Fearless Like Us (Like Us 9)

“It wasn’t all of a sudden,” I say strongly. “It felt right.”

“Were they safe?” Moffy asks. “They wore condoms?”

“Yeah, they did.” I actually welcome these overprotective questions. They’re better than any judgment.

He motions to his head again. “I’m just processing.”

Jane touches her cheeks. “It’s a shock—you, dating two men at once.”

“Neither are my first boyfriend,” I remind them. “I dated Will Rochester, remember that? And even if they were my firsts—who fucking cares? Thatcher was your first non-friends-with-benefits, Jane. Farrow was your first boyfriend, Moffy. Everyone fucking starts somewhere!” I throw my hands up and jump off the desk.

“We’re on your side, Sulli,” Luna tells me softly.

“Then why does it feel like Jane and Moffy aren’t?”

“It’s a shock,” Jane repeats like that’s an answer enough.

Fucking sue me, because I just want more. What if they don’t approve, but they’re just acting like they do? What if that’s just my insecurities biting my butt?

“We don’t care that you’re dating a bodyguard,” Moffy tells me.

I huff. “Fucking cool because my dad really cared.”

Jane gasps.

“Wait, what?” Moffy narrows his eyes. “Uncle Ryke knows?”

My face heats, and I stare at a fallen library book. “Yeah. It went really fucking badly…we’re not talking right now.”

“Fuck,” Moffy breathes.

Yep.

“What about your mom?” Jane wonders.

“I haven’t called her yet.” I explain how the blow-up happened earlier today.

They seem to relax. It’s not like we kept this secret for that long.

I tug at my T-shirt, sweat-stains dried. “I just want you all to be happy for me like you were happy for each other. Is that too much to ask?”

“We are happy that you’re happy,” Jane professes, but she’s not smiling or jovial or hugging me like she did when she thought I was only with Banks.

“There has to be a but,” I realize.

Moffy rakes a hand across the back of his neck. “It’s different, Sulli. This is a colossal thing you’re undertaking that Jane and I have never taken.”

They’re worried about me. No one has blazed this trail before, and so often, Moffy is the one out in front first.

He adds, “It’d be different if it were just Akara or just Banks.”

“Why?” I frown. “Because you think I’m too inexperienced to handle it?”

“Because we’re not normal,” Maximoff says with so much power that his eyes nearly redden. “We’re not like everyone else, Sulli. The second the world knows you’re dating two men at once, you will lose complete and total privacy of your life.”

I want to believe I can handle the change. I want to believe I’m someone who can walk into the dark unknown without Moffy leading and Jane carrying the torch so I can see.

I listen to my heart, and I tell him, “None of that matters.”

“None of that matters?” Moffy says in utter disbelief like I’m not the same person standing before him. “Sulli, you hate the paparazzi and the probing questions. You grew up without even being on We Are Calloway. You lived most of your early life with more privacy than any of us here did—and now it doesn’t matter?” He runs both his hands through his hair. To the ceiling, he asks, “What the fuck is going on? Have I teleported to another goddamn universe?”

“I know what I signed up for, Moffy.” I step closer. “You don’t think I’m nervous? Alright, I am.” I breathe hard. “Seeing paparazzi hound you and Farrow made me never want to date in public. But my relationship with Will never made a single headline, and maybe I can do this all under the radar again.”

Jane drums her lips. “What happens if you break-up? What happens if one of you splinters off? A lot of variables are here.” She seems worried, maybe for Banks, her brother-in-law.

“I don’t know,” I breathe. “Hopefully we don’t break-up.”

Moffy listens, his empathy calming me.

“And I know that means eventually, we’d need to go public—but one thing at a time, right? We just started dating.”

Moffy winces, stares at the ground, then up at me. Something rests behind his eyes that I try to understand, something that looks like years gone by. “I didn’t think about marriage or kids or what a future could look like when I first started dating Farrow. I just wanted to be in the moment, so I get it, Sul. I get it.”

I breathe in.

“But I’m worried if you don’t think about it, you’ll get in too deep.”

I go cold.

“You can’t legally marry both of them,” Moffy tells me.

“And what about babies?” Jane asks.

I blanch. “I’m twenty-one.”

Jane tips her head. “You may be in your early twenties, but Akara and Banks aren’t. What if they want children?”

My throat dries. We’ve only been dating for about a month. Not all relationships discuss heavy topics that early. And I think about what Beckett has told me. There shouldn’t be a roadmap for relationships. Everyone has their own path. Everyone is different.