Page 107 of Headstrong Like Us

Silent tears stream.

His lip rises in this soft, loving smile, and he whispers, “Was it the movie or something else?”

I think for a second. “The movie.” I blink, my eyes wet and raw, and I pinch them. “And I don’t know why…” My chin quakes.Fuck.

Farrow shrugs, wiping at his own eyes. “It’s art. Art has the power to move people in different ways.” He lifts his brows. “You were moved, wolf scout.”

My face feels beet-red, and tears continue to leak out of the corners. But our eyes stay fastened.

He fists his shirt, about to pull the fabric off again, but he stops.

This time, I tug the tee off over his head. Leaving us both bare-chested. When I try to hand him the shirt, he pushes it back into my hands.

“Keep it.”

I wipe my nose with the black fabric.

He sweeps my features, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Is there a reason why you didn’t want me to give you that before?”

I heat up again. “I was thinking about when you threw me the shirt off the yacht.” I’ve brought up this day in our history before, but I ask, “Do you remember that?”

His lip starts to rise, a know-it-all smile. “I remember everything. Definitely more than you.”

I let out an irritated breath, and I realize he paused the film. And my icepack fell to the floor. My eyes meet his. “Then you must remember how I returned the shirt to you.”

Farrow blinks, rifling through his mind for that moment. “At the…Movie on the Green, for Kinney’s 10thbirthday. I was there as your mom’s bodyguard.”

I nod strongly. “Yeah.”

He smiles. “I was surprised you didn’t just hold onto the shirt, tear it up in little pieces and paste it in your diary next to all the hearts around my name.”

“I wish I had,” I say seriously, even though he was joking.

That proclamation heavies the air. He searches me for clarification.

I keep going. “I was so damn stubborn. I still am, I know that—butGod, I wish I’d just held onto something of yours that meant something to me. Instead, I let it go out of…morality. Because it waswrongto have your clothing in my possession.”

Farrow reaches down and clasps my calf. He brings my foot up to the sofa. “Is that what this is about?” His fingers skim the leather holster attached to my shin, and he slips out the tactical knife that he gifted me in Greece.

I just nod at first, the words piling on too quickly in my brain. It takes me a minute to release them in order. “I hate that I lost things in the fire that remind me of you. I know it’smaterialpossessions. I know it shouldn’t fucking matter in the long-run, but I spent mywholelife just moving forward andmoving forward, and for once, I want to preserve the good things from the past.”

He carries deep understanding. “I was sad about losing our things in the fire, and I know why it’d be harder for you. But our memories are preserved. They won’t burn.”

Another unrestrained tear skates off my jaw. “What if I wanted to make more memories? What if I want to preserve the good of the pastforthe future. For our kids?” I nod to the knife. “So that isn’t just an idea but a tangible, real thing that they can see.”

His eyes well up again. Farrow swallows hard and nods a couple times. “I’m not a three-month philosophy major like you.”

I groan. He could’ve just said “philosophy major” and not mentioned my short timespan in college.

He smiles again, loving to annoy me. “Look, I don’t want to say that how you think is wrong. Because it’s not.”

“But,” I say, feeling abutcoming on.

He tilts his head. “But…I love you, Maximoff. That’s it. If you need to wear the knife and bracelet I gave you for years for sentimental preservation, then okay. And maybe one day you’ll let me wear them half the time.”

I begin to smile through my tears. “Maybe.”

22