I hold out my left hand for my phone that’s still in Farrow’s grip.
He rests his elbow beside a half-opened box of Pop-Tarts, not relinquishing my phone. He tilts his head at me. “I meant it when I said let’s look together.”
I don’t stand next to him yet. “Farrow, just let me be the one to check the tabloids.”
He frowns. “You realize I’ve dealt with internet trolls calling you, my boyfriend, a sack of shit, a dumb fuck, a spoiled bastard, and much, much worse. I couldn’t do a fucking thing, and still, I’m standing. I haven’t broken down yet, so what the hell are you protecting me from, Maximoff?”
Farrow is used to internet trolls harassing me, but it’s a different feeling when the unwanted opinions are about us.
“Street hecklers are my kryptonite,” I admit, then I gesture to his chest. “Grating, unsolicited commentary about our relationship is going to be yours.”
Farrow is close to shaking his head, but he stops himself and looks up at the pantry ceiling. Cringing slightly. Eyes reddening. He rubs his mouth a couple times. We’ve been around each other every waking minute for almost a whole year.
I know him.
I fucking know Farrow like he knows me. He will tell you that he has no best friends. He has two that he treats like brothers. He will say that he’s an open book. But it’s a book he only allows his boyfriend to open. His casualness reads to some like indifference. Yet, he lives to save people.
He’s independent and self-reliant, but he seeks out companionship and love.
If he says you’re “good people”—he’ll surround himself around you, and you’ll be glad. Because he’s the kind of man who puts his whole soul into what he loves, and if he loves you, goddamn.
So when his eyes fall back to mine, I say, “I know you. You can barely stand Beckett prying in our relationship. You think you can stomach the entire world?”
Farrow touches his obsidian earring, contemplating for a millisecond. “You think you can stomach it?” he asks me. “It’s not like you’ve had a public relationship before me. I’m your first—hopefully your last. You’ve never experienced this shit either.”
Hopefully your last.
I hang onto those three words. Unblinking at him.
Farrow is trying to read my expression at an alarming rate. Is he nervous? I think…
I think he’s nervous.
It makes me ten billion times more nervous.
My pulse accelerates, heart beating out of my chest, and Farrow’s breath quickens like he’s running the same marathon. He sets my phone on a shelf.
“Are you still high?” I ask.
“No.” Farrow keeps sweeping my face for my reaction. “Not at all.”
“Same.” I’m completely lucid, mentally shutting out any pain, because I can’t get over those three words.
Hopefully your last.
He wants to be my last, and he’s not just saying this on the side of a road, thinking I’m about to die. He’s saying this when we’re about to face the roughest storm together.
Farrow combs both hands through his bleach-white hair, his chest elevating. “Maximoff…”
“Am I your forever guy?” I just ask.
His eyes are bloodshot, so much emotion slamming into him, then me, and he says, “I don’t want to scare you off—”
“You’re not scaring me,” I shake my head repeatedly, my pulse on a sky-scraping ascent.
He drums a shelf with his fingertips, prolonging whatever you want to call this moment. When he does speak, each word comes out like fifty tons of brick that he’s wrenching forward. “I’m afraid that if I say anything else, I’m going to fucking lose you…we can do this another day—”
“Why the fuck would you lose me?” I cut him off, brows furrowed.
He leans his weight back. “We’re really doing this right now,” he realizes.
“Yeah, unless you’d like me to overthink for the next millennium.”
His mouth stretches. “I wouldn’t take that long, wolf scout.” But the fleeting smile completely disappears as he processes what he needs to say.
His gaze slowly rises to meet mine. “See, you’re twenty-two and I’m only your first—and there is better than me out there. Shit, even Oscar is waiting for you to realize it, and I’ve dumped my fair share of guys. For the first fucking time, I’m the one terrified…” He stops himself short, eyeing me hard. “You look petrified.”
I clear my throat. “This is me looking nervous,” I tell him, my brows cinched and eyes a bit wide. I’m actually scared to lose him in this whole conversation.
Maybe that’s why we prefer joking around than having serious talks. It always takes us a while to reach the center, but we usually find a way.
His smile starts widening to new profound levels. “I’ve seen you nervous plenty of times. That’s not it.”
“Not plenty of times,” I retort. “Sometimes, a few times…no times. Less than you.”
Farrow laughs, and then as the sound quiets, our eyes melt against each other.
“There’s no one better than you,” I tell him, assured about this. “And I get why you haven’t brought this up before.” I nod to myself a few more times, and I stop there.
Farrow waves me onwards.
I feign confusion. “Isn’t it your turn? Pretty sure it’s your turn.”
He rolls his eyes, but they land on me as he says, “So you must know you’re brick-walled when it comes to future shit, particularly our future.”
I nod strongly. “Highly aware.” I think about how to say this perfectly, but I don’t think there’s a perfect way. “I always thought I’d never be in a relationship….for as much as I overanalyze my life, I never let myself imagine a boyfriend, let alone something more…”
Farrow props his elbows on the shelf behind him. “I figured, but you realize you’ve had me for a while. Fuck, anytime I mentioned marriage, even jokingly, you looked ready to piss your pants.”
I grimace. “Did I?”
“You did,” he nods.
“I’m not right now.” I rake my hand through my thick hair—a pained groan tangles inside my throat. That fucking hurt. A sharp pang stabs my bone. Even raising my good hand pulls my bad shoulder sometimes.
“Careful,” Farrow whispers, concern deepening his voice.
Something swells in my chest, but I continue on. “I guess I didn’t want to think about it before,” I explain, “because thinking meant overanalyzing and for once, I just wanted to live in the present. With you.”
Farrow nods slowly. Understanding in his eyes.
“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 say with stubborn emphasis, not allergic to the word. “Yeah. I keep thinking…” I gesture to my head, more careful this time. “Do you even want to be married someday? Maybe you’re not into it, maybe that’s why you rejected your ex’s proposal—”
“No,” Farrow cuts me off, his foot kicked back on the shelf. He looks cool even when we’re discussing life-altering, earth-changing topics. “Man, I want that commitment one day. I just didn’t want it with him.”
So he’s into marriage…
“Maximoff.” He catches my attention before I stare into space, and he’s already straightened up, no longer lounging against the shelves. He nears until our legs knock together, his fingers toy with hooking my fingers.
And he asks, “What do you want, wolf scout?” He clutches my hand.
What do I want?
I can almost feel the rain from the crash site. Water kissing my face and how Farrow hovered over me. How he painted a picture of our lives together. Decades, longer—which, for Farrow, means an expanse of time that lasts forever.
I could’ve died happy inside that future, and I can’t think of a greater sign than that.
So I know… “I wa
nt 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.”
I inhale like I haven’t taken a breath in eons. The one constant in my off-kilter world has been us—Farrow and me. Hearing him say that he wants to stand upright next to me, for the long haul—it’s a goddamn dream.
The corner of his mouth rises. “You’re smiling,” he breathes against my lips before kissing me. One of those brief, teasing kisses that stings. Aching for more.
“I’m really happy,” I whisper, but my brows cinch at a thought. “Strangely since we’re in a DEFCON 1 situation.”
Farrow nods and drops my hand, just so he can return to the shelves. He grabs my phone next to the Pop-Tart box. “Do you remember what I asked you?”