Lovers Like Us (Like Us 2)

“If I go in there it’s going to be real,” my mom says. “Maybe we should all have breakfast first. Anyone hungry? I could eat a waffle. Daisy?”

“Chocolate pancakes,” my aunt says.

“She’s not moving to fucking New York or across the country,” Uncle Ryke retorts. “It’s nothing to fucking agonize over.”

“Easy for you to say,” my mom replies. “Sulli wants to live at home for another year. My daughter is leaving. OhmyGod, I promised myself I wouldn’t cry this fast. I’m already crying. Rose—”

“Chin up, shoulders back,” Aunt Rose snaps icily. “What our gremlins don’t know is that they’re ours forever. No matter what geographical location they run off to and whether they like it or not.”

My dad swings his head back and calls out to my aunt, “Take your talons off my kids, Cruella.”

“Bite me, Loren.”

“Weak,” my dad retorts.

Farrow almost laughs, and I smile. God, I love my family

“They’re all going to leave,” Uncle Connor pipes in. “It’s generally what children do when they get older.”

“And now she’s really crying. Good job, Richard,” Aunt Rose says.

“No, no,” my mom protests. “These are happy tears. Luna is grown up. That’s a good thing.”

My dad glances at me, then Farrow, and I stand more uncomfortably. I can’t tell what my dad is thinking. At all.

When it reaches the point of maximum awkwardness, my dad rotates to the door again. “If you all keep lingering, we’re never going to finish moving her in!”

One-by-one, my mom, two aunts, and two uncles file into the townhouse. Rain jackets on, and some shut their umbrellas.

This is the first time we’ve all really been together since Camp Calloway. In the same room, at least. But we’ve talked. All of us. I’m not going to pretend those conversations never happened just because they didn’t take place altogether.

Anyway, kissing Farrow at the Camp-Away event feels like eons ago.

I feel different since then. Stronger in a different way. Maybe that’s what happens when you meet quicksand and discover how to pull yourself out.

I break the silence before they do. “Can we not make this awkward?” I ask. “You all know Farrow. He’s my boyfriend. That’s not changing.”

“I don’t actually know him as your boyfriend,” Connor says as he hooks his expensive umbrella on the coat rack. His all-knowing eyes meet Farrow’s. “But I’d love to change that.”

“Agreed.” Ryke nods and then turns to my dad. “I’m sensing a fucking invitation here?”

And my dad—he’s smiling. Genuine, and happy. It lifts the last bit of weight off my chest. “I think so, big brother.” He looks to my boyfriend. “How about you start coming to our lunches with Moffy?”

My eyes widen. Seriously. That’s what they want? To grill Farrow over tacos and salsa? “You can say no,” I tell Farrow. “They’re a lot to fucking handle.”

“I can handle anything, wolf scout,” Farrow says easily, and with a smile, he tells my dad, “Sounds like a plan.”

My dad nods and adjusts his grip on the box.

“And,” Connor adds to Farrow, “if we decide we don’t like your company, your invitation is revoked.”

“That’s not happening,” I say firmly.

Farrow hangs his head, his smile out of this fucking world right now, and he tries to downplay it a bit.

A calico cat rubs up on my dad’s ankles. He tells me, “If Farrow is shitty company, it’ll go to a vote.”

I shake my head. “After my week, voting is permanently banned.”

My dad winces. “You know I could—”

“No,” I cut him off. “We talked about this.” None of them are vouching on my behalf like I’m a kid. “It’s my job. I’ll take care of it.”

My dad squints at me. “It’s like you’re an eighty-year-old man in a twenty-two-year-old body.” He looks to my mom who bites her thumbnail, nervous about Luna leaving. “Love, you sure you birthed him?”

“I remember every second of it, Lo.” She pauses. “Okay, not every second. But most of it.”

My mouth curves upward. This right here. Us. It feels like we’re back on some sort of track. Sure, there’ll be blips and drama and some fights, but my family isn’t going anywhere. Any world where they’re missing is too lonely to conceive.

“Mom…” Jane’s voice tugs our attention towards the staircase. She descends in a lilac tulle skirt, leopard-print sweater, and her brunette hair frizzes around her face.

Jane never ended up speaking to her mom. Not that day in Kansas. Not the night she returned home. This is the first real gesture.

We’re all quiet, but Rose hastily unclasps her Chanel purse, her nails painted a matte black. Tabloids call my aunt an “ice queen” but her heart is fucking giant. I saw it as a kid when five-year-old Ben got poison ivy and she told her son she’d bear his pain for him if she could. She whispered in French, made him a hot bath, and sat with him the whole night.

And I definitely see her heart now. As she pulls out a pair of heels.

They look more like pink suede sandals with a chunky glittery heel attached. My aunt mostly wears simple black dresses and classic heels. These are eccentric.

These are Jane.

At the sight of them, Jane stops mid-stair. “What are those?”

Rose delicately holds the heeled sandals. “They’re for you—but I’m not trying to buy your love,” she snaps. “I saw them and they screamed Jane Eleanor Cobalt, my beautiful, brilliant firstborn daughter… If you don’t want them, I’ll return them to the store or I can throw them in a fire. Watch them burn…” She tries to raise her chin, fighting tears. She quickly brushes the corners of her eyes. “Whatever you want.”

Jane smiles with a watery gaze. “I’d love them.” She reaches the bottom of the stairs.

“Really?” Rose asks. “Because if you don’t like the buckle or the sequins, I can have them altered.”

“No,” Jane says, holding the heels with her mom for an extra beat. “They’re perfect.”

I smile with practically everyone else.

My dad pipes in, “Good, she’s been carrying those things around for four months.”

“Lo!” my mom whisper-hisses and slugs his shoulder. “That’s a secret.”

“Oops,” my dad says dryly, but he smiles at Jane who looks overwhelmed

“You did?” Jane almost bursts into tears.

Rose rubs her daughter’s cheek. “I thought one day, you’d want to speak to me again. But I didn’t know when.”

Jane wraps her arms around her mom. Aunt Rose is notorious for hating hugs, but she reciprocates tenfold. I can’t hear them whisper to one another, but I’m sure they’re exchanging I miss yous, I’m sorrys, and I love yous.

I glance at my family. My mom and dad in a loving embrace: his arms around her waist, her body clung to him. And Ryke picks up Daisy and tosses his wife playfully over his shoulder. So she hangs upside-down, her smile as bright as the sun.

Everyone is okay.

For the moment. But it fills me up to the fucking brim.

/>

When Rose and Jane break apart, her blue eyes land on her dad. Silently, Connor goes and hugs his daughter.

Jane caves instantly.

“Mon cœur,” he whispers. My heart. “I emailed you an essay this morning.”

She slightly pulls back. “I didn’t ask for another one.”

“It’s a prelude to the first one,” he says smoothly. “Three-thousand words on why you’re an extraordinary daughter. The best we could ever have.”

She puts her palms to her cheeks, overwhelmed. Tearful. Happy. And she just nods in thanks. Jane looks to me.

I smile more. You did the hardest part, Janie. And everything is better than what it was.

She smiles into a tearful laugh, wiping her cheeks.

My mom detaches from my dad and wanders towards me…no, not me. She faces Farrow. Those two haven’t talked either. Not once.

Farrow straightens up off the door. “Lily—”

“No wait,” my mom says and wipes her sweaty palms on her baggy Avengers Assemble shirt. “So I have something for you too…and just to be clear, I can’t take back anything that I said or did at the Camp-Away. Because Maximoff is my son, and I want to be the kind of mother who’s strong enough to stand up for him and protect him.” She nods resolutely. “I didn’t cower, and I’m proud of that.”

You’ve always been that kind of mom, I want to say, but I inhale a tight breath, having no goddamn clue where this is going. But my dad sends me sharp looks to let them talk.

So I stay quiet.

Farrow nods just as confidently. “I’m glad you did.”

My mom sniffs and reaches for a small hand-wrapped package she set on the coffee table. “So this is a welcome back to Philly…thingy.”

“It’s not a thingy,” Rose snaps.

“Yeah,” Daisy agrees, still upside-down, “you said you wouldn’t call it that.”

“It’s a gift,” my mom says in a strong nod.

My pulse speeds. Is this normal? Mom’s gifting their son’s boyfriend a present. I think I’m overthinking. No, I know I’m over-fucking-thinking.

Farrow smiles, eyeing me a bit, and then he starts to tear at the tape. The package is wrapped in newspaper. Minimal effort—I’m thankful for that. Keeping it casual, Mom.

“You didn’t have to give me anything,” Farrow tells her. “This is enough.” He means being on speaking terms and her acceptance.