the materials from the garage on a barstool and rest my foot on the rung.

  “What?” Xander has a hand on the freezer door, his amber eyes pinging from me to his older brother. “No, we aren’t.” He frowns. “Why did Luna and Kinney say they were going to?”

  “No.” Maximoff ties the bagged loaf of bread that he left opened. “So you haven’t been collecting tabloids recently.”

  Xander shakes his head. “I threw them all away in January.”

  It’s April. If they’re not doing arts and crafts, then this is more serious.

  Maximoff is now officially in full-on take-charge mode that I won’t stop or steamroll. He’s texting, and I can only guess that he’s asking Kinney if they’re her tabloids. She’s at school right now.

  Xander grabs a Hot Pocket and shuts the freezer. “You punched the wall?” He’s staring at his older brother.

  I smile into a bite of apple.

  Maximoff looks thoroughly irritated. Job well done. “It was Farrow.”

  “It was my elbow,” I clarify. “And an accident.”

  “We were wrestling,” Maximoff explains further and motions to his brother’s frozen hockey puck. “We already have all this food out if you want a sandwich, Summers.”

  “Thanks, but this is ten times better.” He pops the Hot Pocket in the microwave, punches the cook time, then leans against the counter and picks at his thumbnail. “So…can I ask you two something?”

  I’m a little bit surprised he’s not just speaking to Maximoff.

  Sure, I’ve been teaching Xander how to box and some basic MMA technique, but he hasn’t exactly sought me out for “advice” before.

  Whatever’s on his mind could revolve around the wedding. That’d make more sense. Especially since we haven’t formally picked groomsmen and groomswomen yet. But most have a good idea they’re in the wedding party.

  If Xander backs out of the ceremony, it’ll really hurt Maximoff. I’m hoping that’s not what this is about.

  “Yeah, of course, Summers.” Maximoff abandons the bread. “You can ask us anything.”

  He tucks his longish brown hair behind his ears. “So like, if I’ve been watching porn for an hour every week is that too much?”

  I try really hard not to smile in amusement. This is not the road I thought he was driving down.

  “I don’t think so.” Maximoff glances to me, tagging me in because he didn’t recreationally watch porn growing up.

  “Thank God for my normal adolescent behavior,” I tell him before telling his brother. “You’re not over-killing the porn game. An hour a week is basically tame.”

  “What’s too much?” he asks me, not his brother.

  Maximoff is smiling this soft smile at the wall. I’m guessing he’s happy his teenage brother is seeking me out for this shit, and I am too.

  “You don’t need to worry about the amount right now,” I tell Xander. “Just ask yourself a set of questions.” I motion to him with my apple. “Is watching porn an hour a week impeding your life?”

  “No.”

  “Why are you watching it?”

  He shrugs. “I was curious, and I liked how it…you know. Made me feel.” His neck reddens.

  “Are you using porn to avoid something?” I ask one last question.

  “No.”

  “There you go. Your porn usage is healthy.” I bite into my apple.

  He nods in thanks, the microwave beeps, but he waits to collect his Hot Pocket. “Also, I can’t go to that thing tomorrow.”

  I chew slowly. “You mean my birthday party?” I invited Maximoff’s siblings and some other people to Superheroes & Scones tomorrow. I just wanted something low-key. No hassle or big deal.

  “Yeah, that. I can’t go.”

  Maximoff frowns at Xander. “Why not?”

  He lets out a long sigh. “Uh, because I’ve gained way too much muscle working out with you two and boxing, and I’m so over the fucking paparazzi hounding me about it.” He weighs options on his hands, miming scales. “Either I don’t workout anymore or I don’t go out in public tomorrow, and you should be happy I’m choosing the second option.”

  Maximoff gestures to his brother. “Temporary solution: you could wear baggier clothes.”

  Xander grabs his Hot Pocket and slams the microwave. “No, I’m over it, Moffy. They can suck my dick.” He exits, and I force down a laugh.

  Maximoff stares hard at the door his brother went through. “I can’t tell if he’s giving a middle finger to the media or if he’s hermit-ing.”

  “The former,” I say. “And hermit-ing isn’t a word.”

  He glares at the ceiling, then digs in his pocket. Someone texted him. He goes rigid. “They’re not Luna or Kinney’s tabloids.”

  Shit.

  Our eyes collide with the same realization. They have to belong to either his mom or his dad, and after their fight this morning, this isn’t adding up to anything good.

 
; “It’ll blow by,” Maximoff assures me. “It always does. They can handle whatever’s happening.”

  “Yeah.” My brows lift. “But what’s happening?”

  He shakes his head, then freezes.

  “What is it?”

  “I bet they’re upset about the whole Luna-being-a-sex-addict rumors. That has to be it.”

  We could ask, but I don’t like prying unless it’s needed. Their private business is their private business. Not mine.

  “It’ll blow by,” Maximoff repeats with tough resilience.

  3

  FARROW KEENE

  “OSCAR! FARROW! PAUL!” Fans and paparazzi shriek as we squeeze through pushing crowds, cameras flashing and glaring in the night.

  None of us politely wave like we’re English dignitary or play “best friends” with strangers. It’s almost like we’re back at Yale together, bar hopping and staying unbothered by the drunk fuckers who try to start shit.

  With no hassle, I unpocket a set of keys and unlock the storefront of Superheroes & Scones. Closing hours at the hybrid comic book coffee shop is the only time we can really consider going off-duty here.

  We slip inside the empty store, and I lock out the screaming.

  “Who’s Paul?” Oscar banters, tying a rolled bandana around his forehead.

  I laugh into a widening smile, and Donnelly blows him a middle-finger kiss. I flip on the lights. Illuminating red and blue vinyl booths and racks of comics and merch.

  But we go quiet at another sight.

  Silver buffet trays line the café bar counter, and the unmistakable scent of breakfast clings to the air. My eyes burn with emotion.

  Wolf scout.

  My chest uplifts in a deeper breath. There’s no one else who’d surprise me with a catered spread of my favorite foods. He’s not even here yet, and he’s already made my 29th birthday memorable.

  Oscar smiles. “You lucky bastard.”

  “Jealous?” My lips rise, and we both watch Donnelly near the catered trays.

  “Yeah. I miss being in a serious relationship. Sex is great and easy to find, but it’s nothing without the rest.”