Series: Like Us Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 241
Estimated words: 236417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1182(@200wpm)___ 946(@250wpm)___ 788(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 236417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1182(@200wpm)___ 946(@250wpm)___ 788(@300wpm)
I peel my eyes off the parade and back on the rooftop. Every shade of paint has made its rounds during this daytime party. Luna already ran her rainbow fingers down the left side of my face. I grin, seeing Jack swipe a paintbrush along Oscar’s cheek. He’s drawing a pink heart.
And Oscar—he’s roped into his husband’s sunny sphere. He rotates Jack’s baseball cap backwards, just to kiss him.
I love Pride. It’s every month, every year, never-ending—‘cause there’ll never be a moment I won’t celebrate all kinds of love and my closest friends.
Akara, Banks, and Sulli blow soapy bubbles at each other with plastic wands, messing around near the coolers with bright laughter and slugs to the arm. Sullivan has Baby Seven snug to her chest in an olive-green swaddle, and when the newborn wakes, they make faces at him until his smile is so wide, his giggle screeches. Never heard a baby that young giggle so much, but Seven is nothing but excited to be alive.
Baby knows what’s up. He has a beautiful life ahead of him. I just know it.
Xander, Cobalt boys, and more family sport Rainbow Brigade buttons since Kinney passed ‘em around to the allies and those who identify as LGBTQ+. She gave me four to wear, so I’m rising on her favorites list, if I do say so.
I blow out smoke into the sky. Thatcher tries to put a sunhat on a squirmy Maeve. The baby wiggles to the beat of the music in Jane’s arms. Maeve bounces in a little rainbow tutu, and Jane can’t stop laughing. Thatcher has the largest smile I think I’ve ever witnessed firsthand from him. He’s one big smitten kitten.
I laugh to myself and put my cigarette to my lips. Catching sudden sight of the most beautiful girl in the galaxy. Luna—my everything. She brings Cassidy over to Maeve so the babies can bee-bop to the pop music together.
Off to the side, Farrow and Moffy are crouched down to their son, unwrapping a mummified Ripley. He’s twisted himself in colorful streamers, and for a brief moment, as he spins out of the strips of yellow and orange, the little boy’s blue eyes meet mine.
I only see light and love in them.
Emotion balls up in my throat.
And it’s not long before Luna looks back at me. Cheeks streaked with glitter and paint, ribbons in her hair blowing in the cool wind. Her gaze, her whole being, beckons me forward. I snuff the cigarette on the brick, and I follow the light into the dancing crowd.
Living can be as easy as breathing.
I’ve met many blissful moments in my life. Wouldn’t let anyone steal those from me, and here and today and what lies tomorrow—it’s more simple, blistering moments of happiness. Beating and singing at my soul.
It’s what I live for. These small seconds. The ones that fill your lungs to the brim and pick your feet out from under you.
Music and laughter pull everyone to the middle as we all dance. Raucous, boisterous sorta dancing where we’re all singing the lyrics to the song, off-key, and at the top of our lungs. Throwing hands up high to the sky. I’m swept up, and I cup her cheeks, grinning down at Luna as she grins up at me. We’re all surrounded by a feeling. One absent of fear and shame.
I love my people. I love they can be who they are. I love myself the same.
Confetti rains down on us, drifting from other rooftop parties. Smiles and embraces of love and belief and joy surround me and Luna. I kiss her as strands of paper cling to our bodies. My fingers thread through her ribbon-tangled hair. When the world ends. When this one chapter to our book closes. I’d like to think that those who know us best will say there was nobody like us. That we left this world how we lived inside of it.
Fully, devotedly, lovingly.
Strange and weird.
SOMETIME FAR, FAR AWAY
Epilogue II
LUNA HALE
The clock is counting down to take-off and a wardrobe malfunction is in danger of aborting our current mission. Tucked together in our space pod—okay, in a backstage dressing room—Donnelly wields a needle and thread with expert precision.
He’s been the go-to craftsman for a long time now. Fully beating my skills in ironing on patches, hot-gluing dioramas, and sewing hems and torn buttons.
“This is the strangest tear. The whole thing wants to come apart,” he mumbles with the needle between his lips.
“A glitch in the matrix,” I nod, not sweating such a tiny wrinkle in the timeline of today.
“I gotta have a word with the matrix.” He trades the needle for a bag of safety pins. “Tell it to lay its hands off my wife’s clothes.”
I see my mushrooming smile in a floor-length mirror and Donnelly assessing the damage to the back of my dress. He’s behind me, and his blue eyes meet mine in the mirror every so often. Those blue orbs sparkle with more than a grin. They’re galaxies of adoration and hope. Full of all the places we’ve ventured, all the minutes we’ve shared—these endless, infinite years of ours.