Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 136025 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 680(@200wpm)___ 544(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 136025 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 680(@200wpm)___ 544(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
“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.
“I wanted to,” my mom says and she backs up into my dad’s chest. He holds her and hunches to rest his chin on her bony shoulder.
Farrow slowly unwraps the square-shaped package. Glancing at me, he asks, “You didn’t know about this?”
I shake my head. “No clue.”
He tears off the last piece of paper, and his smile stretches from cheek-to-cheek—and I’m groaning.
“Mom.”
“What?” She balks. “You probably don’t have any photos together of you two in public. I just thought it’d be nice—”
“I love it,” Farrow says.
“You do?” My mouth parts, my pulse still beating in my ears.
Farrow rotates the wooden-framed photograph to me. The picture was taken from a celebrity news site, a little watermark in the corner. In the photo, I stand with crossed arms near the love sign at LOVE Park. Farrow is close as my bodyguard, earpiece wire hanging.
But our eyes are on each other. I’m laughing like he said something funny. His smile is full-on James Franco. If it weren’t for the earpiece and the radio on his belt, he might look like a friend.
Maybe even a boyfriend.
But I hone in on the setting. Philadelphia. I remember that day. I was doing a photo-shoot for The Hollywood Reporter. It was before the tour. We’d just started dating.
My brows furrow. “Mom, this was before you knew we were a couple.”
“Yeah.” She clears her throat. “I had to scour some magazines for that one.”
“She was stalking you,” my dad says.
“Lo!” My mom slugs his arm.
He smiles affectionately. “Alright, love.” He looks to me. “She wasn’t stalking you.”