Damaged Like Us (Like Us 1)

Akara rests his elbow on the counter. “Moffy, he has to assess the room before you enter. Just like Declan did.”

Declan isn’t Farrow. My old bodyguard preferred privacy with me, to the point where I can’t say I know very much about him personally. I know Farrow in a way that I never knew Declan.

It instantaneously changes the bodyguard-client relationship that I’m used to.

“Then when we’re on the street,” I say to Farrow. “You walk beside me. You don’t need to walk in front of me every single time like you’re my labradoodle.”

“A labradoodle,” he repeats, his features balancing on the peak of an eye roll and a laugh. “You couldn’t have picked a more docile animal, could you?” Before I can respond, he adds, “I’ll consider that, but I can’t promise I’ll follow through in every situation.”

That seems fair.

I nod a couple times. “When did you find out about the new assignment?” He looks unaffected, but if he were a superhero in a battle zone, the comic book panel would show Farrow relaxed on a destroyed bench, using his powers to easily survive and make do.

In comparison, I externalize my readiness for shit storms: my back straight, shoulders stringent, and head hoisted.

“I was told last night,” he says.

I let this sink in. “So only eight hours more than me.”

“Twelve, technically.” His lips begin to lift like he beat me at something.

I holster my own smile. “Thank you for that technical adjustment.”

“Anytime, wolf scout.” He eases forward and lowers his voice to the sexiest whisper, “It’s good to remember that I’m better than you at most everything.”

It takes a lot of effort not to stare at his mouth. “Sounds like an alternate universe.”

One corner of his lip quirks, and then he eases back.

Boom.

Our heads whip to the store windows. More people bang against the glass as they try to peer inside, others chatting loudly as they wait for Superheroes & Scones to officially open.

“We need to go,” I say the obvious.

It really dawns on me that the we in this scenario is me and Farrow. Not me and Akara. Not me and a guy I recently met.

It’s just me and him.

And not in a way I fantasized. Farrow is now obligated to protect me, maintain a professional relationship with me, and always keep me safe.

Picturing a polar bear eating Fritos on the moon is easier than imagining Farrow as my bodyguard. I think it’s a sign.

That this is about to get fucking strange.

3

MAXIMOFF HALE

LEAVING SUPERHEROES & Scones in my red Audi, I merge onto the freeway. The air is noticeably strained between us since I gave him my eight-page list. While he silently reads in the passenger seat, I concentrate on the road and speed past paparazzi vehicles that attempt to hug me like we’re friends.

Farrow glances up and scrutinizes the various SUVs and sedans racing after us. “I really should be the one driving in this relationship.”

I stiffen at the word relationship. I mentally add in platonic, but my sixteen-year-old self with his sophomoric crush would be hard as a rock right now.

Twenty-two-year-old me is still pissed that I put Farrow in my spank bank.

“Number twelve.” I nod to the list.

He eyes me for a long moment before focusing on the paper. “It says that you’re not used to letting other people behind the wheel.” It actually says I always drive.

I glance at him once, then back to the road. “I didn’t realize that you can’t read.” I switch lanes.

I can almost feel his smile stretch. “Always a precious smartass.” I hear him flip a page. “You have a typo on number thirty-two.”

He called me precious. What the fuck does that even mean? Precious. I have to let it go, but the word scrolls across my gaze like a tickertape banner. “What typo?”

“You forgot a comma.”

I let out an irritated groan. “This isn’t a term paper. Don’t critique my grammar.”

Farrow kicks up one of his shoes on the seat. Balancing his forearm on his knee. Then he bites the staple off and spits it out. I tense and try to watch him and the road simultaneously.

He has a very particular way he moves his hands. They shift with meticulousness and care. A sort of accuracy that belongs to surgeons and someone equipped to disassemble and reassemble a gun blindfolded.

I’ve imagined those hands on me too many times to count. Don’t fucking restart now. I’m trying not to, but having him this close, the NC-17 fantasies vie to breach the surface. Heat blankets my skin and tries to grip my cock.

Thumbing through the papers, Farrow tells me, “You’re about to miss our exit.”

“Shit.”

He smiles a self-satisfied, entertained smile, but I skillfully veer over three lanes of traffic and dodge more paparazzi. Making the exit ramp safely.

Farrow folds nearly all of the pages and only keeps two sheets.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

He waves the folded stack. “How about you ditch eighty-five percent of your rules and be less of a wolf scout, wolf scout?”

“No.” I shake my head a few times. Those rules reflect my current way of living. “This is my fucking life, Farrow.”

“And you have to make room for me,” he says seriously. “We’ll find a groove together, but not when you put me in a headlock before the match even starts.”

I honestly think he just hates being confined by strict rules that aren’t his own. “Declan followed them.”

“To your detriment,” he says bluntly. “You have a speeding habit. I should be driving.”

We’re on that again.

“I drive,” I tell him. “Your options are endless. Watch me drive. Watch the other cars. Watch the horizon. Count road signs. Play with the music—”

“Inaccurate.” He licks his thumb and flips quickly through the pages before landing on one. “Number ninety-two. I prefer no music in the car until noon.” He tilts his head at me. “Because…?”

“I usually have to make business calls. For charity,” I emphasize. He knows that I work nonprofit. Every day will be Take Farrow To Work Day. It’s weird. What’s weirder is that he’s currently working right now. He’s not just in my car to chat. H

e’s on-the-job.

“Are you planning to make a business call now?” he questions.

“No.”

“Then really this should say ‘I prefer no music in the car until noon when I have business calls.’” He pops open the middle console and finds a pen. He rewrites the rule. “You also have another typo—”

“Shut up about the fucking typos,” I say and adjust the air conditioner, my body hot as his smile stretches wider and wider.

To fill the quiet, I switch on the radio and play an EDM station. Heavy bass pumps through the speakers.

“Music before noon,” Farrow says. “I’ve already started loosening his straight-laces.”

One hand on the wheel, I use the other to flip him off. “I love how you give yourself credit for the stupid things in life. It’s so generous of you.”

Farrow almost laughs, but we both suddenly grow quiet and serious. Two paparazzi SUVs flank my sides and abruptly cut me off from a right turn.

“Get off Market Street,” Farrow suggests.

“That was my plan.” I speed forty over the limit just to pass the SUVs. But they have a Honda friend ahead of me. The blue Honda slams on its brakes. Causing me to slam on mine.

Fuck.

I’m now boxed in. Like a rat in a trap.

I reach into my cup holder for my sunglasses, but Farrow is already handing me my black Ray Bans. Reminding me that he’s trained for these situations. He slips on a pair of black aviators.

Arms and cameras stick out of paparazzi’s rolled-down windows. I’m forced to drive at their speed, and flashes pierce me from nearly every direction. My sunglasses dim the brightness but not my frustration.

Most days, I coexist with paparazzi fine. I’ll answer their harmless questions, sign their photographs that they then sell on eBay, and we respect one another enough.

Then they pull stunts like this and I question the percentage of decent cameramen to the ones that’d run my family into a ditch for a grand.

“Do you want me to help you?” Farrow asks. “Or would you rather just let them capture photos of you glaring?”

I gesture to the windshield. “There’s nothing left to do.”

“I’m not Declan.” Farrow unbuckles, and he leans over the middle console. Towards me. My breath cages in my lungs, and I watch his arm slide across the back of my seat. With his other hand, he slams the heel of his palm on the wheel’s horn.