Fearless Like Us (Like Us 9)

This is going way less hostile than the conversation with Ryke but about a million times more awkward. I need to get behind the wheel of this train wreck. “We’re not talking about roommates. This is about Sulli.”

She uncovers her face. “I’m dating them—Akara and Banks.”

Quinn listens, unblinking.

I’m righting this further on the damn tracks. “We’re in a polyamorous relationship. Look it up, Quinn.” I grab Sulli’s hand and look to Banks like follow me.

“What they said,” Banks adds to Quinn before taking the directive. We leave and then enter the bedroom that I share with him.

As soon as I shut the door, Sulli’s hands fly to her head. “We fucked that up.”

“I fucked that up,” Banks rephrases. “Lesson learned, hand signals don’t do shit.”

“It’s a practice round,” I say to them. “We’ll get better at it.” I unspool the wire of my mic and fit a new battery pack into the radio. I have to at least believe that. We’re going to be telling way too many people for us to keep bombing this hard.

Sulli studies our small bedroom for a brief second. It’s minimal. No personality or artwork or photos of family. Just two full-sized beds that belong to me and Banks, pushed against either wall, and two end tables, one dresser.

Our lives are so far outside this room. It’s a pitstop. Not a home.

She sniffs her sweaty shirt, wandering closer to the half-window—which is the only window in the room. This apartment was cheaper because of the shitty views. Terrific for me, since I pay for everyone’s housing, and Oscar’s studio apartment in New York is costing me a tiny fortune.

“Want a shower?” Banks asks her while he pulls a clean blue T-shirt over his head.

“Yeah…but maybe later…” Her mind is somewhere else, especially as she checks her phone. Little wrinkles of distress line her forehead.

Banks and I share a look.

Ever since we left the quarry, she’s been worrying about her parents. I want to help Sulli solve this crisis, but the only solution seems to be calling them. But that just might make everything ten times worse.

Banks and I finish getting rid of the dead batteries, and Sulli stretches her muscular arms over her chest. She shakes out her limbs and lets out a humongous sigh.

“You want to talk about it, Sul?” I ask.

She finally uncorks her bottled thoughts. “I just don’t understand what I need to do for my dad to see me as Adult Sulli and not Teenage Sulli. I’ve already moved out. Do I need a job? Is that what makes an adult, an adult? Earning your own money?”

“It’s not about money,” Banks says, clipping his radio back on his waistband.

She sinks down on my bed, her green eyes lifting up to us. “I’ve never really had a job besides being an Olympian—but I was still a teenager back then.” Her professional athlete days are over, but those were important her whole life and to who she is.

I was there.

I know what winning gold meant. The tears in her eyes. The pride on the podium. All her hard work had an ending, and the new beginning has been constantly shifting with her desires.

Sulli collapses backwards and stares hard at the ceiling.

I wonder if she’s thinking about how she hasn’t given a lot of thought to a paying career. At least, she hasn’t brought it up to me lately. I grew up rich, but not the kind of rich that owns mega-yachts and boards private planes.

She’s lived a privileged life. Able to travel, to climb and swim without setting monetary goals. I’ve always seen Sulli as a free spirit, chasing the essence of the earth and water, and I never saw myself as the man paid to follow her.

I’m sworn to protect her. I’d give my life for Sulli’s life, but Ryke wasn’t wrong. She does pay me. Kitsuwon Securities is a business that Sulli and her cousins choose to use, and we have expenses. But why does it feel weird now?

She shouldn’t have to pay me to protect her.

I’m her boyfriend.

It comes free.

Sulli’s face twists in a thought. “Maybe my dad doesn’t respect me as an adult because I’m living off my trust fund.”

I doubt that. “Hasn’t Ryke lived off familial wealth too?” I ask. “Your grandfather owned Hale Co.”

“Which my dad walked away from.”

Loren Hale is the CEO of the billion-dollar baby product company. Hale Co. is best known for diapers, strollers, baby oil, shit like that, but their logo is actually on popular air fresheners, skin care lines, facial washes, and even the first-aid kits Farrow packs in his trauma bags.

So Hale Co. is massive. Something I’ll never achieve in my lifetime, just being realistic.

Sulli reminds us, “Most of my dad’s income comes from doing sports drink sponsorships for Fizzle.”

Her mom is the heiress to Fizzle, along with her aunts, but I’m almost positive most of Sulli’s family wealth is tied to the billon-dollar soda empire.