“Nah, he seems ambivalent.” Lo nods towards Rose who rocks Charlie back and forth, the little baby falling asleep against her chest. “Queen Rose looks ready to call this a birthday failure.”
I squint towards my older sister. She seems her natural self. Rigid but not in a I’m-calling-this-party-a-shit-show kind of way. She’s as likely to roll her eyes and smile as she is to glare and huff.
“Who bought the cutout?” I ask in another whisper.
“Daisy found it on some celebrity site.”
I imagine fans putting a life-sized Connor Cobalt in their bedroom, right next to a Damon Salvatore or a Harry Styles. I don’t think Connor would mind either.
Connor finally reacts, his million-dollar grin as rich as his clothes. He captures Ryke’s gaze. “So my birthday present is you admitting you’re my biggest fan.”
Rose tries to contain a snort with her hand.
Lo actually laughs aloud, tossing another chip in his mouth.
Ryke flips them both off, and then glowers at Connor. “It’s a fucking decoration.”
“If you desired to look at me everyday, I’d suggest the real version, not this inferior one, but I’m sure this is the best you could do.”
Ryke nods a couple times. “Me not punching you right now is your real fucking birthday present. So you better get it all out while you can, Cobalt.”
Instead of giving Ryke a hard time, Connor scans the first floor: the gold and black decorations, the banner with Happy 30th Birthday Connor!, the balloons, all of us here together.
“I never thought I’d appreciate this day more than any other,” he says, his smile lifting at the sight of Jane covered in confetti, “but I do. I am.” He looks to each one of us. “Thank you.”
“It was mostly Rose and Daisy,” I tell him since my part was so small. Rose planned the event, and she left a lot of the details to my little sister, who volunteered to be a big role in today’s execution.
Connor and Daisy exchange this friendly smile, and he nods at her in thanks.
“We ordered salmon from your favorite restaurant,” Rose explains, “and we’ve all agreed to read passages from your favorite books before dinner.” I was given The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner. I reread the passage Rose highlighted fifteen times so I don’t stumble over the words, but I still have no idea what any of it means.
Lo and Daisy said they’d trade with me. They have Great Expectations by Charles Dickens and Middlemarch by George Eliot, but I didn’t want to learn their passages, only to find out they were just as confusing.
Connor grins. “I’m intrigued.” He looks entranced mostly by his wife holding his son.
I whisper to Lo, “He’s going to kiss her.”
“They’re not close enough,” Lo replies, just when Connor takes two steps forward.
“Ha.”
Lo munches on a chip. “He has the I want to fuck you look, but he’s not going to do a goddamn thing until he’s alone with her.”
I frown. Maybe he’s right. We’re the two that cling to one another in public. Even if intensity brims off their shoulders like electric sparks, magnetizing Connor to Rose and Rose to Connor, they won’t act on the pull if we’re around. Not unless they forget.
And they rarely forget anything.
Rose tries to fasten a cold glare. “Today is about you, but you have one rule.”
“I’m listening.”
“You must contain your ego for the sake of your children. It’ll asphyxiate the room.”
“My ego won’t hurt them, darling.” He steps even closer.
She snaps in French and raises her hand at his chest.
He smoothly replies back in the same language and clasps her hand, only to kiss her knuckles. I perk up like I won a prize, but his lips never move to her lips.
“Even their sons are bored by this,” Lo says. Beckett has fallen asleep in Connor’s arms like Charlie has in Rose’s.
I poke Lo’s arm. “Hey, this is love. Love isn’t boring.”
Lo mockingly yawns. “What was that, Lil? I just woke up from a nap.”
He can be so mean. I rest my chin on his shoulder, still clinging onto him tight. I instantly forget my thoughts at the sight of a tabloid…next to the bowl of salsa.
“Hey,” Garrison greets Lo before sitting on the counter. They begin a short conversation, and I fixate on the headlines in view.
Lily Calloway, Pregnant Again!
False, but they put an unflattering picture of me on the front. My face is all red and splotchy. I wear a gray baggy sweater that reaches my knees while exiting Superheroes & Scones, hand-in-hand with Moffy. At least they didn’t say anything rude about him.
Sometimes I worry about the day where they go from Little Maximoff Watches a Philadelphia 76ers Game! to Maximoff Hale Has a Zit! He’s just like us! I can’t even imagine my own awkward puberty phases put on blast. Neither can Lo.
Look away from the magazines. Look away.
I do, only to see Connor, Rose, Daisy, and Ryke in a conversation together. “I wonder if Connor’s DNA is superhuman too,” I mumble beneath my breath. And his eyes flit to me!
I’m not making this up.
Maybe he truly does have superhuman hearing. “Lo,” I say softly, breaking up his short conversation with Garrison.
“Hmm?” he asks, swishing around the salsa with a chip. His other hand clutches my leg while I’m on his back.
“Do you think Connor might be Batman or Superman?”
Lo drops me.
I land on my ass, and I gape up at him. “Lo!” It’s not the first time he’s dropped me mid-piggyback for speaking about a DC character.
He waves his chip at me. “There are a goddamn thousand superheroes, and you chose two that I can’t stand?”
“They make the most sense.”
“They make about as much sense as calling Connor the Swamp Thing.”
I pick myself off the floor. “That’s just silly. Swamp Thing isn’t even close to being Batman and Superman.”
His sharp glares simultaneously says they’re all DC characters and you’ve betrayed me, love. “Please let me know where I can find my other wife. This one in front of me is a sellout.”
I touch my heart. It’s like he shot an arrow through it. “I’m not a sellout. I just happen to not be an elitist about the whole Marvel versus DC thing, and I can appreciate all superheroes equally.”
“You think they’re all made equally?” His passion about comics brims to the surface, so alluring that I actually near him, despite his double-edged glare. “Do you want to talk Green Lantern? We can talk Green Lantern.”
“Okay, okay,” I immediately concede on this front. “So I have my favorites, just like you.” I have my fingers in his belt loops, staring up at him.
His arms are already around me. “My best friend is not Batman or Superman.”
“Then what is he?”
“Connor Cobalt,” Lo answers without hesitation. “He’s Connor fucking Cobalt, and whatever powers he has, they’re all his own.”
I smile. This feels more accurate than anything else. My gaze drifts to that tabloid behind Lo, and my smile quickly fades. “What is…” I snatch the tabloid before Lo realizes where my mind wandered. In the right margin, Celebrity Crush fit tiny script that says: [POLL] Which Calloway sister has the cutest baby?
My jaw drops.
They did not pit our babies against each other.
Lo rips the tabloid out of my hands.
“They polled our babies by cuteness,” I exclaim. “They can’t do that.”
He gives me a look. “They can do whatever they want.”
“I just wish there were some ethical limitations,” I say while he flips to the page. I try to push his hands together to stop him. “Don’t! What if Moffy is ranked the ugliest.” I lower my voice at that. “We’ll know and we’ll feel bad and it’ll give him a complex.”
He pauses long enough to say, “That’s not going to happen. We have an adorable baby.”
“So do Rose and Daisy.”
Lo is so biased. He doesn’t see it. “You don’t have to look.” But he’s still going to.
I back away to distance myself from the tabloid. It’s a bomb. He’s holding a bomb. I still hate Celebrity Crush. At one point, I felt as compulsive towards reading them as I did towards sex.