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Lowell was uncertain of how he managed to get out so much without his voice breaking, but the sight of her tears ripped his heart in two. She nodded, her lips pressed firmly together, nodding with a tight smile.
“I understand. It’s okay. Thank you for telling me.” Her voice came out as a sob, cracking as she finished.
“It’snotokay. Fucking stars, Moriah, it's not okay! But I have to get back to my life, I can’t just stay here and be a third wheel forever.”
“You’ve been my second wheel,” she choked out. “I know that doesn’t matter, and I know you have to get back to your career. I know it’s stupid because we’ve only known each other for a few months, but-but for what it’s worth, you haven’t been the third wheel for me. You’ve been it.”
Lowell dragged a hand across his face, wiping away the tears blurring his vision.You can’t make her decision for her, you can only give her an option.
“I know, it is stupid. We’ve known each other for like five minutes, and it’s been a heightened situation and probably really unhealthy, and I am a fucking baby and according to my family I’m, like, really terrible and selfish, but most of them are too, so I don’t know if I can really believe them.” She choked out a laugh, her tears not subsiding. “But I don’t like the person I am here. I can’t get out from under my name here. I’m always going to be one of my older brothers’ little brother here, that’s all people see me as. I have a life and I have a career, and I’m really, really good at what I do. And I need to get back to it.”
Lowell could tell that every word he forced out was a knife thrust into her, and she jolted with each one as he paused to rake a hand over his face
“I’m getting on that plane in a week or two, Moriah. And it's too soon and a stupid idea, but I want you to be on it with me.”
Her mouth dropped open, but she said nothing.
“I don’t want you to stay here and have a baby with some fucking double-dicked asshole, I don’t want you picking some random werewolf out of a catalog. I want you to come withme. I’m selfish and self-absorbed, and I’m not willing to share you. I want to travel with you, I want to show you the world. And who knows what will happen? Maybe we’ll come back in a few years and have kids. Maybe we’ll have kids on the road like wandering minstrels. Or maybe you’ll spend a week with me and decide I’m just as fucking terrible as my family claims and you’ll come running back here, and you can start this all over again with someone new. But I know what I want. And I want you. But I want my career too, and I can’t give one up for the other. And I know that’s selfish, I know I’m asking you to give up what you want. I know you want a baby . . . but I wantyou. I want you to come with me.”
“I don’t want a baby,” she whispered, tears still coursing over her cheeks. “Ido, I mean, I definitely do . . . but I don’t want one right now. At least, not until we have a chance to really decide that together. I meant to tell you, I’ve beenwantingto tell you . . .”
It was his turn to gape.
“What the fuck are you talking about? What is going on?!”
“Happiness and joy,” she croaked, her eyes shining, still with tears, but something else as well. “That’s what’s going on. I had to let them find me. You. It’s you, you’re the stupid fucking cup, aren’t you?”
Lowell floundered.
“I-I don’t know what that means. Sure, yeah, I’m a cup. If that’s what I need to be to make you come with me, I can be whatever fucking cup you need.”
Her face crumpled, and launched herself into his arms with a speed he’d not been anticipating, nearly knocking him to his feet.
“Yes. I want to see Paris and Vienna and Marrakech and everything. This is so stupid. Like, so stupid. But I want to be stupid with you. Yes. Let’s do it.”
It was stupid and impulsive and probably a mistake.
But as he caught her lips with his own, Lowell couldn’t remember a time in his life, save for the moment he’d decided he was going to leave home in the first place, that he’d never been more sure of anything in his existence.
“I’m going to be thebestcup. A plaque worthy cup. Just you wait and see.”
