Luna starts reading again, and Kinney listens as intently as me. Only one page left and the door flies open.
“Mommy!” Five-year-old Xander races into the bedroom, floppy-eared Gotham hot on his heels. Xander’s smile is more apparent at the lake house than anywhere else. It’s the one safe place void of media attention.
No cameras in his face. No one shouting his name. We like bringing him here, especially when he needs to mentally relax and recuperate.
Xander tugs down his green Power Ranger shirt that rides up. Maybe he forgot what he wanted because he just stands still, smiling, pieces of his brown hair falling over his forehead. Gotham pants beside him.
Before I ask, my oldest son jogs into the bedroom, not out of breath, but smiling too.
“Hey, Mom.”
“Hi…?” I switch on Lily investigation mode.
Moffy lightly squeezes Xander’s shoulder in affection before tapping his sisters’ heads like bongos. “Luna, Kinney.” Then he pats mine. “Mom. Ready to go?”
“Wha…?”
Luna shuts her journal.
“Waitwaitwait, we have one page left.” I might have whined that. I’m just deeply invested in what happens to Zhola and Dash. It was a devoted whine, a whine that every person in every fandom may understand.
So there.
Luna says robotically, “Later.” She mimes a robot as she stands off the bed. Kinney slides off me and then the mattress before darting to Xander’s side.
I try to dust away the cobwebs of my brain, but confusion still crinkles my nose and brows. Moffy grabs both my hands and pulls me to my feet.
“What’s going on?” I ask my four kids. They’re never this sneaky. Luna has trouble keeping secrets from me; Kinney will rehash her entire day, including the driest details: I walked down the hall. I turned the doorknob. And then I sat on my bed; Xander lied once about doing his homework and two seconds later made a tearful confession; and Maximoff—he likes being treated like a grown-up, like if anyone is doing the sneaking, it’d be all the other little kids. Not him.
“It’s about my bike,” Moffy tells me.
I frown. “What about your bike?”
Moffy jabs his finger towards the door. “I left it on the west bank of the lake.”
How’d he get his bike over there? “Okay…” I trail off, my gaze drifting to the doorway where Loren Hale stands. I’m instantly distracted by him.
Cheekbones that cut like ice. Eyes like liquid scotch. He’s much more than an alcoholic beverage, and he knows it.
Lo flashes his iconic half-smile, and he says, “Never trust a bunch of Hufflepuffs to do a Slytherin’s job.”
Our three youngest kids pipe up at once, shouting about how they haven’t been sorted yet.
“I’m not eleven!” Kinney decrees.
“I’m a Hufflynclawdor,” Luna says.
“We gotta wait, Daddy. It’s too early for that,” Xander exclaims.
Lo cups his ear. “What was that? I can’t hear any of you. I’m immune to huffle-talk.”
They all groan like he’s the corniest dad in the entire universe.
I smile from ear-to-ear, gliding towards my best friend with gangly arms that ache to fit around him. Lo accepts the invitation, pulling me into the warmest, tightest hug.
He feigns a wince at our four children. “Christ, what is that on their faces? They’re smiling, Lil. Make ‘em stop.”
I peek at our kids, all four smiling big, standing in an uneven line. Wearing superhero and pop culture paraphernalia. Lo squeezes me, no longer teasing. He sees each one, each kid, his nostalgia brimming with mine.
Between years of missteps, fuck-ups, and setbacks, something beautiful and pure happened, and we’re viewing every little bit.
“Huh?” Kinney cocks her head at us. “This isn’t part of the—”
Moffy covers her mouth with his hands, crouching behind her.
“Ha!” I point at my kids. “Something is up.”
“I swear, Mom, it’s about my bike,” Moffy lies.
“Lying liar,” I start, but Lo swivels me around.
“Did you call our son a lying liar, Lily Hale?” Lo gives me a look while he guides me into the hallway. Lo is a good and bad distraction. Good: he’s Loren Hale. Bad: I’ve left our kids behind, and I only realize when we’re halfway down the stairs.
“Lo,” I complain, about to turn back.
His hands plant firmly on my shoulders, leading me forward. “This way, love.”
Cobalt boys zip past us to the living room. Most of the lake house chatter originates from the kitchen, everyone probably gearing up for lunch. Kinney and I always eat Pop-Tarts in the late morning as a snack.
“What’d you put them up to?” I question.
He opens the backdoor. “We have to get Moffy’s bike off the west bank.”
My brows scrunch. “That’s a real thing?” I thought for sure he made up a story.
Lo never answers, bending slightly and lifting me on his back. I hook my arms around his collar, legs around his waist. He carries me past the red chairs on the grassy hill, and we head towards the…dock?
“Wait—we’re rowing?” One of our wooden canoes sways in the water.
“I’m paddling, love. You’re sitting and searching for the bicycle.”
My hazy mind only slightly clears when he drops my feet on the dock. “Waitwaitwait,” I say quickly, hands up. The canoe is bound to tip over with me inside of it—I know because I went canoeing with Daisy, and we were in the water in two seconds flat. “This isn’t a Lily and Lo thing. This is a Ryke and Daisy thing.”
Lo glares. “It’s our kid’s bike. That makes it a Lo and Lily thing.”
“Lily and Lo,” I correct.
“If you’re such a smarty-pants, then you should know my older brother doesn’t have a monopoly on recreational activities. We can do them too, Lil.”
“But we usually avoid these types of things, don’t we?”
He pauses for a second, cagey. Knowing I’m right. “What I think? Today is a new goddamn day, and I’m not doing this without you, Lily Hale, so don’t make me.”
I succumb to Loren Hale’s pouty, pleading gaze. “Okay.” It takes me a wobbly few minutes, but we’re in the canoe. It hasn’t tipped over, sunk, or flooded.
Successes.
It’s not so bad. The light breeze on the lake cools the tiring summer heat, and the further Lo paddles from the dock, the quieter our surroundings become. Lush green mountains landscape the vast, rippling water. Calm and slow compared to the hectic bustle of Philly.
Lo sidetracks me more than the rolling mountains. His muscles carve beneath his charcoal crew-neck shirt, his arrowhead necklace flat on his chest. It’s not just his body, though that’s definitely nice—it’s this cutting but loving look in his eyes.
Like he could wipe out a species of ants if they nipped at me. Lo would also be the first to tell you that he’s more bark than bite.
“We could’ve brought another oar,” I realize. “I could’ve helped.”
He reaches out and squeezes my puny bicep. “Huh, I could’ve sworn this is where muscles are supposed to be.”
I slug his arm.
He feigns a wince. “Ouch.”
“My upper-body strength has vastly improved these past few years,” I defend while he resumes paddling.
“That Spider-Man weight is five-pounds, Lil. You haven’t upgraded in the past few years.”
“Because it’s Spider-Man,” I say, “and it’s cool.”
His smile dimples his cheeks.
Before I’m lost to those dimples, a wasp buzzes around us, and I freak out—sliding to the far right of my canoe bench. “Lo! Wasp!” I duck, careful not to swat. I swatted at a bee once, and it fought back and stung my hand.
Lo stands up, the canoe swaying.
We’re going to tip over. “OhmyGod.” I duck again.
Lo sits beside me, and then he stretches out his shirt. “In you go.”
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I know what to do. Seeking safety from the wasp, I stick my head beneath the bottom of his shirt, sharing the fabric with him. Right up against his bare chest. I sense Lo swatting the wasp with his oar.
“Is it gone?!” I shout like he can’t hear me. You’re pressed up against him. Of course he can hear. It’s hard to forget where I am. My arms are tight around his waist, the warmth of his bare skin like home.
The canoe steadies as Lo goes still. He peeks down at me, through the collar of his shirt. His genuine smile begins to swell my heart.
“What…?” I breathe, slowly slipping out from beneath the fabric. I glance around, the wasp gone. We drift lazily towards the west bank.
Lo holds me to his chest, our limbs tangled up together. His face is sharp like steel blades built upon years and years of battles lost and won.
“These years…” he starts, and I know this is much more than a wasp. This is more than a bicycle. Whatever this is, it exists in our decades together. “These years have been epic, and not because it was easy—because it wasn’t always—but because you and me, we flew.”
My tears brim, and I see us fly beyond our lowest expectations for ourselves, all the hard parts where our addictions tried to weigh us down.
We flew.
“You made that possible, you have to know that,” Lo says, his voice lowering. “Without you, I just don’t know, Lil.” When his dad died, it’d been his lowest point in years.