Damaged Like Us (Like Us 1)

I blink slowly like my world is starting to spin, and I’m gripping hard to hang on.

My dad’s jaw sharpens with each passing beat. New uncomfortable tension vacuums the air from the cabin. I sense the shift again.

I sense the unease.

I crack my knuckles, my back achingly straight. “How much do you guys not believe us?” Pressure packs on my chest. “You’re not just asking these questions for publicists. You’re asking for yourselves, aren’t you?”

Jane’s hand returns to mine, and our fingers intertwine. They’re all watching with suspicion.

It knives my ribcage.

“Before we make a decision, we need to hear your side of things,” my dad tells me.

I disentangle my fingers from Jane. Not able to sit any longer, I stand as tall as my dad. Glowering. “You honestly believe I could be having sex with Jane?”

“I don’t know what to think, Moffy.” His eyes flash hot. “It’s incest, for Christ’s sake. That’s not something you’d come to me and talk about!”

“I’m your son.” I motion angrily at him. “You know me. You know me better than most people ever will. How could you even think…” My words stick to the back of my raw throat. He doesn’t even look sympathetic.

He’s still on guard like I’m straight up lying to his face.

I want to scream at the top of my goddamn lungs, I’m not fucking Jane! But I can’t even unleash the words. The wind is knocked out of my chest. Stunned in the face of their doubt.

Jane’s mom takes over. “When I was your age, I thought I knew my sister, but for years Lily hid her sex addiction from me,” Rose tells me. “She was lying. She was sneaking around. I missed every sign.” I hear the guilt in her voice. She wishes she’d been there for my mom earlier.

And she thinks I’m lying like my mom.

Fuck. I run my hands through my hair and growl, “I’m not an addict. We’re not lying!” But their experiences shaped them.

They’ve shaped us. And how many times did my parents tell Rose, Connor, Ryke, and Daisy, we’re not lying. How many times were they caught in one?

Goddammit.

“We’re not lying,” Jane says more clearly, less hostile. “I promise, we’re not.”

I nod over and over and fucking over.

“It’s fucking incest, Mof,” Ryke says, his rough voice strained. “Like your dad says, it’s not something you’re going to willingly admit.”

“So then what?” I question. “You want to catch us in a lie until we’re forced to admit it? Is that the goal here?”

They don’t say anything.

“Jesus,” I murmur.

“Here…” My mom gets up, watery eyes. “Have some trail mix.”

I glare. “I don’t want your trail mix, Mom.” Instantly, I feel like an asshole. I don’t think I’ve ever snapped at my mom in my life. She sinks back onto the trunk, her chin quivering. She sniffs and tries to raise her chin.

“I’ll take some trail mix, love.” My dad snatches her bag.

“Dad,” Jane says, her voice soft and wary. “We are telling the truth.”

Connor barely blinks. “I have to stick with the facts.” He pauses. “And I want you two to realize the health risks if—”

“Stop.” Rose covers his mouth with her hand.

My mom bursts into tears. Aunt Daisy wipes her eyes with the edge of her shirt.

“Fucking A, Cobalt,” Ryke growls.

My dad looks sick.

“We’re not having sex!” I yell, veins almost protruding in my neck. I set my hands on my head, breathing hard. Farrow.

I almost turn to my right. Expecting him to be there. He’s always next to me, but he’s outside the closed door. Listening to my frustration and fury.

Ryke points to me. “Explain the fucking bite marks.”

“It wasn’t me,” Jane says, still sitting, but confidence and power boosts her words. The truth.

It’s the goddamn truth.

“Then who the fuck was it?” Ryke asks me.

Shit.

Shit.

Shit.

Jane, Farrow, and I already talked about the secret. The real one. Where I’m sleeping with my bodyguard. Jane said, “I’m not going to be the reason you two go public.”

She was adamant that we not expose our secret to the world. She’s intelligent and calculated and she told me, “There’s no certainty the media will even believe you and Farrow were dating. They’ll most likely say it’s a ploy to hide our supposed love affair. The timing is suspicious. And then what, Moffy? Farrow loses his job and his privacy. You get a new bodyguard. And everyone will still believe we’re having sex.”

There’s no evidence of Farrow and I hooking up. We have no texts to leak. No email thread. No photos from the past. No video footage. Us being so damn careful—I never thought that’d work against us.

Compare that load of nothing to the countless photographs and evidence of Jane and me together. All the times we’ve hugged. Where we’ve kissed each other’s cheeks. My arms wrapped around her shoulders. Her head on my chest.

We’re close.

We’ve always been close, but now every photograph can be twisted. Add in the hours of We Are Calloway footage where we both talk about how much we love each other. Platonic love—but that can be distorted too.

Even the Hallow Friends Eve is now packaged as evidence. Media posted the photo of me cradling Jane in my arms. I’m practically naked. She’s in her pajamas. They say it’s too close for cousins.

For the first time in my life, I feel isolated. Alone. Like Jane and I have boarded a lifeboat and been pushed out into a swelling ocean.

“Maximoff,” Ryke forces. “Who bit you?”

I prepared myself to deal with tabloids, the world. Not my family. And while you may think the world would be a worse battle—it’s not.

This is worse. This is gut-wrenching.

“Not Jane,” I say strongly.

“The bite marks can’t be from a one-night stand though,” my dad says.

I frown, wondering how they would’ve drawn that conclusion.

Ryke tells me, “You haven’t been going to clubs for four fucking months. I called Price, asking for the NDAs, and he doesn’t have any.”

“Which means that you haven’t had any one-night stands,” Connor continues, “or any random hookups. Do you follow the logic, Moffy?”

I remember the lie Farrow told the security team. “You think I’m seeing one girl.”

“Price told me,” Ryke says. Price. I shake my head repeatedly. “He said you’ve been sleeping with the same girl, and you refused to get an NDA because she’s not someone your parents would fucking approve of.”

They all look to Jane.

Dammit.

“It’s not me,” Jane says stiffly.

My dad gestures to my chest. “Who else would we not approve of? I can’t think of one goddamn name other than your cousin.”

Farrow Redford Keene.

I stare off, haunted. Morality is a demanding beast that asks me, pleads with me, begs me to do the right thing. What’s right anymore? I’m searching for the sword that I need to fall on. I just don’t want to hurt Jane or Farrow in the process.

I can’t hurt him.

I can’t.

Just let it slice through me.

“Maybe it’s not a love affair,” Ryke says. “Are you drinking? Are you having any fucking problems?”

“No,” I say firmly.

“Are you?” Ryke turns on Jane.

“No,” she says adamantly.

“We just want to help,” my mom chimes in, wet tears streaking her cheeks. “If you both would be honest, we can all work this out.” They think we’re lying.

And I am lying.

The truth is standing just outside the door. And I remember what Farrow once said. “You just need to know that I’m going to get banged up and you can’t run and save me, wolf scout. You have to let it happen.”

I’m not supposed to protect him. As much as it’s killing me. As much as it’s driving knots in my damn stomach.

We’re supposed to stand side-by-side. And we need to take this hit together.

Go get the truth.

I turn my head.

“Do you sleep in the same bed together?” my dad asks, voice stilted.

I go rigid. The room grows hot.

My head swerves back to him. I’m not burying myself beneath another lie. “Sometimes,” I say. “It’s always platonic.”