“Oh my God.” My hand flies to my mouth.
“It’s not serious,” Connor says. “Lo is already on his way here with her. He called me to find out what happened to you.” Connor flips his cellphone in his hand. “I told him you two were most likely fucking in the woods. To no one’s surprise, I was right.”
Ryke rolls his eyes. “Fuck off, Cobalt.” His muscles are flexed, concerned for Sulli.
It’s not serious. I hang onto this.
“Not today,” Connor replies, tightening his leather glove. “And really, we must stop meeting like this.” He heads towards the street.
“Fuck you!” Ryke yells.
Connor raises a hand as he walks away. “In time!” I hear the grin in his voice.
Worried, Ryke and I spend not a second longer outside. We race to our cottage, pressure on my chest.
What happened?
* * *
I gently shut the door to Sullivan’s bedroom, exiting to the hallway. She sleeps like a brick. I pulled her covers up to her neck, and she never stirred. Apparently this is the fifth time she’s fallen asleep in social studies, and after five warnings, they sent her home to nap in her own bed.
I feel responsible.
Sulli has a habit of mimicking our random sleep schedules. Some months, I nap more and sleep less straight through, but I always try to clock in at least six hours.
It isn’t just fucking you, Calloway. I can almost hear Ryke’s response to my thoughts.
He wakes up at the crack of dawn (or earlier), and she’ll push herself to be wide-eyed and cheery by then.
What’s not up for debate: her bad sleep habits created problems at school. I pull my blonde hair into a high bun as I descend the stairs.
“Connor was right; you two were fucking, weren’t you?” I hear Lo from the kitchen.
“Can we decrease the use of that fucking phrase?” Ryke retorts.
“I know. I get hives whenever I talk about you two fucking,” Lo banters, knowing full-well Ryke meant the other part. Connor was right.
I’ve heard Ryke say those three words many times before. He might be stressed about Sullivan too, and grumbling about Connor is a good distraction.
“Hey, guys,” I greet, slipping into the kitchen. Ryke leans against the sink, arms crossed. I climb up on the countertop nearest him.
“At this…” Lo grabs our bag of Tostito chips, and he yanks open the refrigerator and steals our salsa. “For the trouble.”
I watch Lo shuffle out the garage door, and it shuts closed. “You’re paying your little brother in chips?”
“It’s the only fucking currency he accepts.” Ryke spins towards me, his hands on my knees, my legs swinging back and forth.
We’re quiet for a long moment, a different quiet than before in the woods. His brown, hazel-flecked eyes search mine, and we both try to process our feelings into words. We’re both not terrific at it, but we try.
We try all the time to say what we feel.
“We have to figure something out,” I breathe. “She can’t keep sleeping in school.”
He removes a hand from my knee, just to rake his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know how to fucking fix this, Dais.” Ryke has always struggled telling Sulli no to things she loves.
We fall silent again, thinking. I rest my chin on his shoulder, his hand stays comforting on my head. I suggest, “What if we tell her that she has to clock at least seven hours of sleep at night? Straight sleep. That way she won’t nap.”
His brows harden. “What if she fucking doesn’t?”
The hard part. “We can’t reward her—so if she wakes early, she can’t run with you. If she asks for pancakes, you can’t make her any.”
He grimaces. Ryke has such a soft heart, even the thought of carrying out a punishment pains him, especially when it’s directed towards one of his girls.
“She’ll fail social studies, Ryke.” At least that’s what Lo told us. The teacher explained the situation to him when he picked Sulli up. “You’ve always been a hardass when it comes to everyone’s health. Just think that if she keeps going down this path, she could end up like me.”
Ryke glowers. “It’s not fucking possible, Dais.” PTSD was one of the causes of my sleeping problems.
“Just think it,” I say, straightening up. “Think that if she doesn’t stick to seven straight hours, she might sleepwalk. She might scream with night terrors—think whatever you need to think to enforce this rule.”
His muscles strain, but clarity and persistence fills his eyes, the look Ryke wears at the base of thousand-foot rock faces. Assured, he says, “I can fucking do that.”
I tug at his shirt. “Hey, one day she’ll be ten. Then the next blink of an eye, she’ll be twelve. Before you know it, she’s sixteen driving that Jeep outside and we’re waving her off to go to college.” I planned for that to be a funny speech, but I smile tearfully at my husband.
He holds my cheek, the one with the scar. “Today she’s nine.” His thumb dries my fallen tear. “Live in the fucking moment with me, Calloway?”
My smile stretches.
Every single day, Ryke Meadows.
2028
“I just want everyone to be okay.”
- Maximoff Hale, We Are Calloway (Season 9 Episode 13 – Fairy Dust & Superpowers)
January 2028
Upper East Side Penthouse
New York City
RYKE MEADOWS
We rented an expensive penthouse for New Year’s Eve, not to host a fucking party for anyone but us. The ball dropped about an hour ago. Confetti cakes the ritzy modern furniture and carpet. The walls are mostly glass, a clear view of the city lit up at 1:00 a.m.
Most kids are passed out on the couches, chairs, and Rose starts sweeping some confetti. Lily, Willow, and Daisy attempting to help, but they fling the paper at one another.
Lo, Garrison, Connor, and I find the four littlest girls piled on a beanbag, conked the fuck out. We all quietly and gently pick up our daughters and bring them to bed.
Audrey drools on Connor’s shoulder, and he only grins by the fucking fact. Winona is in a dead sleep in my arms. Vada stirs in Garrison’s, but he rubs her back and she easily relaxes. And Kinney—she’s the only one who really opens her eyes.
She looks up at Lo, and he kisses each of her chubby cheeks. I’ve never seen my little brother love anything more than he loves his children and his wife.
Kinney rests her head on his chest, hugging him like a fucking stuffed animal.
When I return to the penthouse living room, I try to help clean since we plan to make breakfast tomorrow morning. I grab a trash bag and collect any paper cups and paper plates, pizza crusts left on most.
In the near-empty room, I notice Moffy in a Spider-Man long-sleeved shirt near the window. By himself. Reading on a stiff white chair. I tie the heavy trash bag, my eyes flitting to my twelve-year-old nephew. Lo told me the full extent of his conversation with Moffy at Disneyland.
He said that Moffy thought about dyeing his hair. Thought about wearing higher SPF sunscreen. To look less like me. I’d be fucking lying if I said it didn’t hurt. It hurt because I love this kid. I was there when he was fucking born. I babysat him more than I did any other kid in our families.
And my existence in his parent’s life caused him pain—pain that I’d willingly take away. I wish I could’ve saved him from that.
“You should talk to him.” Lo is by my side, trying to stuff a paper plate into my already tied trash bag.
I’m not fucking good with words. It hasn’t stopped me before, but since Disneyland, my relationship with Moffy is different. We don’t talk as much. He doesn’t ask to run in the morning with me like he used to. When I drive him to swim practice, he mostly makes conversation with Sulli.
“You sure?” I ask Lo.
He nods assuredly. “Who knows, maybe he’ll surprise you.” Lo gasps with his fingers to his lips, trying to make fun of my wife
. It’s a fucking poor imitation.
I shove the trash bag to his chest.
“I love you too, big brother.”
My lips start lifting at the sight of his smile. Then I leave Lo and cross the living room to Moffy. I sit in an identical chair in front of my nephew, and he looks up from his paperback.
His hair is still dark brown.
His skin isn’t as tan, but mostly because he swims indoors in the winter. I travel out of the country, constantly in the sun, so I hold a tan all-year-round.
“Do you want to fucking talk?” I unconsciously crack one of my knuckles.
“What about?” The paperback cover folds closed over his hand, and I go completely still at the sight of the title. At the sight of that book.
Knowing he liked to read, I gifted Moffy Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand for Christmas. I read that book around his age, so I thought he might enjoy it. I never saw him open the fucking present. I just thought he trashed it.
Off my stunned silence, Moffy says, “I know I’ve been…distant but…” His gaze drops to the paperback. “My dad said that I can love you and him at the same time, and I want you to know…that I do.”
I rub my eyes, tears just sliding.
Moffy wipes his with his forearm. “And…thanks.”
“For what?”
His tears fill to the fucking brim. “For taking care of my dad.”
I pinch my eyes, nodding repeatedly, unable to fucking speak. Fuck. I believed he’d do everything to erase me from his life. Lo is his father—in every fucking way. I could never take his spot. I’d never try to. I’d never want to.