Main Bonus #64: Farrow Meets Donnelly's Rage (Patreon)

IMPORTANT: Please do not screenshot and post any part of this bonus scene to other sites or share with non-patrons. All of the Patreon content is exclusive to Patreon and for current patron's eyes only.  Thank you!! xoxo Krista & Becca

RESOURCES:  Check out this narrative timeline graphic to visually see when this bonus scene takes place.

MUSIC: We listened to "How's it Going to Be" and "Jumper" by Third Eye Blind while writing this bonus scene.

SPOILER WARNING: This bonus takes place during UNLUCKY LIKE US and will contain MAJOR spoilers from the book and will ruin your reading experience if you have not read Unlucky first.

MY PHONE DETONATES with a series of extremely annoying texts, and I squint at the bright light of the screen in my dark room. Maximoff is so tired, he hasn’t budged an inch in bed—not even when I shifted my arm off his chest.

With another blink, I’m able to skim the lengthy messages from my uncle.

Something, something, software glitch, something, lost your notes on Luna from this morning of discharge, something, need to reenter notes from today.

Not my favorite thing to be woken up to. I attempt to quietly fling the comforter off my legs and slip out of bed.

“Farrow?” Maximoff says groggily, doing his Wolf Scout best to wake the fuck up for whatever “doomsday” he’s afraid still exists. What he won’t tell anyone is that he’s actually waking up for me.

“Go back to sleep, wolf scout,” I whisper, casting a glance back at him while I pull on black drawstring pants.

He’s sitting up in bed, about to reach for the lamp.

My smile stretches. “You need me to repeat it slower?” I ask, just to piss him off.

“Yeah. Repeat it slower, faster, backwards, a gazillion times,” he says dryly.

“Let me guess,” I say, “you’re still not going to listen to me.”

“Huh, you know me. Who would’ve thought?”

“Me.”

Maximoff tries to scowl over his smile. “It’s like we’re married or something.” He fights a yawn. “Fuck.” He swallows that yawn. It’s cute how badly he wants to be alert, but I really, really would love for him to just go back to sleep.

And then to no one’s surprise, my stubborn husband switches on the lamp. The warm glow barely illuminates our bedroom.

I open my nightstand drawer and grab a pack of gum. “One of us needs to get some rest.”

Maximoff battles another yawn. “Yeah, and that should be you, man.” At least he hasn’t climbed out of bed yet. “You’ve been awake for who the fuck knows how long.”

“I’m on-call,” I remind him. Even with Luna home for the first time today, I’ve been pulled back to the hospital because Lily is still there.

His shoulders lock and alarm shadows his face, suddenly realizing this might be a hospital thing. “You have to go back now? Is my Mom—”

“She’s fine. It’s just paperwork shit.” I sweep him. To be honest, he doesn’t look that exhausted. Shadows aren’t shading his eyes. His body isn’t sunken in fatigue. But he hasn’t been sleeping much lately either.

He runs a hand through his thick hair, his biceps cut like he’s about to go wrestle the sick fuckers who hurt his sister and mother. I get wanting to strangle who did this, but they’re already in jail.

I raise my brows at him. “Go back to sleep.”

“The more you say it, the less I want to do it,” he retorts.

I roll my eyes and shake my head, beginning to smile again. “See, we have this really cute kid together—”

“Had no clue.”

I smile more. “You definitely woke up on the smartass side of the bed.”

“Only because you took the bossy side, apparently,” he flings back.

Damn. I check him out, not wanting to leave Maximoff, but if I stay, I might actually keep him up, and that’s not what needs to happen here. “We have this cute kid,” I restart, “and I’d love to see him ask why his dad is yawning every two seconds—”

“You sure that’s not going to be you?”

I give him a pointed look. “I’m used to pulling 24-hour shifts at a hospital with no sleep. You’re used to dropping out of Harvard.”

He starts groaning. “Jesus, we get it. You think you’re better at being sleep deprived.”

I let out a laugh. “And you’re still a precious smartass.”

He flips me off with two fingers.

In the next beat, our gazes relax on each other with tenderness and affection. These past couple days have been intense as fuck. Stressful. Emotional. And these light-hearted back-and-forths with Maximoff—where I aggravate him and he pretends to hate it—is the warmth inside a colder reality.

His sister can’t remember the past three years. We’re still unsure of the severity of her amnesia, and there is so much more to unpack on top of that shit.

Do your motherfucking job, Farrow.

Paperwork. Med team. I sweep my husband again. “I’ll just be a half hour, then I’m coming back to bed.”

Maximoff lets out a breath. “Is there anything I can do?” I’ve cracked a fairly good guess that he’s feeling a little bit helpless when it comes to his sister’s situation. He gave her the tour of the penthouse this morning, but I wasn’t here to see how it went.

Over the phone, he told me, “I think she doesn’t trust me.” He explained more of his feelings and the interaction.

I said, “Just be yourself, wolf scout.”

“Which self, Farrow?” he asked tensely. “Who I am today or who I was three years ago?”

“Who you are right now.”

Maximoff was quiet, and I knew he was afraid that Luna would be scared of him. But he can’t pretend to be someone he’s not for his sister. If he lies, she’ll figure it out. Luna is smart and perceptive, and he’s honestly not that different. There are so many pieces of Maximoff that’ve stayed the same since I started dating him.

He’s still headstrong as fuck. Still an integral person inside the famous ones. Still the brother who’d drop everything for his sister when she needs him most.

She might not be that freaked out in the end. I reminded him of this, and he just said, “Yeah, alright.”

In our bedroom now, I tell Maximoff, “The best thing you can do is get some sleep for our son.”

He exhales a bigger breath. “Yeah.” He glances at the baby monitor on my nightstand.

I check it. Ripley is sound asleep in a toddler bed. He kept scaling the crib and escaping, so we had to retire it sooner than planned. Plus, every time he saw our bed, he’d ask why he didn’t have one like ours. He started hating that crib, and thankfully he loves his new bed.

I toss the baby monitor to Maximoff.

He catches it and checks on our son too. “He’s getting so big.”

“Sad?” I ask quietly, seeing the downturn of his lips.

Maximoff intakes another breath. “Just thinking…about how crushing it’d be if I couldn’t remember the simple days with him. The ones where he tried to play frisbee in my parents’ front yard and could barely throw the thing, but he wouldn’t stop trying. How you had him on your shoulders and he lowered his ice cream cone so you could taste it. His first baseball game and his eyes going so big when fireworks lit up the sky. When he giggled throughout the Lego Movie and cried when Mufasa died in The Lion King. All of it. Our son. With us.”

My chest swells, and emotion pricks my eyes. My life is priceless in the company of Maximoff and our kid—which is soon to be kids. Plural.

I can’t place myself in Luna’s shoes for too long, not like he can. It’s too devastating for me to imagine, and I’m not torturing myself with that shit. But Maximoff is extremely empathetic, which is one of the many reasons why I love him.

“She’ll remember again,” I tell him quietly.

He runs his thumb over his knuckles, staring at his hands. “Is that the confidence of her doctor or her brother-in-law?”

He’s asking me if my medical knowledge is making me come to this conclusion. The truth: it’s not that simple. “Half and half.”

He hates that answer.

Shit, I could’ve said thirty-seventy. Half and half sounds more hopeful to me. “Don’t overthink it, Maximoff.”

He growls out a groan and slides back in bed, lying down. “You better not put that on my headstone.”

I smile. “I won't because I'm not outliving you."

He smashes his head back into the pillow and grumbles something inaudible. I’ve sufficiently irritated him back to sleep, and with my phone in my hand, I leave the room and pop my gum in my mouth.

I text my uncle while making my way to the kitchen. If this takes longer than a half hour, I might need a coffee. Once I pocket my phone, I round the dark living room into the even darker kitchen, and I slow my steps, seeing Donnelly awake.

My gut drops.

He’s gripping the butcher block counter, hunched forward and shirtless, but the dark is shadowing his expression. I can’t make out his face.

I frown. “Hey?” I flip on the kitchen light, and the warm glow washes over Donnelly as he looks over at me. His pallid, clammy skin isn’t even what’s concerning and disturbing me. It’s this hate-filled look that hallows out his exhausted eyes. In all the years I’ve known Donnelly, he’s never worn malice. My friend embodies love, not hatred.

He eyes my inked chest and my drawstring pants. “Couldn’t sleep?” he asks.

“I was woken up by texts. Hospital paperwork.” I chew my gum slower. His chestnut hair is damp, the strands pushed out of his face, but fuck, his eyes—they’re shaded reddish and purplish with more than fatigue. “You look like shit.”

He doesn’t move an inch. His muscles are tensed. His jaw muscle even tics.

Okay, I’m extremely fucking concerned now. Not that it was ever shut off. As soon as I realized he’d be in contact with his dad, I was worried about him. Luna might be constantly on Maximoff’s mind, but Donnelly is on mine. While she has so many people looking out for her, Donnelly's going to slip by acting like he doesn’t need anyone looking out for him.

When he does.

I’m standing here, and I see that he does. I’ve seen that he does. Because this person in front of me is so far from the Donnelly I know, but he will always be someone I love. I know that too.

“I’m alright,” he mumbles out.

I come closer and kick open the trash bin. I spit out my gum, then scan his features again.

“Stop,” Donnelly sneers, giving me a malignant look.

“Man, this isn’t like you. What’s going on?”

“I’m fine!” Donnelly shouts like I’m accosting him. “Just get the fuck away from me.”

I shift my weight, uneasy and confused. He’s still clenching the counter like he’s forcing himself not to come at me, his knuckles already busted to shit. I raise a hand to calm him. “Donnelly—”

He shoves my chest.

What the fuck. I sway back, more in fucking shock. Anger from a dark, deep place is all over Donnelly’s face, and he pushes me again, this time more forceful.

I grit down on my teeth, breathing harder with him, and I send him one warning look. He meets it like he wants to see the floor. So when he snaps forward, I’m prepared, and I have Donnelly on the ground in seconds.

He’s fighting against me, and he’s not some scrawny fucking kid. This is my friend who used to spar with me every week and lift weights afterward. He’s twenty-nine and has muscle to his name, but I’m stronger and more built…but he’s angrier.

I don’t know if it’s at me, or at someone else.

“Donnelly,” I grit out, putting him in a submission lock on the kitchen floor. “Just stop.” He’s still struggling and pushing against my arms.

I shift so he doesn’t break out of my restraint. I sit up against the cabinets, my leg fastening his to the floor. His back is against my chest, and I hook my arm around his neck, careful of the chokehold.

“Breathe,” I urge against his ear.

He says nothing.

“Talk to me.”

He says nothing.

It’s killing me. This isn’t him. This isn’t him. I absolutely fucking hate seeing him this tortured and haunted by rage—this is so unlike the person he is.

And then with heavy breath, he chokes out, “I…need it to stop.”

“What to stop?”

“This…feeling, man.” A gnarled, pained noise comes out of him, and he lets go of my arm, just to cover his face.

I move around Donnelly and kneel on one knee in front of him, my hand on the back of his skull, so he’ll look up at me. Before I can say a single word, Donnelly chokes out, “Just go. You’re gonna have another baby.”

It pulverizes me so much more in this moment than it has the handful of times he’s said it before. He’s still shielding his face.

“Look at me,” I urge, my grip strengthening on his head.

Finally, he lowers his hand, his reddened eyes meeting mine.

And I’m not looking at just some friend I met before college. I’m looking at the person I’ve never wanted to shake off or leave behind. I’m looking at the person I never want to lose in my lifetime.

“You are my family,” I tell Donnelly with the conviction he deserves and with everything that I fucking know. Tears have built in our eyes. “That’s never changing.”

I’ll never abandon him. He has me until I die. He’s a part of my life. Closer than a friend, and the closest thing I have to a brother. It’s been Donnelly.

I haven’t said it enough. Shit, I’ve barely said it at all. Lo reminded me that the things I believe are seen in action are things that actually need to be said. So I say them now, and Donnelly breaks open, the tensed-up rage pouring out into a flood.

He bawls against his hand and my chest, his body heaving. I can’t figure out what’s eating at him tonight, but he has a lot that could be gnawing him from the inside-out. The list is too long.

Luna forgetting him.

His family kidnapping her.

Being back in South Philly with his dad.

Being arrested.

The press all over him.

The public who hates him.

The fucking nurse who stabbed at his arm.

I could keep going, but I’m trying not to assume the exact root of the issue. Maybe he’ll tell me. Soon, his breathing slows and his body slackens.

He sniffs hard, his tears stopping, and after I grab a couple waters from the fridge, we’re leaning on the cabinets side-by-side.

I take a sip, staring out at the island cupboards in front of us, then I rest my arms on my knees. He’s calmer. Less pent-up with aggression and fury.

He swigs the water and spins the cap back and forth on the plastic bottle. “I woke up thrashing.” His voice is hoarse.

“You haven’t slept,” I say, hushed in the quiet of the kitchen. “Being overtired can cause night terrors.” It’s not that surprising Donnelly is having these problems.

His nose flares, his chest rising with more emotion. “It’s Ulic Qel-Droma.”

Ulic? “Who?” I make a face at him.

“He’s a Jedi Knight.”

“Luna,” I realize.

“I read some of the comics in the hospital, while I was waiting for her to wake up, and Ulic—even with his good intentions, he was consumed with rage.” He props his arms on his knees too. “I walked into that row house, and I genuinely thought nothin’ could hold me back from the light. I’ve walked through so much shit my whole life, and nothing has latched on to me like this. But seeing her there—I brought it back with me.”

The image of Luna in that row house is what’s haunting him. I can still see her unconscious on the couch and Donnelly cuffed on the floor. It’s vivid in my mind. I forget almost nothing I see and read and watch, and sometimes I hate it.

Sometimes I’ve wanted to forget.

I used to smell rain on asphalt and be thrown back to almost losing the love of my life. I would’ve loved to carve out the seconds where I thought Maximoff was going to die and erase them for good.

I’ve never had a patient with amnesia. I’ve never really thought about what it’d mean to truly lose a memory, even the bad ones, or how badly I’d want to remember.

I look over at Donnelly. He brought it back with him. The hatred he feels for his family. It’s attached to the memories of that night, and it’s not going to be that easy to shake.

I extend an arm over his shoulders. “We’ll get through it, and being honest, PTSD is a typical outcome with what happened.”

“PTS-who? I just told you I’m a Jedi Knight.”

“Shut the fuck up.” We share a smile, and as mine softens, I eye the chain around his neck, and I pinch the blue-tinted crystal off his chest. This is from Luna. Geek paraphernalia.

“Hales,” Donnelly says.

“Gotta love them.”

“Truths.” He swallows a deeper gulp of water.

I drop the crystal. “Technically, I’m not your doctor—”

“You don’t say?”

“—but you do need a sleep study, like I’ve told you for years, and therapy might help.” It’s an option. One I doubt he’ll take, but I can’t promise it will help him for certain.

“I might just go grab a bagel at Lucky’s. Incognito and shit.” No one can know he’s been let out of jail. It’s a fucking mess. One I just want cleaned up sooner for his sake. Because I swear to God, if he ends up back in jail, I will lose my shit on someone.

Lucky’s—he’s not going alone. I pick myself off the floor. “I’ll drive. You text Oscar, see if he’s awake.” Oliveira will want to come. Maybe he can cheer up Donnelly more.

“No phone.”

I toss my cell to him.

He looks up at me with eyes I know. Eyes I remember. Ones full of serenity and love. And as I reach out, he clasps my hand, and I help pull him to his feet.

“I’ll be a sec. I need to get dressed and tell Maximoff I’m going.”

“I’ve gotta get clothes on too.” He’s texting Oscar when I leave.

Quietly, I return to my bedroom, and Maximoff startles awake like he’d only been in a half-sleep. His brows scrunch when I start opening a drawer and pulling out black pants.

Before he asks, I tell him, “I’m grabbing some breakfast with Donnelly.” Paperwork is going on the backburner. It can wait, mostly since Luna has already been discharged.

Maximoff glances at the time. “Right now?”

“He needs to get out for a second.” I step out of drawstring pants and into boxer-briefs.

“Wait, is he even allowed to go outside?”

I give him a look like he knows the answer is no.

“Farrow—”

“We’ll be discreet,” I cut in. “Just don’t go ratting us out to our boss.”

“I wouldn’t,” he says firmly. “I know who I'm married to.”

“The guy who rocked your teenage fantasies,” I say.

He looks like he’d love to open the door and push me out. I’m grinning, even as he says, “The maverick of SFO, the rule-breaker, the one who takes every goddamn risk for the people he cares about—like the risk you took just being with me.”

Yeah, that gets to me. With my shirt in my hand, I come over and clutch his jaw, just to kiss him. He kisses back stronger, with deepening affection, and it takes everything to break the kiss and end it short.

I pull my shirt over my head, then grab my wallet off the dresser.

“Is he okay?” Maximoff suddenly asks. “Donnelly.”

I turn back. “He loves your sister, and she has no memory of him. On top of all the other shit he’s had to do with his family, I think you’d have to be a sociopath to be okay, and he’s definitely not that.”

Maximoff nods a few times. “Don’t worry about anything here. Just go be with your friend.”

And maybe I haven’t told my husband enough, maybe I should’ve done that too from the very start, so given the chance now, I tell him, “He’s more than a friend.”

Maximoff nods again, holding my gaze even stronger. “I know.”

I nod back, emotion filling my lungs. He’s known. I leave with that comfort and peace.

Thank you so much for reading this month's main bonus! We love showing a bit of what Moffy and Farrow were going through during this time in Unlucky Like Us. Plus this scene with Donnelly was one of our top favorites in ULU, so it was really fun to explore it from Farrow's perspective. We hope you enjoyed it! Another bonus is on its way tomorrow and the extra podcast will also be coming tomorrow, so keep on the lookout!

xoxo Krista & Becca

"Farrow Meets Donnelly's Rage," Copyright © 2023 by K.B. Ritchie