Damaged Like Us (Like Us #1)(2)
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.