Some Kind of Perfect (Calloway Sisters #4.5) (37 page)

“Bye, Robby!” Moffy waves.

The long line of people stretching outside Superheroes & Scones suddenly
screams
at the sight of us. I imagine Banshee, an X-Men, sounds just like this. Both Maximoff and Luna immediately cover their ears with their hands.

Garth—burly, bald and beautiful Garth is waiting at the glass door. He holds it open, and we slip inside. Customers aren’t as loud, but they quickly whip out their phones to catch a picture.

“Break room,” I tell Moffy.

He skips ahead of me. The break room is semi-full, and I tell everyone
hi
in under a second. Then I direct Moffy into the storage room, no employees in sight.

He hops on a cardboard box, sitting next to an old Magneto cutout that used to be in the window. My puny arm starts to give out, so I put Luna in a box of Iron Man plushies. She hugs one and starts giggling.

I call Lo and press the
speaker button
while it dials.

“Why are you so red?” Moffy asks. “Are you sick?” He tries to reach up and touch my forehead.

“I’m not sick.” I sit in front of him, phone ringing, Luna in a box of plushies beside me. “I flush for a lot of different reasons, but none are bad.”
Don’t be worried about me.
It’s my job to worry about
him
. I brush his dark brown hair off his forehead. He needs a haircut soon. “Moffy…?”

“Yeah, Mommy.”

“I’m okay. I’m your mommy, and I worry about you so much. But you never have to worry about me. Your job is to play, be the big brother to Luna, read comic books and run around the yard. The last thing you need to do is worry about me.”

His face falls. “But I love you.”

I wipe the corners of my eyes.

“Don’t cry, Mommy!” He rubs my face with all of his fingers.

I just realize that the phone stopped ringing. “Lily?”

My heart sinks. “Lo?”

I hear papers rustle, drawers slamming, and maybe the jingling of keys. “Where are you?”

He heard a lot.
“Nonono, you don’t have to leave work.”

“Daddy, Mommy’s crying.”

“It’s okay, bud. Where are you at?”

“Superheroes—”

“I’m not crying anymore. I shed one tear!” I tell Lo. I also put my hand in the Luna box. She grabs hold of my fingers with a giggle.

“You could tell me you were flying with Peter Pan, and I’d still leave to come find you.”

I frown at that scenario. “That doesn’t make any sense, Lo. You’re my Peter Pan.

“Maybe not in an alternate universe.”

“I don’t like this.” I hold the phone closer to Moffy’s lips. “Our son told the paparazzi a joke today. Moffy, want to tell Daddy?” Please let him share in my mortification. I don’t want to be alone here. Though, I know I will be the only burnt tomato.

Moffy leans towards the speaker. “What do you call a woman with four legs?”

I hear a soft,
Bye, Mr. Hale
in the background. “What?”

“Doggy style!” Moffy shouts just like last time.

I hear a
bang.
“Christ.”

“What happened?”

“This wall came out of nowhere.” He walked into the wall.

I smile.

“Mommy’s smiling!” Moffy narrates.

Lo asks, “Where’d you hear that joke from?”

“Jordan.” A boy down the street. “Isn’t it funny? It’s like Coconut. She’s a girl and she’s a dog.”

My shoulders lower, and I exhale. He has no idea it’s about sex. If there’s a magical wizard watching out for me, thank you
for this one. I really needed that. I’m not ready for a huge sex conversation. Moffy didn’t realize that all girls have vaginas until Luna was born, and I wasn’t there when he told Lo, “Mommy’s not the only one with a vagina.”

I kind of wish I was present because it would’ve been a good prep course for the big leagues:
the
sex talk.

I tell Moffy, “How about we keep that joke just between all of us?”

“Like a secret?”

“Yep.”

Moffy nods in understanding just as the storage door opens. Garrison Abbey slips inside, black shirt and black jeans. Since he no longer works at Superheroes & Scones, his sudden appearance seems less like a coincidence.

“Lo,” I say into the phone, “you didn’t tell Garrison, did you?”

“Tell me what?” Garrison stands by an old, dusty comic stand.

Moffy leaps off the box and runs towards Garrison. “Uncle Garrison!” He gives Garrison a cool secret handshake.

“Never mind,” I say to Garrison about the same time Lo says, “What?”

I realize Lo wouldn’t send Garrison, out of everyone, to check up on me. We check up on Garrison—it’s how it’s always been. And we told Moffy to start calling him
uncle
about the minute Garrison moved in with us. There was a chance he’d never be with Willow long-term, but we knew Garrison would always be a part of our family, no matter what.

“I have to go,” I tell Lo.

“I’ll see you soon, love.” After quick
I love yous
we hang up on one another.

Garrison walks closer to me, Moffy trying to mimic him step-for-step like Garrison is his best friend. “I need your help on something.” It’s why he’s here.

I tickle the Luna box, and she tugs my finger with another giggle. “What can I do?”

Garrison sips his Lightning Bolt! energy drink and gestures to the cardboard boxes labeled
The Fourth Degree
. Freshly plastic-wrapped comics in each, all extras to replenish shelves or too obscure to take up shelf space.

“I need every comic that has Sorin-X. There are too many issues and spin-offs now. Honestly, I just don’t have time to go through all of them.”

I don’t ask why he needs them yet. I pick myself off the floor. “Moffy, there’s a little Luna in a box—”

“I got her, Mommy.” He goes to the Luna box and plays with his sister. I was in full-on
make this sound fun and not like a babysitting chore
mode, but he squashed that instantly. To him, I think babysitting
is
fun.

I pat the dust off my leggings. My baggy
Star Wars
T-shirt hangs to my thighs. “They’re all in here.” I guide Garrison to
The Fourth Degree
labeled boxes. “Lo will be here soon, and he might be more help. He’s read every issue about a million times.”

We rip open two boxes and start flipping through the comics, setting aside the ones with Sorin-X. The ones without the comic book character, I try to gingerly slip them back into their plastic covers.

“Are you going to read these?” I wonder.

Garrison places another comic on the pile. “What else would I be doing with them?”

“I don’t know.” I try to narrow my eyes at him and piece apart his motives. “You don’t really read comics, not like Willow.” I point out another fact, “You had no clue who Cypher was when you started working here.”

“Yeah, and none of the employees ever let me forget it.” His lips begin to rise like he misses those days where he worked at Superheroes & Scones. Willow was here back then, and I think she’s the soul of his nostalgia. “I’ve read New Mutants, by the way.”

My giddy smile spreads across my face. “Because of Willow?”
Young love.
I witnessed their beginning—and much, much more. I don’t think I’ll ever have to witness their end.

It’s not so much a prediction as it is a fact now.

“Yeah, because of Willow.” He tries to shake a comic back into the plastic.

“Which brings everything to Twitter,” I tell him. “
Gillow Engagement
has been trending all day, did you see?” I remember reading the headlines of articles:
Willow Hale Gets Engaged! Check out Loren Hale’s New Brother-In-Law Inside!!

He proposed to her in London, and even though they’d mentioned marriage to one another before, he looked so nervous at dinner. She had no idea we were in the restaurant, and after he dropped to one knee and she said
yes
, we surprised her by appearing.

There was an abundance of tears and smiles.

Now that he’s back in Philly, Willow stayed at college in London, so they’re still split apart while she’s studying and he’s working. None of us questioned their engagement. Daisy said that when Garrison talks about Willow and when Willow talks about Garrison, they look like they’re smiling up at the moon.

Rose called them love-struck in London.

I think they’ve been love-struck since the first moment they met. Long-distance did nothing but strengthen them.

They’re planning to marry around the time she graduates, but they’re keeping this fact secret from the media. It was too hard to conceal the engagement news with all of us together in London.

I also tell Garrison, “Connor said you both made GBA Entertainment News last night too.” I thought Connor only watched CNN and Bloomberg TV, so it’s possible he just cruised through the channel and caught the Willow and Garrison segment in passing.

“He watches entertainment news?” Garrison says with cinched brows.

“That was my reaction.”

Garrison flips through a comic. “You also forgot about
Garlow Engagement
and
Wilson Engagement
.”

All three have been trending. It’s been years and no one can decide their ship name. Willow said she doesn’t want to choose a side with the fans, so she supports all three. Garrison isn’t into ship names like us, but we look past his flaws.

When they had no relation to us, they used to be out of the tabloids completely. Now they’ve made television news, magazine headlines, and even Twitter trends.

“Does all of this bother you?” I wonder. “You and Willow never talk to us about the media presence.”

He shrugs. “Being around you guys, it just comes with the territory, and we both kind of gradually stepped into it.” He tilts a comic upside-down, his brown hair hanging in his eyes.

In all the years I’ve known him, he’s never changed his hairstyle. He did ditch the hoodies though, about the same time he moved into our house and stopped seeing his brothers.

“Lily…can I ask you something?” He peeks over at Moffy to make sure he’s not listening. Moffy climbed into the plushies box with Luna and chatters away, even if she can’t speak much yet.

I smile at them and then nod to Garrison. “Sure.”

“I just…” he trails off and then shakes his head. “Forget it. It’s stupid.” He chucks a comic aside.

“I bet it’s not.” I sidle closer.

He stares down at the comic. “The airport—I don’t want to be mobbed like that when I go to London alone.”

Paparazzi and fans encased us after our flight to Philadelphia landed, coming home from the engagement. With all the children with us—Ryke, Lo, and Connor went into dire protection mode. I’d never seen them all so focused and intent. No yelling. Just intense
protect the babies
and shove forward.

I think that might’ve been Garrison’s first time in a situation that overcrowded, most of the attention directed on
him
rather than us.

“I just…I don’t want to be touched like that again.”

A breath locks in my lungs. Fans put their hands on my shoulders and arms, even with bodyguards trying to block them, so I’m sure something similar happened to him.

I ask, “Are you scared to go back to the airport?”

He shrugs and then nods.

“I can ride to the airport with you when you need to go, and there’s this thing we can do.” Sometimes we do it, sometimes we don’t, but I don’t think we’ve ever offered the option to Garrison when he’s alone. “We can drive right up to the private plane and bypass the normal airport entrance.”

“We can do that?” He frowns.

“We’ve done it before. The airport gives us permission because we cause a lot of disruption. It’s safer for us and for everyone else.”

“But it’s just me…I don’t usually fly in a private plane.”

“Yeah but you can take our planes alone. We don’t mind. We’d want you to.”

Garrison is already shaking his head. “It’s too much for just me.”

“Then I’ll send Garth with you. He’s the best.” Garrison already has a bodyguard but two are better than one. “If it’s only you, the crowds won’t be as bad. I know they won’t.”

He nods.

“Have you told Willow?”

“
No
,” he forces like
you don’t tell her either.
“If she knew, she’d start flying to Philly to see me instead of the other way around.” He licks his dry lips. “Willow gets anxiety when she’s stuck in the middle of crowds. I know she’d brave it out for me, but…”

“You want to brave this out for her,” I realize.