Damaged Like Us (Like Us 1)

I remember years back seeing the headline Smart Like Us with a photograph of Jane competing in prep school mathletes.

The one I clutch zooms in on Luna, Xander, and Kinney’s new ear piercings. The title: Cool Like Us.

Maximoff asks, “Why are you smiling?”

“They called you uncool.”

Maximoff rubs water out of his face and then reaches his arm out of the shower to clearly shoot me a middle finger.

I almost laugh, but my phone rings on the tiled floor. I already see the caller ID: Alpha Asshole.

Shit.

There’s an 85% chance he’s going to chew me out for shutting off my radio. Coms aren’t even on me right now. So I bypass that headache and just text Price: I’m not on SFA.

He replies fast.

From cams, we can tell that Moffy is home. You need to come help vet Camp-Away entrants. – Price

I reply even faster: I already spent six hours vetting entrants today. I purposefully signed up for a shift while Maximoff was working at the H.M.C. office.

We need more eyes on this. You’re available, so get over here. – Price

I could easily shut off my phone and act like I didn’t just receive that fucking demand. But if the worst happens at the Camp-Away—just because I didn’t take an extra three hours to vet the raffle entrants—I’d be more than pissed at myself.

I’ll be there. I send that one text and slip my phone in my pocket. “Maximoff.”

He cracks the shower door. “Yeah?”

“I have to go. Security needs me.” I pull on my black V-neck.

Looks like he’s not the only one giving out rain checks.

35

FARROW KEENE

SPRAWLING green fields bleed into a bright blue horizon, oak and spruce trees jutting to the sky. Leaves are orange and red as the fall season nears an end. From a hill, I spot the glittering lake and canoes stacked on a rack, inner-tubes tied to a wooden dock.

Maximoff uses the acres and acres of land from Camp Calloway, his aunt’s summer camp in the Poconos Mountains, for his December Camp-Away event.

It’s majestic, serene, but I’m also very much on-duty. I’m not about to be swept up by nature. Not when there are three-hundred raffle guests ranging from eighteen to forty-five in age.

And they’re all playing the first group activity that Maximoff scheduled: a massive game of capture the flag.

Hundreds of people are split into four teams, denoted by red, green, blue and yellow shirts and bandanas. While they run around the field and forest, screaming out strategies and searching for other team’s flags, security meanders through the crowd.

We all wear black T-shirts with SECURITY in bold neon-green letters.

My arms haven’t uncrossed. For the past twenty-minutes, I concentrate solely on Maximoff, my guard not lowering. Earlier, I confiscated a knife that someone tried smuggling into the camp. Apparently they believed they’d be “fishing” and cleaning their own dinner.

Okay.

Sure.

My earpiece buzzes with nonstop chatter.

“I saw where Yellow Team hid their flag,” Donnelly says. Even though Beckett Cobalt is his client, the Tri-Force enlisted most of the seasoned bodyguards for the event. The Meadows, Cobalts, and Hales without their regular 24/7 bodyguards have temporary ones for three days.

Akara is on the mic. “Are you really using coms to help Jane cheat?” He assumes it’s Jane, but any way you toss it, Donnelly is Team Cobalt.

“I’m doin’ nuthin,” Donnelly says, accent thick on the word nothing. I spy him circling a wooded area, blue bandana on his tattooed forearm even though he’s not playing.

Maximoff sits casually on a tree stump. Stuck in blue team’s “jail” until one of his red team members tags him out. I relax for a second, propping my shoulders on an oak tree.

His eyes flit briefly to me, a smile in them.

He runs his fingers through the dark brown strands of his hair. Somehow, he appears a few years older with his natural shade.

I still can’t get over it.

And he found an alternative to lightening his hair. He’s wearing Thor camping socks right now. Plus, he had Luna draw Spider-Man figures on his Timberland boots. It’s his way of shouting I love my dad to paparazzi who’ll take money-shots and to anyone who’ll listen.

My lips begin to rise back at him.

“Quinn to security.” Another voice is in my ear. “I just overheard some girls talking about dragging someone. Should I intervene?”

“Nah,” Donnelly pipes in again. “That’s just fandom talk.”

“What?” Quinn asks.

I click my mic. “It’s not a threat. Don’t engage.” Did I just naturally “guide” Quinn right there? Fucking hell, I’ve turned into a teacher.

“Ugh, I forgot my snack,” Oscar complains. “Does anyone have anything on them?”

“Bro, you just ate,” Quinn refutes. “Like fifteen pancakes.”

“I don’t see your point. Snacks are an essential part of life. And you know what, if you haven’t learned that by now, we’ve encountered a real serious problem—guys, my brother needs fucking help, like a Snack Awareness Meeting.”

Voices pile onto one another.

I lower the volume.

Maximoff is out of “jail” and he runs into a safe zone. He slows down as a huddle of eighteen or nineteen-year-old girls in red shirts ogle him.

I don’t blame them.

He’s gorgeous. And my cock definitely agrees.

I’m more hyper-aware of people here who are apathetic towards him. It means they’re most likely at the Camp-Away for wrong reasons. Akara already red-marked twenty-three names for us to watch. Their motives for entering the charity event seemed suspicious.

Maximoff approaches the girls, and they squeal in glee, bouncing on their toes and grabbing onto his arms excitedly.

Easy there.

I raise the radio volume and catch the tail-end of Oscar asking for food.

I click my mic. “I have a protein bar. I’m by an oak tree.”

“There are trees everywhere, Redford.”

I roll my eyes. “Man, how badly do you want that snack? Because I’m not drawing you a fucking map.”

“…I see you.” Oscar sprints past a gaggle of green-shirted guys and then stops beside me. Curly pieces of his hair fall over a rolled blue bandana.

I grab a protein bar out of a first-aid bag. The medic stand is on the other side of the hill. So we’ve dropped a few emergency bags throughout the area.

“This is nuts.” Oscar bites into the bar. “Legitimately stressed right now.”

I shake out my crossed arms, my muscles tight. “Did you see how much money he made from the raffle?”

Oscar swigs his water. “The numbers are already in?”

“Seventy million.”

“Holy shit.”

Maximoff was glowing all morning. In truth, if he were stabbed in the middle of the night and wheeled into the hospital, he’d still declare this a success. Very few things can happen to where he’d call the Camp-Away a failure.

But him, being stabbed, would be my fucking nightmare.

“Quinn to security. They just said drag her again. And I know they’re talking about Jane. That’s violent.”

Donnelly answers, “Still fandom language.”

“I don’t like it,” Quinn says, making his opinion known.

“Bro.” Oscar clicks his mic next to me. “Get yourself a Twitter account.”

“You’re not on Twitter?” Donnelly questions.

“He’s only on Facebook,” I tell the team, grinning.

Donnelly lets his laughter filter through the coms.

“Facebook is where it’s at,” Quinn rebuts.

Akara says, “This isn’t the best use of the coms.” He pauses, then adds, “But Facebook is better.”

Oscar wolfs down the protein bar and laughs.

“They just said Jane and Sulli

are cancelled,” Quinn adds.

“They’re just passionate stans,” Donnelly explains.

“What the fuck is a stan?” Quinn asks and adds, “Alright, I really don’t like this anymore. They just said Jane should go choke.”

I cut in, “Go talk to them.” That could be a threat. Or they could just be fans. When fandom culture comes into play, the lines blur.

Oscar knocks his arm with mine. “Look at you, helping my baby brother out.” He chews the protein bar with a wide grin. “You keep that up, Tri-Force is gonna put all the green ones with you.”

“Fuck,” I curse.

Quinn repeats another possible threat, but Oscar and I don’t bat an eye.

He tosses the protein wrapper in the red first-aid bag. “I hate how desensitized I’ve become to some of this shit. How do we even think that’s normal?”

“I know.”

I watch Maximoff depart from the huddle of girls. He lifts the corner of his red shirt and wipes sweat off his brow. Revealing his front-page-worthy abs—then he pulls the shirt up and over his head.

Damn.

Camp-goers shriek and whip out their phones. Some must be Snapchatting a video, their cameras pointed at him for a while.

A girl strolls nearby and stops dead still. Wide-eyed. “Oh. My. God.”

I know.

I stretch my arm, my blood rushing down to my dick.

She whips out her phone and narrates. “He’s more beautiful in person.”

Accurate.

“Are you guys seeing this?!” she shrieks in glee to her video followers.

“Boners and wet pussies everywhere,” Oscar whispers to me.