Damaged Like Us (Like Us 1)

1

MAXIMOFF HALE

“YOU CAN’T TELL me one thing about him?” I ask for probably the millionth time. I haven’t actually been counting. But from Akara’s annoyed bite into his blueberry bagel, I’m guessing my question died a bitter death five minutes ago.

Today is doomsday.

The day where my unconventional, strange life becomes colossally more complicated. I can handle shit storms while propping up the Earth with one goddamn hand—but I like to be semi-prepared for situations. I have a real switchblade in my fucking pocket, but I want a metaphorical one too.

Akara swallows his bagel. “You want one thing?”

“Just one,” I affirm.

“He’s your new bodyguard.”

I slowly blink into a glare. “Thank you for offering the one thing that I already fucking know.” It’s the one thing that’s been driving me up the wall like a possessed Spider-Man. I’ve had the same bodyguard for my entire life, and he decided to retire recently.

Just yesterday, I said goodbye to Declan. It’s bittersweet. He wants to spend more time with his wife and two kids, not be the 24/7 bodyguard to an internationally famous human being. I get that. Selfishly, I wish he could stay longer.

And when I mean longer, I mean forever.

Personal bodyguards are like spouses. All of my immediate and extended family have one. They follow us everywhere, eat with us, guard our rooms if we bring home strangers—or in my case, “uncomplicated” hookups. Mind-blowing fucks. One-night stands. All of that is being passed to a new someone.

I’ve never had to introduce a new bodyguard to the ins-and-outs of my life. It’s not just going to be a Day In The Life of Maximoff Hale. It’s a permanent position that’ll last decades unless he turns out to be an incompetent prick.

This pivotal moment has put me on edge because Akara—the lead bodyguard in Security Force Omega—refuses to share more information about him.

“Like I said an hour ago,” Akara tells me, “it’s better if you meet in person.” Before I can reply, his cellphone pings.

I hope it’s my new bodyguard. I check my canvas wristwatch.

He’s twenty minutes late, and Akara already assured me that he received the invite.

Location: Superheroes & Scones

Time: 6 a.m. (before the store opens at 8 a.m.)

The homey but massive store is empty. I only turned on a few lights since no employees are here yet, the place quiet. Dimly lit. While I wait, I stand behind the bar counter and pour myself an orange juice.

I’m not stealing.

My family owns the two-story hybrid comic book store and coffee shop. With red and blue vinyl booths, stools, and then rows and rows of shelved comics and merch, Superheroes & Scones resembles a retro diner and modern comic store. Eighty-five of them exist throughout the globe, but this one in Philadelphia is the very original.

Since its creation, it’s had a few major renovations. The second floor used to be offices for a comics publishing company, which has since moved next door.

Capping the jug of juice, I look to my right. Bright blue stairs twist towards a second-floor loft area. Littered with colorful beanbags, sofas, coffee tables, and mounted televisions that play superhero films nonstop.

If I could rank my favorite places in the world, Superheroes & Scones would be number two. Right behind a pool.

Any pool.

I take a large swig of my OJ, and Akara’s phone starts buzzing in quick succession.

I wipe my mouth on my carved bicep and notice the text message boxes lighting up his screen. “Someone’s popular.?

?? That better be my tardy bodyguard.

Akara wipes his fingers on a flimsy napkin. “It’s only one person.”

I crane my neck to try and see if I can spot a name.

Akara angles the phone towards his chest and scrolls through the messages. “Chill. Eat. Try not to overthink, if that’s at all possible for you.”

“It’s not.” I can fucking admit this.

Akara smiles but concentrates on his phone. Pieces of his straight black hair touch his dark eyelashes. His cut muscles could tear through his blue Studio 9 shirt. There’s no uniform for security detail. Bodyguards just typically dress for the occasion.

Like when I attend formal charity events, they’ll wear suits and tuxes.

I roll my shoulders backwards, muscles tight. I need to stretch, swim several laps. I check the time on my phone. Then I take another swig of orange juice and watch Akara text.

“You know,” I tell him, “I’m not asking for the meaning of life or a planetary map of undiscovered galaxies. You could give me his hair color. Zodiac sign. Maybe a last name—”

“Nice try.” Akara’s brown eyes lift to mine just to say you can’t bullshit me before he returns to his cell. “Why don’t you finish making your list for him?”

“I already printed it out.” It’s in the pocket of my jeans. Akara suggested I bullet-point the “rules of my life” for the unknown person.

Like #32: I take pictures with fans in real time and let them post the pics. Not all of my cousins or siblings allow this. It gives the public and media a timestamp of where I am. And it’s considered dangerous.

A safety threat.

But I’ve lived my life beneath a spotlight since I was in the womb. I don’t give a shit if someone knows where I am at so-and-so time. Chances are, paparazzi will find me anyway.

After placing my glass down on the bar, I rake a hand through my disheveled, light brown hair. The strands are dyed from their natural dark-brown hue.

I know that you know what I look like. You’ve seen my face on the front page of tabloids. All while you were checking out two-percent milk, maybe a Kit-Kat bar, hopefully a can of Fizz.

I have forest-green eyes that dagger the souls of those who fuck with my family. Sharp cheekbones that look like knives, and a lean-cut swimmer’s build from my competitive swimming days. You may not know that Burberry and Calvin Klein scouted me when I was eighteen.

I turned them down.

Akara texts. And texts.

For the past five years, he’s been a central part of my life. Even if he isn’t my personal bodyguard. As the lead of Security Force Omega, he’s in charge of hires, transfers, terminations, and keeping the whole system running. He’s the glue.

The constant.

He’s twenty-five, Thai-American, MMA-trained but specialized in Muay Thai, and he owns the Studio 9 Boxing & MMA gym down the street. People pack Studio 9 every morning, and evenings are impossible to get into without a referral.

He glances up from his phone. Eyeing me. “You need to relax.”

I’m impatient. And I’m overly self-aware. Firmly, I tell him, “If he doesn’t show by eight, we have to leave.” I can’t be here when the store opens. I’ll be stuck signing autographs and taking photos for hours on end, and I have a long, long list of things I need to get done.

I’m a CEO of a charity organization that raises millions annually. And I set a goal to raise $300 million for H.M.C. Philanthropies by December. We’re not even halfway yet.

“He knows,” is all Akara says. He knows.

Who the fuck is he? I straighten up, rigid like I’m seconds from joining the National Guard. “Did you at least choose someone who can keep up with me? He’s not going to sputter out after an hour or two?” I constantly drive back-and-forth from my townhouse, to my work offices, and to the gated neighborhood of my childhood home. Where my three younger siblings still live.

“Again, relax.” Akara holds out a hand. “I know you. I wouldn’t put someone on your detail that can’t handle your lifestyle.” He pushes back his hair and then fits his baseball cap on backwards.

Akara appears approachable right now. Friendly, even.

But I witnessed him staring down a grown fifty-year-old man. Twice his size. Veins protruding in the man’s ripped muscles: a known steroid-user. He was also my cousin Beckett’s former bodyguard. And he fucked up. He let a cameraman slip into a public bathroom while my cousin was pissing in a urinal.

Akara laid into the bodyguard. Yelling, scolding—and I just watched this much younger guy make a middle-aged man cry. Tears just streaming down his face. Akara made him feel like he committed involuntary manslaughter.

I realized that’s why most bodyguards say, “Don’t piss off the SFO lead.” Pissing off Akara is like putting your ass on death row.

Boom.

Our heads whip to the tinted store windows. Four preteens just ran into the glass, bouncing on their toes. They scream a variety of names, mine included, and they cup their hands to the window. Trying to peer inside.

I smile.

It’s funny. If I thought it wasn’t, I’d be irritated every minute of every single day. Typically, there’s a line outside of the store until closing, so I’m not surprised people are already here before eight.

“One, two, three,” they all count together before shrieking, “MAXIMOFF HALE!”

My lips stretch wider.

You, as in the four preteens and also the whole world—you all know me as Maximoff Hale. CEO of a nonprofit charity, one-time philosophy major, competitive swimmer, son of a sex addict mother and recovering alcoholic father, and the steadfast older brother to three and cousin to eleven.

You’re obsessed with my perpetual “single” relationship status, and you’ve never seen me publicly date anyone. On occasion that I wasn’t careful enough, you’ve seen photos of me bringing home random girls or guys.

You know I’m not serious about them.

You know they’ll only last one night. Not one damn string attached.

You don’t know really anything about our bodyguards. Like how they exist in our lives as close as family members. It’s their duty to maintain anonymity with the public, and you can’t keep an eye on them or know them the way that we do.

So you know nothing about Akara Kitsuwon and the rest of Security Force Omega.

Akara grins at the three girls and one boy who can’t see us, but we can see them flailing excitedly and taking selfies. “This shit never gets old.”

I raise my OJ. “Immortal entertainment.” Two homemade signs smack the window.

I read one: FUCK ME, MAXIMOFF HALE! She looks twelve, pigtail braids and braces.

My jaw muscle tenses. “Just kidding.” That’s not fucking funny. It should go without saying, but I’d never have sex with a preteen or teenager or anyone who looks on the cusp of being that young. Jesus…twelve. I have a sister that age.

I’m not against hooking up with fans. It’s pretty much inevitable, but it has to be a.) consensual and b.) someone of legal age and c.) a one-time thing.

Akara scrutinizes the preteens. “The scary part,” he says, “that shit doesn’t even faze me anymore.” He eyes the lock on the store entrance before returning to his cellphone.

The other sign from her friend: I WANT TO HAVE YOUR BABIES, XANDER HALE!!

Xander is my fourteen-year-old brother.

My shoulders square, but I try to brush that sign off without a long thought. Akara resumes texting again. I lean forward. Still not able to see his screen.

“Hot date?” I ask.

Akara quickly says, “No.” Then he removes his elbows off the counter. Sitting up. “It’s Sulli.”

Sullivan Meadows. My nineteen-year-old cousin.

“Sulli’s blowing up your phone?” I give him a look. “Didn’t you tell her that you’re with me?” I needed a bodyguard just to drive here and meet a new bodyguard. The irony. I asked Akara if there was anyone available from Omega, and he offered

himself.

“I thought she’d be asleep until nine, at least.”

I wait for him to add more.

He stops there.

“Why?” I try not to snap. I swear the whole security team enjoys keeping me out of the loop. I could get twice as much information by just asking my family. But I restrain myself from texting Sulli.

“It doesn’t matter,” he says evasively and eats another bite of bagel while messaging my cousin.

“It does to me. She’s my family.” She’s not a part of security. She’s on my side. Famous.

Three famous families—the Hales, the Meadows, the Cobalts—are permanently bound together because our moms are sisters. The Calloway sisters, to be exact. And the Calloways, namely my grandfather, founded Fizzle: a soda company so world-renowned that they beat Coca-Cola in sales for the past decade.

Fizzle is part of why we’re all famous.

But it’s not the whole story.

I add, “I can just text her myself.” I reach for my phone, but he caves, nodding to me.

Once he swallows his food, he says, “She kept yawning on our way back from a state park. She didn’t get home until three a.m.” He sends another text. “I should’ve known she’d wake up.” His eyes flit to me. “She has FOMEFT.”

Fear of Missing Every Fucking Thing.

My lips rise.

Sulli coined it herself. The most predictable thing about my younger cousin is the least predictable thing: sleep.

I’d think it’s strange that Akara knows these details about Sulli, but he’s her personal bodyguard. He’s been assigned to Sullivan since she was sixteen. If anyone knows her life habits, it’s him.

It hits me again. The thought I’ve been swatting away like a bee: someone is about to know my life habits that intimately too.

Great.

I lean on the counter, arms crossed over my green crew-neck shirt. And then my muscles bind as the lock starts to rotate on the tinted-glass door.

Someone is entering. Someone who was given a key.

My new bodyguard.

He’s finally here.

2

MAXIMOFF HALE

DEAR WORLD, stop fucking with me. Sincerely, an agitated human.