Damaged Like Us (Like Us 1)

Farrow laughs. “Tell me your fantasy. In detail.” His gaze drips down me in a searing wave before fixing on the street. “I want to hear it.”

Now his bet makes sense. He said he wouldn’t have to talk dirty. Because he planned for me to. This shouldn’t be that difficult. Every single night, we fuck in my bedroom, and then we fall asleep together. He sets his alarm for 5:40 a.m. on the dot and leaves my townhouse before Quinn wakes.

My one-night stand routine has been replaced with a Farrow Redford Keene routine—and it’s better. Hotter. But it’s inherently different.

Like right now, I can verbally describe a fantasy at noon. I’m around someone I can fuck the brains out of twenty-four-hours a day. Uninhibited, unrestricted access to the most intoxicating, euphoric experience alive. With someone I care about.

I lick my lips slowly. If I’m unleashing my fantasy to Farrow, I’m going all in. No restraint. “I have a fantasy that plays on loop.”

Farrow listens, his eyes on me every other second.

“I’m in the shower,” I continue, “and I’ve thought a ton about what that location means. So I’ll save you the trouble of psychoanalyzing me and just tell you.” I sit up straighter. “I never let anyone stay the morning and shower with me. I never trusted someone to linger like that, but my brain—for whatever damn reason—always, always lets you stay.”

Farrow has this look in his eye. Like he wants to kiss me. But knows he can’t. He grips my seat tighter.

Lower. I crave for that hand to drop lower. On me. Unzipping me. Stroking me—I shake my head once, and then just continue on, “So I’m in the shower alone, and then the door opens. And there stands…” I feign surprise. “My mortal enemy.”

He rolls his eyes. “For fuck’s sake. I may lose this shit bet if you keep cutting yourself off.” Neither of us brings up how the bet has no stakes, no odds or payouts. Except for bragging rights.

I try to be more serious. “You’re buck-ass naked.”

“Getting better.”

I shift somewhat in my seat, just visualizing the next part. “You enter the shower, shut the door, and you come up behind me.”

Farrow goes still. “Behind you?” Maybe he expected me to bend him over and pound the fuck out of him—and while that’s a good one, it’s not the one.

“Yeah.” Our breaths are heavier, my skin flush. Veins pulse in my semi-hard cock. “I’m rubbing myself, and your palm usually encases my fist on the wall. Your chest up against my back.”

Farrow has to drop his hand off my seat. He rests it on his thigh by the bulge in his black pants.

I stretch my head back, my muscles flexed and burning. I keep hardening. “After that, you do different things every time. Jerking me off, kneeling down, and sometimes I have you against the wall and I take you from behind. But occasionally…” I shift again. “You’re inside of me.”

“Wow,” Farrow breathes, “I rocked your teenage world, didn’t I?”

I flash him an annoyed smile. “I’m limp now. Thank you for that.”

Farrow glances at the hard outline in my jeans. “Your erection says you’re a fucking liar.”

“Don’t speak for my cock,” I retort, trying not to smile. He’s near-laughter, and then he drives onto our street.

We’re in the garage in a matter of seconds. Closed and secure. Hidden from the public. The only threat is Quinn in the security’s townhouse.

Farrow shuts off the ignition. We unbuckle our seatbelts. As we turn, our eyes collide first, unrestrained and pulsing with want and need—our lips meet. My tongue parting his, and I edge deeper. Our hands wrestling with each other’s buttons and zippers.

He seizes my shaft in the best grip known to man. Farrow has a way with his hands that completely, utterly, massively annihilates me. I break the kiss just to mutter, “Fuck.”

He sucks the base of my neck and nips my flesh. Yes.

Fuck yes.

I stroke his impressive, literal mouth-watering length, pre-cum slick against my palm. I catch a glimpse of his tattooed fingers wrapped around me—my mouth opens, a guttural groan plastered in my lungs.

Fuck me.

Farrow clutches my jaw with his other hand, and he eats up my expression. Consuming my narrowed forest-greens that growl fuck me. He grits down, nose flaring. His chest rising and falling heavily.

Our pace increases, the friction like a blissful scorching hell. My head tries to loll back. Fuckfuckfuck. I come, and as a deep groan rumbles through Farrow, I realize that he comes by watching me hit a peak.

BOTH OF US SHIRTLESS, pants zipped and cleaned up, I tell Farrow to wait before he climbs out of my Audi. He eases his door closed and plants his ass back on the seat. What I’m about to do—I’ve never done before. It seems so small and infinitesimal compared to sex, but it’s not to me.

Farrow’s brows furrow. “What is it?”

I gather all the confidence I own. Which is a hell of a lot. “I got you something.”

“You got me something?” he repeats.

“Based on every romantic movie ever, it seemed like the right thing to do.” I pop open my glove compartment, and I collect a black box about the size of a necklace case. “It’s not expensive, so lower your expectations.”

“Hey, I have no expectations.” Farrow rubs the back of his neck and then takes the box from me. “I’m genuinely shocked right now.” His mouth starts curving. “How did you even get this without me noticing?”

“There’s this thing called online shopping,” I say, “and they deliver the goods to your house, and then when security rifles through my mail—namely you—they don’t touch anything postmarked Maximoff Hale X.” Creepy bastards send me mail under my name, so I always add the X to my personal purchases.

His smile expands. “Such a precious smartass.” He pops the lid off the box, and he laughs. “As I was saying.” He lifts up a gray and black triangular patch.

The stitched words read: Asshole Merit Badge.

I motion to the patch. “For the amount of awards you’ve given me: valor, honesty, integrity, resourcefulness, humility—I thought you must’ve been feeling lonely with zero of your own.”

He can’t stop smiling. He rubs his mouth a few times, but that smile is not vanishing any fucking time soon. He laughs and nods repeatedly. “You want me to join your little wolf scout club.”

“Maybe.” I breathe fully, happiness spreading across my face. Clear and free. Something light lives inside of me.

Farrow edges near, his thank you written all over his gaze. Even before we kiss.

I SKATEBOARD into my kitchen while dialing a number on my phone. Farrow and I split apart for lunch. He’s back in his townhouse. Keeping up appearances with Quinn. Accomplishing a few other security tasks. Like filling out his logs.

I open my cabinet and grab a bag of flaxseed chips. FaceTime rings and rings. I have no problem calling my fourteen-year-old brother twenty or fifty more times until he fucking answers.

Right when I think the call drops, the screen switches to an image of a packed freezer.

My brows bunch. “What am I looking at?” I ask, not needing to say a greeting to Xander. If my siblings don’t call me, I call them every day. Even if it’s just for two or three minutes.

“I’m trying to find my breakfast; I just woke up.”

I dump chips in a bowl. “It’s two p.m.”

“It’s Saturday. I would’ve slept till four if Kinney didn’t blast her screamo music in my bedroom.” In the video chat, his hand shifts the frozen chicken. I can’t lie—I miss being at home whenever I hear these small stories. Miss seeing them firsthand.

But that’s the thing about growing up, getting older—for whatever and however much I lose, I gain something new with someone new.

“What are you looking for?” I ask while skateboarding to my refrigerator.

“Mom just bought more Toaster Strudles, and Luna keeps hiding them.”

Toaster Strudle War is a real Hale

thing. Luna thinks that Xander purposefully chomps down all of them, but he usually saves her two that just get eaten by Kinney.

Xander asks, “What are you eating?”

I flip my camera as I grab a bag of shredded cheese and skateboard to my bowl of chips. “Nachos.”

All of a sudden, twenty frozen items cascade out of his freezer and thud to the floorboards. I hear our family dog scamper off in the background.

“Fuuuuck,” Xander curses. The camera is pointed at the mess for literally a full minute while he contemplates putting it all back. “Ughhhh.”

I’d clean it for him if I were there. “Just make your breakfast. Pick it up after, Summers.”

My nickname for my brother is a play on his X-Men namesake: Alexander Summers. Likewise, my namesake is also X-Men related.

Pietro Maximoff.

As in Quicksilver.

Xander has the Strudle box in hand and heads to the toaster.

I rotate my camera back to my face and sprinkle cheese on my chips. “So I heard you haven’t been outside in weeks.”

“Do you blame me? No one will tell me how Mom and Dad ended up being photographed from the backyard, Moffy. The backyard, in a gated neighborhood. I’m not going out there.”

I know how they were photographed.

Farrow shared the security info with me. I get why my parents would want to keep this secret from Xander. They’re worried the truth will ramp up his anxiety.