Fearless Like Us (Like Us 9)

But she’s told me that before her grandfather died, he set funds in trusts for her and Winona, and he made sure they were shareholders in Hale Co.

She’s a double heiress.

Or what she’s said to me, a double fucking heiress.

She has enough money to live luxuriously for the rest of her life. I’ve been working since I turned eighteen. All college aspirations burned out fast. I wanted to run a gym, and college felt unnecessary. More like a roadblock to success than a building block.

Her frown deepens. “If not age or money, then what makes an adult? Responsibility?”

Banks pops in the new battery. “No, then my brother would’ve been a four-year-old adult.”

We laugh, but I end up saying, “For me, it was death.” The bedroom quiets as they listen. “Losing a parent at seventeen just woke me up to a reality I wasn’t really ready for.” I take a beat. “One day I was excited about playing drums on a college field, then the next, I wanted to burn the application and never pick up sticks again.”

Death changed the course of my entire life.

The legacy of my family felt more important to immortalize than some adolescent love of playing drums.

Banks clips the mic to his collar. “By your logic, you’re saying her mom or dad need to die for her to be an adult.”

I shove his arm. “Not what I meant, man. And maybe it’s just different for everyone.”

He bobs his head.

Sulli rises onto her elbows. I can tell she’s still distraught at defining adulthood.

Banks catches her gaze as he slips a toothpick between his lips.

“What do you think?” she asks him.

He lifts a shoulder. “Hell if I know the right meaning of anything, but I do know that no one should be telling you who you are but you.”

She breathes in stronger. “I want so fucking badly to just listen to my own voice and feelings about who I am. I know I’m a woman, but I want my dad to see me as more than just his little girl too.”

She cares about what he thinks.

So do I.

I want Ryke Meadows’ respect. I wish I could be like Banks and say, whatever the fuck. Screw it. But I can’t shrug this off.

Probably because I don’t like to lose, and there has to be a solution. A way out.

I’m lost in thought when Sulli tosses a small pillow at my chest. “Kits?”

I focus on her. “Maybe you shouldn’t pay us anymore, Sulli.”

“What?” she winces.

“This is a bad idea,” Banks mutters, gnawing on the toothpick.

“I have to pay you, Kits, for your protection services. You’re my private security. I’m not letting you work for fucking free.”

“I can manage it.”

Can you, Nine?

I hear my dad’s voice in my head.

“How will you afford rent?” Sulli asks. “How will you pay Banks’ salary?”

By crunching a shit ton of numbers.

I push back my black hair. “Just let me handle the business end, okay?”

“My dad got in your head,” she realizes. “You know who knows nothing about dating a bodyguard? Ryke fucking Meadows. My dad has no clue how this all works. You know who does? Moffy and Jane. They’ve made it work.”

I’m rigid. “Farrow and Thatcher aren’t running the company, Sulli. I am.”

Moffy and Jane are paying me.

I pay their husbands.

Her shoulders slowly drop, realizing that this makes a difference to me.

Banks keeps shaking his head like it’s still a bad idea.

But one thing I know about my friend, he’ll follow me into any bad idea I have.

5

BANKS MORETTI

We exit the bedroom and start cooking. Quinn can’t stop staring at the three of us like we’ve all grown horns and tails in the past three minutes. But I’m not hiding out in the bedroom. The mermaid is starving, and we’re doing our best to whip up something edible for Sulli.

The kitchen is in direct line of sight to the living room, and Quinn still stares.

Hell, maybe he’s just watching Sulli try to sauté this pound of broccoli. She pushes around the vegetable on the frying pan like it’s diseased.

I angle towards her. “Stroke it any gentler and it might jump out at you.”

She snorts. “And what, try to kiss me?”

I crack a smile. “No broccoli is kissing my girlfriend.” I reach over her head and flip on the fan as smoke mushrooms up.

She elbows me softly with a blushing smile. “Broccoli is the moldy armpit of vegetables. I wouldn’t let it near my lips unless it was the only thing in your freezer.”

Which, it was.

I grab a spatula and help her scrape up burnt pieces. “You hate most of what you can eat and love everything you can’t.”

“You think I should quit being vegan?” Sulli asks.

“Unless you really are withering away, I think you should do whatever you want. If that means challenging yourself, then go for it.” We look over at each other at the same time, and I add, “But like Akara, if I see you withering, you better believe I’m going to pick you up and fling you across my shoulder.”