Damaged Like Us (Like Us 1)

I grab his wrist.

Suddenly. Instinctively. And he freezes, his palms on my lower back. Without releasing him, I use my other arm to prop my body. My chest rises in a heavy, ragged breath.

I glance at him.

Farrow breathes just as heavily, his eyes searching mine for reasons as to why I stopped him. I imagine shifting his hand lower. To my waistband. Beneath the fabric.

Do it.

I blink once—remembering that Jane is here. And then I think: that shouldn’t be the only reason why I stop.

He’s my fucking bodyguard.

I let go of his wrist.

The old loveseat squeaks as Jane sits up. “I can leave you two alone if you’d like—”

“No,” I say firmly and stare hard at Farrow, waiting for him to reject that offer with me.

Farrow sweeps my body with a heady gaze, practically saying, I would’ve said yes. And then he stands up off of me.

I have no real time to think.

My phone rings on the coffee table. An incoming call. Not a text. I quickly stand and grab my phone. I see the caller ID: my little sister, and I become laser-eyed.

Colossally focused.

I concentrate on the here and now. Everything else behind me.

I put the phone to my ear. “Luna?” Strange breathing filters through the speaker. I frown. “Luna?”

Farrow stares faraway like someone is speaking into his earpiece. He walks towards the front door. Jane springs to her feet and checks her cell for any texts or information.

“Luna, answer me.” My cheekbones sharpen. I listen fixatedly, my grip tightened on the phone. She’s never done this before, but she’s also an oddball.

You know Luna Hale as the seventeen-year-old alien devotee who posts inarticulate ramblings on Twitter and believes UFOs are real. You rudely nicknamed her Secondhand Embarrassment. Some of you even call her “drunk” when she’s 100% sober, and you question the sanity of anyone who’d date her.

I know her as my little sister. A girl who stays true to herself amid constant ridicule. Someone I admire and love unconditionally.

Fair warning: I’ll kill you if you so much as breathe on her wrong. Simple as that.

Over the phone, Luna sighs so softly. I almost miss the sound.

“Talk to me, sis—” The call drops. What the fuck is going on? I turn to Janie. “Did you text your brothers?” Luna’s best friends are two of Jane’s younger brothers.

“Oui.” Janie texts rapidly. “Eliot and Tom keep sending me devil emojis.”

I shake my head, pissed. There are five Cobalt boys, and my little sister had to befriend the two that lit Jane’s dollhouse on fire and laughed while it burned. They were ten years old back then, but at eighteen and seventeen, they still dance in chaos.

By the door, Farrow speaks into his mic. “Garage is full. You need to drop her off or park on the street. I can meet her at the car.” Farrow gestures me over, but I’m already approaching him.

My phone vibrates.

A text.

I’m on my way to you. Can’t talk :( -- Luna

“Luna’s on her way here,” I tell Janie, who continues to text, and I stop only a foot from Farrow. “What do you know?”

He clicks his mic and says to the security team, “Okay.” His gaze clasps mine as he tells me, “Luna asked her bodyguard to drive her here. She also requested that he remain inside his vehicle, which means—”

“She doesn’t want him to overhear her,” I finish, nodding to myself.

Janie collects the rest of the facts. “She must be hiding something from her parents, and she’s afraid her bodyguard will tattle.” He would. She’s underage.

It’s not the first time my siblings have come to me. When they fuck-up, my reaction is the lukewarm version of our over-protective dad. They say I go three-fourths Loren Hale. Sometimes I think they test their wrongdoings out on me just to build the courage to confront him.

Farrow looks at the outdoor security cams on his phone. When he catches me staring, I expect him to turn his back.

Instead, he clasps my wrist and draws me to his side. Our shoulders almost touch. “This is the street view,” he says.

The screen shows a few paparazzi loitering on the sidewalk.

Farrow explains, “When Luna’s car reaches the curb, I’m going to open her car door and escort her into the house.”

I cross my arms and nod. I want to be the one to lead my sister safely inside my house, but I’d make the situation worse.

With paparazzi constantly camped out, exiting my front door is like purposefully stomping on an anthill. Considering I’m deathly allergic to fire ants, that’s not something I’d do. I typically just leave in a car. Right through the garage.

Jane pulls the coffee table to its original place. “Luna can spend the night. I’ll make the bed in the guest room. We can even watch her favorite movie.” Janie tosses the decorative pillow on the loveseat. “I haven’t seen Guardians of the Galaxy in ages.”

“Yeah,” I say dryly, “how about we postpone baking my sister cookies and rolling out a fucking red carpet until we know what happened? She could’ve flunked twelfth grade for all we know.” Last week, she had detention for vaping in the girl’s bathroom. She’s been apathetic towards school since the bullying started in kindergarten.

I wish I’d been in her grade.

So I could’ve been there more than I was. I could’ve stopped the harassment. Somehow. But I’m five years older. By the time she hit freshman year, I was gone.

Farrow clicks into another security camera.

Jane nears us, her features soft and empathetic. She reaches out for my hand.

I keep my arms crossed.

“Moffy,” she says tentatively. “I know you’d rather believe Luna screwed up somehow because the alternative is painful, but you need to consider the other possibility.”

That something bad could’ve happened to my sister. And she’s coming to me for help.

I lock all my emotion in an iron-tight trunk. Nothing crosses my face. “I’m aware.”

Farrow scrutinizes me for a quick second, and then he hands me his phone. “I’ll be right back.” He slips out the front door, kicks it closed, and nearly the exact moment a black Escalade pulls onto the curb.

Declan would’ve never given me his phone. I realize that I can watch my sister from Farrow’s cell. He knew I’d want to be outside with him, but to actually keep Luna safe—from media attention, from rabid paparazzi—this is as close as I can get.

And he gave me a better view than any bodyguard ever has.

9

FARROW KEENE

STREET LAMPS and rapid camera flashes illuminate the idling black Escalade. I tune out the security team in my right ear, and I easily walk through the frenzied paparazzi.

About five men swarm the car, pressing their lenses to the tinted windows. Others pace back and forth on the sidewalk and call their colleagues hurriedly.

“Get here now!”

“We think it’s a Hale kid, hopefully Xander.”

Two men crowd the rear door, and I storm ahead. My threatening stride

and appearance is like a gunshot. They stumble backwards, and I grip the handle to the Escalade. I mime opening the car door to rid the over-zealous idiots.

One man rushes up and knocks into my hard back. I shoot him a brief, scathing glare.

Brief, because they don’t need to think I care about them. Some paparazzi want a fight for footage or insurance payout (I hurt them, they sue), and then most hecklers want a fight for fame or because they’re morons. And my job is to avoid confrontations.

Not start them.

When I really open the door, I fit my body in the free space. Not letting the cameramen see Luna yet.

I’m not surprised by what I find. A gangly seventeen-year-old girl is sprawled on the leather seat like a starfish. And she’s dressed in a full-body Spider-Man costume. Mask and all.

It’s an easy ploy so people avoid snagging a money-shot.

She looks at me upside-down.

I won’t smile during pandemonium, but Luna always manages to make life interesting. Out of all the Hale kids, I’d say I’m closest to her. For my twenty-fifth birthday, she wrote me an Avengers fanfic where Bucky Barnes and Captain America weren’t merely just friends. It was entertaining as shit.

“Luna, you ready to go?” I ask.

The driver rotates. It’s her three-hundred-pound bodyguard who’s been blowing my eardrum out for the past ten minutes. I’m not close to anyone on Epsilon since the SFE lead calls me a “liability” when really, he could audition for the role of hall monitor.

Thankfully her bodyguard isn’t the lead of Epsilon. I dodged that headache.

“She won’t talk,” he snaps at me.

“She doesn’t need to talk to climb out of a car.” I extend my hand. She grabs hold, sitting up and sliding across the seat.

Paparazzi scream, “WHO IS IT?! WHO’S IN THE CAR?! IS THAT YOU, XANDER?!”

As soon as she drops onto the cement and lets go of my hand, I slam the door shut. I push ahead to clear a path, and I make sure she stays right behind me.

I keep an eye in front and constantly glance back at Luna. She’s not one of the kids who fear the paparazzi. She seems fine, but with her Spider-Man costume hiding her face, it’s hard to tell why she’s here and what happened.