Damaged Like Us (Like Us 1)

I roll my eyes and unravel my black hand-wraps.

Donnelly tosses his towel over his shoulder. “Her clit? It’s not a big bad word.”

Oscar butts in, “Everyone lay off Quinn—alright, my little bro is young, impressionable, and still has his innocence and virtue; whereas the rest of us have lost our ever-loving minds.”

Quinn chucks his green boxing glove at his older brother, ten years apart in age. “Bro, I can say clit every day easily. Clit, clit, clit, clit—”

“We get it,” I say, dropping my hand-wraps on the mats.

Quinn scratches his unshaven jaw, sweat built on his golden-brown skin, and a tiny scar sits beneath his eye. Likewise, his nose is a little crooked from a short stint and bad blow in a pro-boxing circuit. Oscar has similar lasting marks. Security jokes that no matter how many punches Oscar and Quinn have taken as pro-boxers in the past, they’ll always be handsome motherfuckers.

“I purposefully censored myself,” Quinn clarifies. “I wasn’t about to mention a teenage girl’s…you know.”

“Clit,” Donnelly says.

“Jelly bean,” Oscar adds.

“Magic button.” Donnelly smirks.

Quinn shakes his head like we’re all the fucked-up ones.

My brows spike. “You’re the one who assumed ‘clitoris piercing’ at the word ‘unmentionable’.” I tilt my head at him. “And weren’t you like a teenager like one year ago?”

Oscar and Donnelly laugh loudly, and Quinn gives me a faint death-glare. He needs to work on his “intimidation” a bit—he’s very green: brand new to security detail, and at twenty, he’s the youngest bodyguard in the whole team. If he screws up, that falls onto Omega’s shoulders, but really, it’ll weigh on mine.

Akara texts me every day:

if Quinn needs anything, help him

check in with Quinn

keep Quinn in the loop

When I left Alpha and joined Omega, Akara told me straight up, “Don’t go rogue on me. I need you to help the new guy.” Because I’m around Quinn as much as Maximoff hangs around Jane.

Which is literally every hour.

Inadvertently, it’s made me Quinn’s unofficial mentor, and I’d never call myself a teacher. I like to do shit on my own.

Oscar should fill this role, but the Oliveira brothers requested to be separated to avoid “family in-fighting”. Probably because they almost stopped talking a few years ago when Oscar trained Quinn as a boxer.

No one ever talks about the old rift. I can barely tell it existed.

Quinn grabs his nearby water bottle. “What’d Luna really pierce then?”

“I think belly button,” Oscar says.

Donnelly hangs onto his punching bag, a colorful tattoo sleeve covering his fair skin. He’s a chestnut haired, blue-eyed shameless twenty-six-year-old from South Philly. “Real or rumor, Farrow?”

“Why would you know?” Quinn asks me like I’ve withheld information from him. Technically, I did.

“Because I’m closer to the Hales than all of you combined.” They’re each a 24/7 bodyguard to a Cobalt, and at the end of the day, we’re all partisan to the families we protect. The Hales, Cobalts, and Meadows love one another to the very death, and they’d prefer that we love all three equally too.

But spending day-in, day-out with one specific family, we grow attached.

Oscar reties his bandana. “You’ll see, little bro. Soon you’ll be taking European vacations with Jane and the rest of the Cobalt Empire—while Farrow, here, will be stuck at comic book conventions with the geek squad.”

I smile. “You mean you’ll be trapped on a private jet with seven Cobalts, their mom and dad, and fast-paced banter that’ll give you a permanent migraine thirty-thousand feet in the air.”

Donnelly points his water bottle at me. “Pokin’ at our lion’s den, Farrow, you’re gonna get bit.”

My lips stretch wider, my allegiances always clear. The Hales are known for being welcoming to oddballs and black sheep, very fandom-loving, and all-around laidback and cool. The first day I guarded Lily, she asked me, “What house are you in?”

She meant a Harry Potter house. When I told her I’d never read the books, she bought all seven for me and post-noted her favorite parts.

The Hales are a bunch of dorks. For me, they’re instantly lovable.

But I respect the other two families, too. The Cobalt Empire is the largest, known for their regal poise, intellectual prowess, and fierce commitment to one another. Each Cobalt is prideful and passionately unique, but when push comes to shove, they’ll band together like an army of one.

Quinn asks us, “Where do the Meadows go for family trips?”

“Costa Rica,” we all say together.

Quinn chucks his other glove down the aisle of bags. “Akara is one lucky bastard.”

Bodyguards vie to protect the two Meadows girls. The family of four is wild, adventurous, and they spend more than half the year outdoors. Since Akara protects Sullivan Meadows, the oldest daughter, he’s backpacked around South America, swam with sharks in the Keys, and last summer, he was backstage when she won four Olympic golds for swimming.

Donnelly nods to me. “Real or rumor? You thought I forgot you didn’t answer?”

“Rumor,” I tell him easily, having nothing to hide. The truth is better than letting security make far-fetched assumptions. So I add, “She pierced her tongue herself.”

Oscar rests an elbow on his bag, not at all caught off guard. His features say, I’ve seen everything; I’m unshakable. “Epsilon shouldn’t nark on the kids,” he says. “If she trusted her bodyguard, he could’ve taken her to a piercing shop without her parents knowing.”

“That’s allowed?” Quinn asks, but no one answers that loaded question. Is it allowed? Not really, but the best bodyguards go to the grave for their clients.

I will.

I turn to Oscar. “Luna’s eighteenth birthday is in three months. If she wanted, she could’ve waited until November to get a professional to pierce her tongue.”

Oscar cocks his head. “So piercing herself has nothing to do with secrecy?” He raises his arms. “Then why?”

“Because she wanted to.” I notice the office’s doorknob slightly rotating.

Donnelly lowers to the mats and sits against his bag. “I must’ve been about her age when I pierced my cartilage myself.” He wags his fingers. “Four safety pins.”

Oscar swigs his water. “Using yourself as an example, Donnelly, goes on the cons side automatically.”

Donnelly blows him a middle-finger kiss.

Finally, the office door opens, and four men emerge. My gaze instantly hooks onto Maximoff. He stands stoically, assuredly, not shrinking among the Tri-Force’s authoritative presence.

Damn.

The corners of my mouth begin to lift, but they lower at one irritating thought: I’m not leaving with Maximoff. Thatcher and Price said they’d escort Moffy to his townhouse. That way I could be a part of Omega’s meeting.

I’d rather be the one to lead him out.

Maximoff says goodbye to Akara. As Price and Thatcher walk ahead of Moffy towards the gym’s exit, he abnormally hangs back for a second. His forest-greens search the gym.

And then they land on me. He was looking for me.

My smile stretches, and my brows rise knowingly.

He licks his lips and eyes my damp hair and black shirt that suctions to my muscles. He calls out, “Already beat after a five minute workout?”

“Twenty minutes,” I correct, “and never forget, I last longer than you.”

Maximoff touches his heart mockingly and then shoots me a middle finger on his exit. The door thuds closed behind him.

Oscar rests his bodyweight on his bag, still staring at the exit. “Photos don’t even do that guy justice.”

I rub my bottom lip, my piercing cold beneath my thumb. I’ve known Oscar is bi since I met him at Yale. He was a science major, too, only his focus was on kinesiol

ogy. So we shared a couple of the same courses, and on Friday nights we went to gay bars together because 1.) Oscar is fun 2.) watching him hit on guys is amusing as shit; no one has simultaneously the best and worst pickup lines.

I read into his words. “You think Moffy’s hot?”

“Everyone thinks Moffy’s hot.” Oscar rotates to me. “It’d be near impossible to find someone who says less than that. You see him. On a scale of one to ten, he’s—”

“Out of your league,” I say matter-of-factly. Trying not to appear territorial. My muscles contract, almost flexed, but Oscar can’t tell.

“More like, he’s way, way off-limits.”

Maybe.

Akara approaches all four of us, standing well over six feet. “Hey, everyone take a seat.”

Oscar and I lower to the mats where Donnelly and Quinn already sit. As soon as we’re on the ground, Oscar sticks his hand into a Doritos bag.

Shit, with Oliveira, he could’ve packed the whole snack aisle in his gym bag. The guy is always hungry.

“First things first, if you plan to recommend your gym buddies as security detail, ask where they’re from. It’s not that hard. Like this, hey, Donnelly.”

“Hey, boss.”