Page 63 of Headstrong Like Us

That hits me. Because he’s older—and I don’t know, he acts like he can do a lot of fucking stuff on his own. Without me.

We’re quiet for the next few minutes. Just touching each other’s hands and letting our breaths slow. Settling into this decision. It’s not long before Donnelly returns with three bags of chips and cans of Fizz.

“They were out of Fizz Life,” Donnelly says as Farrow stands. “Tried to find another machine, but shit, this hospital is confusing…” He stops talking and glances between me and Farrow. Confusion pleats his brows. “What—what’d I miss?” He drops the snacks and cans on the desk.

Farrow takes a step forward. “I’m going to become the guardian.”

Donnelly shakes his head with force. “No, I can’t ask you.”

“You don’t have to.”

His face cracks, and Farrow steps closer to put his arms around him just as Donnelly breaks down, bringing his own shirt up to cover his face.

Aristotle said it best.

Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies.

13

MAXIMOFF HALE

The court grantedFarrow temporary guardianship, and this healthy, beautiful baby boy is a stage 10 clinger.

And for some damn reason, he’s clinging tome.

At 4 a.m. in my childhood bedroom, I’m cradling a fussy baby against my chest and walking from my comic book rack over to the nightstand. The movement lulling the four-month-old back to sleep. I step around the sunken air mattress that we’ve abandoned re-inflating.

Farrow tried, and the baby acted like we chucked him into monster-infested waters. He doesn’t know it yet, but unless you fuck with my family, you’re pretty much safe from being shark bait.

You, the world, have zero clue about the baby and our new setup. It’s only Night 2. And it’s not every day a baby is dropped on your doorstepwhileyou’re planning a wedding—a wedding that’s mentioned nightly on entertainment news,whilepaparazzi are harassing you for details.

Welcome to my strange life.

Directed by Unknown Forces. Maybe God. I’m not that religious, but I’d like to think that this is supposed to happen the way it’s happening.

It makes me a bit less apprehensive.

And it’s hard not to smile when I’m holding this little soft thing that smells like baby powder and citrus, even after washing him with fragrance-free Hale Co. baby soap.

I pace to the desk, the graphic novelDaytripperby Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon buried underneath a pack of wipes and diapers. The baby curls his tiny fists against my bare chest. Settling down.

I rub his back. I can’t imagine what he’s been through the first four-months of life. It’s honestly a miracle that he’s not rejecting both of us.

Just one of us.

“Hand him over.” Farrow rests coolly against the nightstand and makes a come-hither motion. “You can’t carry him around for decades, wolf scout.”

Sounds like a challenge.

I open my mouth to respond. But he’s a full-fledged distraction to my brain thatloveshow he’s doing absolutely nothing.

That’s right. Farrow is just annoyingly at ease, his leisurely state almost infectious.

I drink in his shirtless torso: gorgeous gray-scale tattoos sprawled across his body and the colorful sparrows and swallows throughout. I skim higher, to his barbell nipple piercing.

Higher, to his growing smile.

To his recently dyed hair. Back to bleach-white, which contrasts his brown eyebrows that rise at me. “You want a picture?”