Damaged Like Us (Like Us 1)

“It was,” she replies. I pick up on the past tense.

“But it’s not anymore?”

“You two don’t get much time alone…” She shrugs.

I want to tell her not to worry about that. To do what she’d normally do, if I wasn’t around. But fuck. I love my one-on-one time with Maximoff, and those car rides are a big part of it. No piece of me wants to give that up just to be nice.

My earpiece buzzes. “Akara to Farrow,” Akara says through my mic. “We’re driving into the garage now. Are the doors unlocked?”

I step back from Jane, realizing that this conversation went from pleasant to painful in a matter of minutes. And honestly, it’s not her. I don’t even know if it’s me. It’s just this intangible, unquantifiable thing.

23

MAXIMOFF HALE

“I DON’T THINK I brought enough chips,” Sulli says in my kitchen beside me. The two of us fix a plate of food for everyone. She inspects the Tostitos. “What was I thinking? One fucking bag. Akara can eat a whole bag by himself. And why did I bring donuts? No one likes midnight donuts but me.”

“Hey.” I place two hands on her broad swimmer’s shoulders. She’s long-legged and long-armed, and barefoot, she’s six-feet tall. Only a couple inches shorter than me, and we’re almost eye-level.

We look like brother and sister. Not just cousins.

Our moms are sisters. We share their green eyes.

Our dads are half-brothers. We share our grandfather’s dark brown hair (if I didn’t dye mine).

So you know Sullivan Minnie Meadows as the foul-mouthed, ultra-focused Olympian who returned home with four gold medals last summer in 200 & 400-meter freestyle and individual medley. You’re angry that she just retired from swimming, but some of you are too excited about the idea of Sullivan starting to date to seriously care.

I’ve seen your tweets about her virginity.

Back off.

And me…I know her as Sulli. My nineteen-year-old cousin who jokes crudely, loves wildly, and can outrace me on foot or water every single time. I love her like a little sister, and she has no brothers of her own.

Fair warning: I’ll rip each lung out of your ribcage and grind them in a rusted meat processor if you fuck with her.

“Don’t stress,” I say, clutching her shoulders. “One bag of chips is fine. And when have you ever cared if no one else likes donuts?”

“It’s our first Hallow Friends Eve.”

I get it. Halloween is more of my dad’s birthday and a giant costume get-together. Family only. Jane and Sulli have been trying to figure out a day-before-Halloween tradition for years that doesn’t include our parents or the little kids.

Hence, Hallow Friends Eve. Of our cousins and siblings, we decided to only invite those who’ve already graduated high school. Charlie never RSVP’d. Fucking typical. And his twin brother Beckett just became a principal dancer at a prestigious ballet company. He’d be here for Sulli, his best friend, but he has a performance tonight.

That just leaves Jane, Sulli, and me.

“And it’s my first time hosting a party,” Sulli reminds me. “It has to be perfect.” She inflicts pressure on herself all the time. Whenever Sullivan has a goal, in her mind it’s her job to go for gold.

“Co-hosting,” I correct, dropping my hands. “It’s my house. Anything goes wrong, you can blame me.” I pour her chips in an orange plastic bowl.

Sulli snorts. “That’s not how this works. You can’t fall on a sword for me, Mof.” Quietly, she adds, “And I don’t want this to be the worst party our bodyguards have ever been invited to.”

My brows scrunch. “Who are you trying to impress? It’s just Akara, Quinn, and Farrow.” We invited them as friends. Off-duty. We’re all staying in our townhouse all-night and watching a horror movie. They can drink alcohol, but they need to crash here.

We pushed the loveseat against the kitchen’s archway. So we have to hurdle the furniture to reach the living room where we set up beanbags and sleeping bags. Like Jane, Sulli is already wearing her pajamas, cupcake boxer shorts and a turquoise tank.

“I’m trying to impress all three of them,” Sulli whispers. “I’ve heard them talk shit about your pool party circa…how old were you?”

“Eighteen, and that mosquito infestation was not my fucking fault. We were outside. Where bugs live. Naturally.”

“Hey, I’m not the one ragging on you,” Sulli says. “I totally agree. It’s nature’s fucking fault. Not the watermelon that you cut in half.”

I scowl. “You’re right, they’re annoying. Why’d we invite them anyway?” I’m half-serious, half-sarcastic. Even though I spend 24/7 with Farrow, this’ll be the first time he’s technically off-duty around me.

And he just loves his technicalities.

“If we didn’t invite them,” Sulli says, “then we’d have to call this Hallow Family Eve because the three of us don’t have friends. Other than the people we pay to protect us.”

“Jesus, we’re so sad,” I say, sarcasm thick.

Sulli smiles. “The fucking saddest.” She grips a beer by the neck and casually takes a small sip. She cringes, nose wrinkling. Not enjoying the bitter taste.

Her dark hair is parted in the center. Splayed in waves over her broad shoulders. Sulli casts a glance to the living room.

Over the loveseat, I spot Jane entertaining Quinn, Akara, and Farrow with some elaborate story. Gesticulating madly, lemonade mixed drink in her hand.

“She’s so good at that,” Sulli says, wistful. “Half the time I don’t know what the fuck to say to people.”

“It’s a Cobalt thing,” I remind Sulli. “They have a harder time knowing when to shut up.”

She exchanges a smile with me. We love our seven Cobalt cousins—our best friends are Cobalts: Beckett for her, Janie for me—but it’s undeniable how different we are from them.

She nods and takes a larger swig of beer. Trying not to make a disgusted face. She succeeds. Then in a different language, she asks, “Has pensado en la ultra?” Have you thought about the ultra?

Ryke Meadows taught his daughters to speak Spanish. And he taught me. I’m proud to be fluent, but in the past year, being constantly compared to Ryke…I don’t know.

I question everything.

“Moffy?” Sulli nudges my ribs, waking me from a stupor.

The ultra.

I grab a water bottle from the hard-shell cooler on the ground. Thinking. Sulli retired from swimming because she completed her goal. She went to the Olympics. She medaled. And she could’ve returned to the next summer Olympics, but she didn’t want to go after more-of-the-same.

So she set her sights on doing an ultra-marathon in Chile. The Atacama Crossing, a 155-mile race in the desert. It’s her next goal.

Her next fight for first.

And she wants me by her side.

Swimming and running go hand-in-hand. We used to condition on land by doing endurance runs together, and I’d love to make time for an ultra.

If she asked me a year ago, I wouldn’t have hesitated like I do now.

“It’s because my dad ran an ultra, isn’t it?”

“Sul.” I rub my sharpened jaw. “If I go, they’ll compare me more to your dad than they do now.”

Sulli tears at the label on her beer. “Look, I know you’re not my brother—”

“I didn’t mean it like that.” Goddammit.

“Oh hey, I know. I’m fucking terrible with words.” She takes a giant breath. Not giving up yet. Sulli rarely gives up on anything. “Hear me out. We started competitive swimming together, and in the grand universe of friendship and fate, maybe we should start this together too.” She pauses. “And I just can’t fucking imagine doing this alone. So think about it, will you?”

I nod. “For you, I will.”

Sulli puts her lips to the beer rim and catches me eagle-eyeing the alcohol. She lowers the bottle. “You can stop looking at me like I’ve sprouted wings.”

“Actually, I’m

looking at you like you’re cradling a lit firework.”

“I know what I’m doing, Moffy,” she tries to reassure me.

Our grandfather was an alcoholic.

My dad is a recovering alcoholic.

Her dad chose to stop drinking alcohol at seventeen.

Alcoholism runs in the Hale and Meadows bloodlines. Just because I decided to never drink alcohol doesn’t mean my siblings or cousins will choose the same.

“Just be careful.” I dump pretzels in another bowl.

Sulli doesn’t say I always am. Adventure and fearlessness also runs deep in her blood. As a Meadows, she grew up cliff-jumping into tropical oceans, riding Ducatis, and paragliding hundreds of feet in the air.

Instead, she tells me, “I know the risk.”

Sulli reaches for a bakery box that contains a dozen chocolate-covered donuts. We carry the assortment of food: pretzels, chips, buffalo poppers, Halloween candy, and a veggie tray. And we skillfully climb over the loveseat without spilling anything.

Akara, Quinn, and Farrow lounge on beanbags, radios set aside. So they’re seriously off-duty. They face the fireplace, television mounted above the mantel. I set the food on a green sleeping bag in the middle, and Janie yanks the cord to the ceiling light.

Blanketing us in near-darkness.

Farrow leans on a black beanbag, nearest the staircase. More off on his own damn island. Akara, Quinn, and even Janie who plops down near the food are clustered much closer together.

Farrow swigs a beer, eyes dead-set on me. He’s wondering what my next move is. So am I. I’m dying to sit beside him. But what kind of message is that sending to everyone else?

Hey, I’m fucking my bodyguard!

Or hey, I’m just good friends with my bodyguard.

Alright—the first one sounds like pure paranoia with a dash of overreacting. Before I step towards Farrow, Sulli places donuts next to the chips and curses, “Cumbuckets.”