Extra Bonus #83: Moffy & Xander's Heart-to-Heart (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 "Oh My Heart" by R.E.M. while writing this bonus scene.

SPOILER WARNING: There are major spoilers from NOBODY LIKE US in this bonus scene. We highly recommend reading this bonus after you've read NLU.

LIFE IS MOVING faster than I’d choose lately, so it’s these last days living at my childhood home with my brother and sisters that I try to take in. Days like these won’t be around forever. Unless—you know—an actual apocalypse happens and forces us all in the same location again.

Seeing as how I’ve now endured a fire and a flood, I’m sure the universe is planning to send locusts or an earthquake my way next. And I’d say, try us.

Nothing’s going to keep me or the people I love down. Pretty sure we’ve managed to prove that.

It’s a pizza night. While Xander and I wait for the delivery guy to show up with food for the whole household, we’re lounging on the couch in the living room. The Witcher plays on low volume, but we’ve been talking more than we’ve been watching TV.

“I never thought I’d go to New York,” Xander says, pushing the blocks of a Rubik's Cube while glancing over at me. “To live there, I mean. It seems like such a Cobalt thing, but I started thinking how dumb it is to believe a family has claim over an entire city.” He shrugs. “Even if it might be true.”

“If it’s true, then they have like one-fourth of the city,” I say. “A smidge. Barely there.”

Xander almost smiles. “Like a dust particle?”

“Smaller. Nanoscopic.”

“So small it can’t even be seen with our naked eye,” Xander says with a nod. “That sounds like wishful, glass-half-full thinking, and you know what? I’m gonna believe it because I’d rather not go to New York thinking it’s not meant for me.”

“There’s room for you, Summers.” I smile. “You’ll make it yours.” I say it with so much damn certainty, and his lips rise a little higher. “And you don’t need to compete with the Cobalts. They’ll be there for you and Luna.”

“I know,” Xander breathes, “but it’s still not the same…they’re not you.” He shies away from my gaze and stares at our brown-furred Newfies. Arkham and Erebor are sleeping beside the unlit fireplace, almost curled together. “I guess there’s no possible way you’d move to New York? Luna said it’s more likely the sun would explode tomorrow, and I Googled it. The sun is supposed to survive another five billion years.”

I wonder why our sister thinks it’d be that unlikely. But…she’s not wrong. New York hasn’t been on the table for me and Farrow for longer than a few minutes. We’ve been more occupied with trying to find a place to purchase in Philly.

“Sometimes I think about where I should be,” I tell him. “Probably too much.” I don’t tell him that it’s kept me up at night more than my five-month-old daughter. Cassidy isn’t as fussy as Ripley had been at her age, so it’s not like I’m tossing and turning every damn night. But yeah, I’ve lied in bed and contemplated what happens next.

To the point where my husband has snapped his fingers in my face and called me a space cadet. You want him?

Sorry. He’s all mine.

I wouldn’t let him go for any little or colossal thing.

“You probably don’t think about it more than me,” Xander mutters.

“Tell that to my husband who says I’m the World Champion Overthinker.”

Xander laughs, but his smile dips into a frown. “At least you don’t think so much that it makes you an anxious fucking mess.” He pushes at a yellow block on the cube.

I nudge his arm. “You’re doing well, Summers.”

His amber eyes flit up to me. “Thanks. I’m trying.”

I watch him exhale like that single breath weighed a million ton. “Don’t be hard on yourself.”

“That’s what Donnelly tells me sometimes.”

Donnelly. His bodyguard. Our sister’s boyfriend. My husband’s best friend.

My relationship to Donnelly is by proxy of those ones, so I can’t say that I’m the closet to him or that I know him better than Xander. But I’ve been able to see just how good he’s been for my little brother, and I’m so goddamn happy Donnelly is going to New York with him. And with Luna. In a way, it’s been easier accepting I won’t be there knowing that he will be. Because I have so much faith in him to keep my siblings on two feet.

I think he’d die a thousand times over before letting them fall too far. Just like I would’ve, and I can’t really ask for more or better. There is no one better.

Maybe not even me.

I have two kids and a husband. Donnelly just has them. They’re his whole world.

“The only reason I’d move to New York is for you and Luna,” I tell him. He holds my gaze while I talk. “But it’s not where I should be. You’re eighteen and about to start college. She’s in a relationship and just transferred to MVU too. I don’t want to say you won’t need me—”

“Good, because I might,” Xander says with force.

I love my brother. “I’ll be there as fast as my namesake,” I promise. “But I think…” I try not to get choked up. “I think I should be selfish. The philanthropy offices are in Philly, and Farrow has ties to Philly General. It just makes sense for us to plant roots here for now.”

“I hope you know…” Xander lifts his gaze back to me. “You deserve that, more than anyone.”

My chest swells. “You deserve to be happy, Summers. To spread your wings, and I bet a hundred points to Hufflepuff you’ll fly farther without me.”

“You’re not a crutch for us,” Xander says, surprising me. “I talked to Luna about it on the tour bus—about how it could look like we lean on you too much, but we both agreed that we just like you there, Moffy. I hope you know that.”

My eyes burn, and a knot balls in my throat. I could thank the world a million times over for my sisters and brother. I could thank you, but I realize the real people I need to thank are my mom and dad.

Thank you for them. “Yeah, I feel it,” I whisper, and honest-to-God, I shed a tear in front of my brother.

His smile is softer, and I wipe my face and exhale a long breath. “Fuck, I think a Cobalt dust particle flew in my eye.”

He laughs hard, and that sound is everything.

I open my eyes wide at him. “They’re still green, right?”

“Quickly turning blue,” Xander jokes.

“There has to be a cure for that.”

“You need your doctor-husband?”

“Yeah, no,” I grimace. Thank Christ Farrow isn’t in the room to hear my brother basically call him my cure.

Xander messes with the Rubik's Cube some more. “I can’t believe they’re still in that meeting. Security is acting like my graduation is a presidential election.”

Farrow and Donnelly are in our parents’ office. They’re on a video-chat call with the entire security team. Alpha, Epsilon, Omega. All in preparation for Xander and Easton’s graduation tomorrow.

“Most of the family is going,” I remind him. “It’s a big deal seeing you graduate.”

He sighs. “I wish I could skip it, but I know it’ll make Mom and Dad happy so…I’m going for them. Anyway…” He sits up straighter, glancing briefly at me. “I think it’ll be the last time I see Spencer before she leaves for Yale.”

Spencer. I smile.

“Shut up, man.” He’s smiling too. “Kindly.” He adds, “She’s just a friend.”

“You talk about her a ton.” He brings her up at least once in conversation every time I talk to him. Sometimes it’s just to say, Spencer would like that, or I bet Spencer would know that.

“Not that much,” he defends and eyes the staircase behind us. “Easton needs to come out of the shower so he can explain to you she’s just a friend. And I don’t even know if she considers me a good friend at this point. I’ve had to keep my distance at school, so no one hounds her, and school is where we've mainly seen each other outside of…” Flush ascends his neck, then his cheeks.

“Outside of…what?” I give him a look. “You okay?”

His eyes ping around the living room, then he drops his voice to a whisper, “I had sex with her.”

Wait, what? I blink at the shock of a century. Pretty sure I flatlined. And I revived myself—all within thirty-seconds. “Your first time?”

“Uh, yeah,” he says like I’m insane for thinking otherwise.

It feels good knowing my brother is still open with me. That this hasn’t changed as we’ve gotten older. He explains how he met up with Spencer at Superheroes & Scones—that it’d been planned between the two of them. That Donnelly knew, so there’d be security in case things went to shit.

Again, I am so glad he has him.

“You were safe?” I ask.

“Yeah, you know I would be,” he breathes, just as Easton descends the stairs in slacks and a tight-fitted black tee. And Xander says to his best friend, “I was just telling Moffy about Spencer and that whole thing between me and her…” He tosses Easton the Rubik's Cube after he takes a seat on the chair.

“How you lost your virginity?” Easton says too casually for this to be a flat-lining shocker. He’s probably known for a while. At first, admittedly, I was cautious of Easton Mulligan—knowing how he took Xander’s antidepressants, but now knowing more about his unstable home life and just how much they’ve needed each other, I wouldn’t want him to be anywhere else but in my brother’s life.

“Yeah, that thing,” Xander smiles, then lifts his shoulder to me in a shrug. “It was really good. Nothing I’d ever regret.”

I smile back. “So you do like her?”

“Yeah, but we’re moving on. She’s going to Yale, and I’ll be in New York. It was like a mile-marker. That’s what we decided.” He nods a lot.

“You sure you’re okay with that?”

Easton looks at him for a longer beat while his fingers move absentmindedly on the Rubik's Cube. He’s a few moves from solving the puzzle.

“I can’t really imagine her being with me,” Xander says, then winces. He turns to Easton. “She’s too sweet.”

“I’d agree.” He tosses the completed Rubik's Cube back to Xander. “I think she would too.”

I make a face. “What’s wrong with sweet?”

“My fans or whatever would eviscerate her,” Xander explains. “You know how it is, Moffy.”

Yeah.

I do.

I never wanted to be in a relationship because I didn’t want to subject anyone to the media scrutiny. Then I dated Farrow. He got doxxed. He was called a fame whore. He endured more than I would’ve wanted anyone to. For Xander, it’ll be worse. He’s more popular than I’ve ever been, and whoever he gets with will be scrutinized and picked apart like a test subject in a lab.

I never really thought too deeply about how I chose someone who could withstand the press and the fans. I didn’t really consider how my cousins dating bodyguards too also meant they were with people who knew how to face a firing squad.

Is that partially why we were drawn to them? I have no clue.

“Spencer has never even dealt with high school gossip,” Xander tells me.

“No one really knows she exists,” Easton explains.

“How the hell would she survive the world talking about her?” Xander shakes his head and sighs. “Yeah, this is for the best, and anyway, it was just about sex. Things can have no strings attached.”

“I do it all the time,” Easton says.

“With one girl,” Xander informs me.

“One girl,” Easton confirms to me, then shares a silent look with Xander. I can’t make sense of it, but it reminds me of something I’d do with Janie. I recognize I’m not supposed to know what’s beneath the look.

The doorbell rings. That’s about the same time my dad emerges with my two-year-old son propped on his side.

Right now, Farrow has Cassidy, and he said he’d text if he needed to hand her off to me during the meeting, so I’m not double-checking a baby monitor for her.

“Grandpoppy, pizza is here!” Ripley exclaims.

“That’s right, my favorite grandson. We’ve got pizza.”

“Why are you wearing sunglasses inside?” Xander asks our dad while I go answer the door. I hear his snarky response about living in darkness. Truth: He’s lost his prescription readers. He’s been searching for them all day.

Our gate security has brought us the pizza. They don’t usually let the delivery guy actually into the neighborhood.

“Thanks, man.” I take the towering stack of boxes.

Back in the living room, I hear Xander laugh with Easton, and I see his smile widen. He does that a lot more lately. You should know it’s one of the things I’ll miss when I’m gone.

As I place the boxes on the coffee table, my sisters come down the stairs with our mom and two more dogs, and Farrow and Donnelly emerge like a dinner bell has rung. It’s crowded and loud and loving, and I watch my son chat very seriously with my dad. This might not be forever but it’s now.

I’ve learned to treasure the present moment and embrace the little things, because of him. I smile over at Farrow. His own smile rises with so much affection. I’m going to live so goddamn happily with that man.

I’ve never doubted it. Because it’s already happened.

I’m living it.

Thank you so much for reading this month's extra bonus! We loved catching up with the Hale fam in this one. And seeing Maximoff's trajectory with his family is like a warm hug for us, so we always love writing it. We hope you enjoyed this one! 

That's it for February's content, but March is right around the corner. Be prepared for more bonuses and podcasts next month! 

xoxo Krista & Becca

"Moffy & Xander's Heart-to-Heart," Copyright © 2024 by K.B. Ritchie