Damaged Like Us (Like Us 1)

I have the fucking power to unveil the curtains. And I have the power to hurt my brother. One choice. I could say, hey, Summers, paparazzi’s remote-controlled drones flew over the house. There may be more flying overhead if security doesn’t catch them in enough time. There’s no guarantee.

So I set the whole truth aside and say, “I don’t blame you. But you have to face the fucking world. Even if it sucks sometimes.”

“All the time,” he corrects and rips the plastic off his frozen pastry and puts it in the toaster. I slide my bowl of chips in my microwave.

“Flip your camera,” I say.

With a sigh, Xander rotates his camera, the screen showing his face for the first time. Sharp jaw structure, messy brown hair, expressive amber eyes, and a Hobbit T-shirt over checkered boxers. As a child, he was lauded as a “classic beauty” and that hasn’t changed.

You know Xander Hale as the most beautiful fourteen-year-old boy in the entire world. As said by you. You swoon over him like he’s the lead singer in a boy band or a famous social media star. You covet any photos you find online and cause his name to trend weekly. You’ve made his money-shots worth quadruple what mine sell for—and in effect, paparazzi stalk him like he’s the rarest, most hidden antelope of the pack. When in reality, he’s an endangered, timid bird.

I know him as my little brother. An amazing human being who speaks Elfish if you hang around him long enough. Who’s just trying to live in a world that’s a little too big for him. Who I’ll never give up on.

I just want him to be able to feel the light now and then. If I have to wrangle the sun out of the fucking sky with my bare hands, then I’ll withstand the burn. I’d give it all to him if I could.

Fair warning: imagine your toes being sawed off, and that’s what’ll happen if you fuck with my brother.

“You look like shit,” I say honestly. “You know what would help that?”

“Two more hours of sleep.”

“Swimming in the backyard pool with your big brother.”

Xander sighs into a glare. “Just come here and play video games with me. Stop trying to make me so…”

“Healthy, thriving, a human who goes outside—”

“Alright, alright,” he says. “Jesus, you’re relentless.”

My microwave beeps. I pull out the bowl of chips, and when I return to my phone, I notice Xander squinting at the screen.

I give him a look. “You picking your nose?” I eat a chip.

He scratches his cellphone like he’s trying to wipe a smudge off the screen. “What…what is that on your neck? Is that a hickey?”

I cough on my chip. Fuck. I drop my phone on the counter and fill a cup of water under the faucet. I down the water while Xander yells, “What, where’d you go—I need details!”

What’s the chance that Farrow would be that careless and give me a grade-school hickey? Slim. Maybe it’s not that bad.

I return to my phone and examine my neck in the screen. A dime-sized spot is faintly red. Probably because it happened recently. I doubt it’ll last. “What kind of details do you want?” I ask my brother.

He contemplates my question for a long moment and he settles on this: “Is the other person alive?”

I smile. I love my family.

Xander explains, “Luna says that whoever you hook up with instantly disintegrates into astral particles. Never to be seen or heard from again.”

“That’s a fucking terrible superpower.”

“No kidding.” Xander hot-potatoes his toasted pastry. “P.S. Dad is throwing a party in honor of your license suspension today. Everyone is pretty happy.”

“I saw the group-text.” The party is parents only which is kind of bullshit since it’s about me. I eat another chip. “Are you happy about it too?” I ask.

He shrugs and then looks at his pastry. Xander reaches some pretty low lows, and our parents hawk-eye him a lot. They’re even more aware of his health than I can be.

Xander barely lifts his gaze to the camera. “I overheard Thatcher saying the Camp-Away’s new format is ‘life-threateningly’ dangerous.” Thatcher Moretti is his 24/7 bodyguard, but young girls bombard Xander so often that Banks Moretti, Thatcher’s identical twin, is also on my brother’s detail.

“Thatcher is one of the stricter guys,” I remind Xander. “He’s probably overreacting.”

“Yeah but…” A tense beat passes before he tells me, “I need you to live long, Moffy.” He pauses, his eyes glassing a little bit. He scratches his nose and then rotates the camera to face his paper plate.

I stare hard at the phone.

My whole life, I’ve seen the media and nameless, faceless human beings shit on the people I love. Over and over. Clawing with no end in sight. Trying desperately to tear them apart. Ripping at the jugular. I walked on a sidewalk at ten-years-old and heard the word rape thrown at my mom in threat.

You wonder why I didn’t become bitter at the world.

You wonder why I don’t resent the world.

Because I knew I needed to become something that could withstand the world.

For my siblings, for my family, for anyone who’d grow up after me and need someone to defend them when they can’t defend themselves; when they need a shoulder to cry on or a safety net to fall in—I’m here. I’ve been here.

I’m always here.

Strongly, I tell my brother, “I’m not going anywhere, Summers.”

22

FARROW KEENE

BLACK AND ORANGE Halloween streamers and pumpkin lanterns drape Maximoff’s kitchen cupboards. I line up bottles of liquor on the countertop. Tequila, vodka, and flavored rum. I also purchased two six-packs of beer, a jug of orange juice, and a liter of Fizz.

Maximoff scowls at the haul.

I arch my brows. “You told me to buy a variety.” I wave to the bottles. “This meets your requirements.”

Unsaid Rule #1: Maximoff Hale cannot, under any circumstance, purchase alcohol himself.

Not unless he’d like a front-page headline saying he broke his sobriety. To save himself that headache, he had to ask me to make a liquor store run.

His grocery list said: lots of different alcohol, Different types. & Chasers.

I already annoyed him about his bad punctuation and random capitalization. One of my favorite things to do. And I’ve pointed out that for a guy who’s overly precise, this was the vaguest list he’s ever given me.

Maximoff crosses his arms over his dark-red crewneck, a domineering presence in the cramped kitchen. At the sight of

his shirt, my mind drifts for a second.

I’ve noticed he’s been ditching most of his green shirts for red. A deliberate, calculated change.

The public associates most of the Hales, Meadows, and Cobalts with their favorite colors.

And his dad’s is red.

Ryke’s is green.

I’d never tell Maximoff to not care about his dad. Hell, it’d be impossible for him to even try not to care. But the more he attempts to prove his dad’s worth, he’s essentially more and more and more like Ryke Meadows.

It’s a shit Catch-22. There is no winning, and he’s smart enough to have already figured this out. Maximoff is just too headstrong to let go and do nothing.

“What about whiskey or scotch or bourbon?” Maximoff asks me. “You didn’t buy a single dark liquor.”

I lean a hip against the counter, our bodies naturally close due to the small space. Maximoff draws even nearer, our knees knocking. We’re alone in his townhouse.

For the moment, at least.

I hook two fingers in the waistband of his dark jeans. “Remind me,” I say, voice husky, “what’s the goal tonight?”

Maximoff stares at my long tattooed fingers, lost in his head all of a sudden. He uncrosses his arms. And he clasps my wrist.

He drives my hand down his jeans. My mouth curves, and I gladly pull us closer, chest-against-chest, and I slip my palm beneath his boxer-briefs.

His heady forest-greens rise to my mouth. His ravenous, forceful expression sears my body and contracts my muscles. I can practically see all the ways he wants to fuck me in the reflection of his eyes.

“Besides the obvious goal,” I whisper. “My cum in your mouth.”

He hardens beneath my firm grip, but his hand is still wrapped around my wrist. “You mean my cum, your mouth.”

So that’s how it’s going to be tonight. Playing for the lead. I smile, not giving into his demands that easily. “I said what I said.”

“The goal…” he remembers. “The real goal tonight…” Maximoff pulls my hand out of his jeans. To clear his head for a second. I comply and rest my elbows on the counter.