Damaged Like Us (Like Us 1)

I see his dark, disheveled hair, his thick eyebrows, golden tan, and the way his body is cut and ripped and lean—and I see me. Or at least what I look like without the constant light-brown hair dye.

I inherited my sharp cheekbones from my dad, but that’s it. At the end of the day, I look more like Ryke Meadows than I do Loren Hale.

“He hates that one,” Uncle Connor says.

I rotate.

My intelligent, polished uncle watches me from behind his desk. Jane’s dad has blue eyes, wavy brown hair, and he wears a tailored suit with as much confidence as he’s worth. Billions. Like my dad and Uncle Ryke, he’s in his forties, and they’re all still lauded for their good looks.

Connor Cobalt has been People’s Sexiest Man Alive three times in the past decade alone.

We’re waiting for Ryke and my dad to show. I typically meet them at public restaurants. But since the media frenzy about my fight and the Camp-Away, they all three decreed “office lunch” before I could protest.

And Connor was the one who reinstated the cancelled lunch. This morning he called Dalton Academy and smooth-talked the administration. No parent-teacher meeting, so here I am.

Trying not to remember about last night in my Audi.

With Farrow. I’ll start smiling like an idiot, and he’d totally call me out if he were here. The high-rise has secure entrances. So Farrow is allowed to leave and eat at the food court below, drive my Audi around—pretty much whatever he wants.

I have no clue what he chose to do, and we don’t really text. We’re both too smart to get caught by a phone or email hack.

I study the magazine again. Uncle Ryke hates this one? “Why does he hate it?” It’s a great cover. Better than most of the tabloids that slap my mom and dad on the front.

“The headline.”

I reread. “It says he’s the best in the world.”

“And he vehemently disagrees. Ryke’s humility is another limb. I’ve tried my best to amputate it in the past, but it’s never leaving.”

Humility.

I blink a couple times, my eyes growing. I’m highly aware that I’ve been called humble multiple times. My gaze starts to narrow.

Jesus.

Christ.

How many traits do I share with him?

I just leave the magazine and sit on a leather couch. Which faces a few leather chairs in his office’s lounge section. My uncle trades his desk for the chair across from me.

I pop a couple knuckles, a bad habit, but I keep eye contact with Connor. He’s all about self-confidence. Eye contact. Never cowering to any adversary, and where he has employees running into cubicles or staring slack-jawed, I’ve never been intimidated by his godly presence.

“You know my mom was on the front page of Celebrity Crush this morning?” My shoulders are locked. “The headline: Lily Calloway Goes Back to Her Old Wild Ways! They had a photograph of her sticking her hand down my dad’s pants. And Uncle Ryke is upset over a cover where he’s scaling a mountain during a damn sunrise.”

A bad, acidic taste drips down my throat, but I don’t look away.

I meet everything head-on.

Connor barely blinks, none of this fazing him. “Ryke was ten times more upset about the tabloid yesterday than that National Geographic hanging in my office. That, I can assure you.”

I used to look up to Ryke as a little kid.

I used to dress like him: leather jackets, fuck-if-I-care style. I used to want to be him. I constantly asked him to take me camping. I begged him to let me ride his motorcycle.

Then I learned about the rumors. That my mom and my dad’s half-brother slept together. That I’m actually the son of Ryke Meadows.

I don’t believe those rumors. My mom has been adamant that she’s always stayed faithful to my dad. And she looks proud whenever she says, “I’ve never cheated on Lo.” A sex addict who never cheated—it’s a big deal.

My mom is strong as hell.

But there was one time where I questioned the rumors. I was twelve. I asked my dad flat-out. I asked him who’s my biological father—and he said, me. Unequivocally, wholeheartedly. Me.

I believe my dad. I’ve seen the DNA tests, and they confirm that I’m Loren Hale’s son. We’ve even publicized the DNA tests.

People don’t like to believe facts. They want to believe the most salacious story. The one that makes you keep flipping the pages.

That story isn’t always the truth.

I like the narrative where my mom and dad helped each other battle their addictions. Two addicts who used to enable one another were able to pull through together and become sober and healthy. I like my reality. My real-life parents. Who possess an unconscionable amount of strength that most people will never know and never see.

They’re my heroes.

And I’m damn proud to be their son.

Recently those paternity rumors have been running rampant again. I want the world to know that I’m proud to be the son of Loren Hale. I want to honor my dad, and I have no idea how to do that other than to look more like him. So I dye my hair.

I need you all to know that I love him.

So damn much.

“We’ve got tacos!” My dad barges into the office, his light brown hair artfully styled. His daggered amber eyes rarely lose that edge, just like his voice and his jaw, but there’s something so human and warm about my dad.

It’s his love of the people around him.

His love for his wife and children.

His love for me. It’s more powerful than anything I’ve ever known.

Ryke enters the office behind my dad, the walls frosted for privacy. He shuts the door—I jolt as a foiled taco lands on my lap.

My dad towers nearby, his face scrunched at me. “You look a little pissy. What’d I miss?”

I gesture from me to Connor. “We were talking about how Uncle Ryke was pretty upset over the Celebrity Crush issue this morning.” I start peeling the taco foil, and I look up as my dad and Ryke turn to Connor. The source of the info.

Ryke glowers.

My dad’s jaw sharpens. Not happy that Connor fed my frustration over Ryke and my mom’s friendship.

Connor stares at me. Only me. “Context is really a beautiful thing, Moffy. Let’s try not to lose that.” To my dad, he says, “I was making a point that was lost in translation. And to be clear, it was poorly translated by your son.”

It’s true, and as my smile forms, my dad sinks on the couch beside me. Ryke takes the chair next to Connor. And they pass around food.

I look between the three of them. “Is anyone going to mention how that photograph was taken in the neighborhood?”

My dad and my mom were in the backyard. Their backyard. In the same gated neighborhood with twenty-four hour security. How Alpha let a photographer capture a shot of my parents from who-knows-where—I have no idea.

What if paparazzi are in the trees? What if they hired one of the neighbors to spy?

It’s not okay.

“We’re looking into it,” my dad says, sifting through his paper bag of food. Off my stern expression, he adds, “Don’t worry about it, Moffy.”

“How can I not worry about it?” I point at him with my chicken taco. “Luna, Xander, and Kinney live there and someone is taking pictures of the house.”

“I’m sorry, did you lose your name badge?” Sarcasm thick, he pretends to scan my red crewneck for the nonexistent badge. “Because…I don’t think it says Dad on your shirt.” He pats my shoulder lightly. “Pretty sure that’s my job, bud.”

“It says Big Brother on my forehead.” I must’ve jabbed my taco towards him.

He glares. “Eat it. Don’t abuse it.”

Connor wears a billion-dollar grin. “Ryke’s favorite motto.”

They’re talking about pussy.

Ryke unwraps a taco. “It’s a good one but not my fucking favorite, Cobalt.”

“Do tell, what’s your ‘fucking’ favorite.”

R

yke bites into a taco, sauce dripping down his unshaven jaw. He licks his thumb and says with a mouthful, “Don’t be a fucking dick.”

My dad flashes a half-smile. “A motto we’ve all broken.”

His brother tosses a piece of lettuce at him.

I study their interactions more than I ever do. I sense Connor scrutinizing me. Almost knowingly. He’s five million steps ahead of everyone. Always.

I stop obsessing and go to eat my taco. Pausing. I notice a leak of hot sauce.

“I have yours,” I say to my dad.

He checks the insides of his taco. Just cheese, chicken, and lettuce, and he swaps with me.

“You can’t tell me not to worry,” I say to him, back to the original topic. “I need information. Don’t keep me in the dark.”

He inhales a sharp breath, his jawline cutting like glass.

“I’m not a kid.”

“You’ve been saying that since you were four. So pardon me if I just want you to be a kid.” He bites into his taco and gathers his thoughts while he eats. He speaks after he sips a Fizz Life. “The security team is meeting about it this week. It’s being handled. I’ll let you know if anything changes. I can’t give you more than that, Moffy.”

Farrow can. He’ll know what’s happening.