Damaged Like Us (Like Us #1)(23)

He clicks his mic and says to the security team, “Okay.” His gaze clasps mine as he tells me, “Luna asked her bodyguard to drive her here. She also requested that he remain inside his vehicle, which means—”

“She doesn’t want him to overhear her,” I finish, nodding to myself.

Janie collects the rest of the facts. “She must be hiding something from her parents, and she’s afraid her bodyguard will tattle.” He would. She’s underage.

It’s not the first time my siblings have come to me. When they fuck-up, my reaction is the lukewarm version of our over-protective dad. They say I go three-fourths Loren Hale. Sometimes I think they test their wrongdoings out on me just to build the courage to confront him.

Farrow looks at the outdoor security cams on his phone. When he catches me staring, I expect him to turn his back.

Instead, he clasps my wrist and draws me to his side. Our shoulders almost touch. “This is the street view,” he says.

The screen shows a few paparazzi loitering on the sidewalk.

Farrow explains, “When Luna’s car reaches the curb, I’m going to open her car door and escort her into the house.”

I cross my arms and nod. I want to be the one to lead my sister safely inside my house, but I’d make the situation worse.

With paparazzi constantly camped out, exiting my front door is like purposefully stomping on an anthill. Considering I’m deathly allergic to fire ants, that’s not something I’d do. I typically just leave in a car. Right through the garage.

Jane pulls the coffee table to its original place. “Luna can spend the night. I’ll make the bed in the guest room. We can even watch her favorite movie.” Janie tosses the decorative pillow on the loveseat. “I haven’t seen Guardians of the Galaxy in ages.”

“Yeah,” I say dryly, “how about we postpone baking my sister cookies and rolling out a fucking red carpet until we know what happened? She could’ve flunked twelfth grade for all we know.” Last week, she had detention for vaping in the girl’s bathroom. She’s been apathetic towards school since the bullying started in kindergarten.

I wish I’d been in her grade.

So I could’ve been there more than I was. I could’ve stopped the harassment. Somehow. But I’m five years older. By the time she hit freshman year, I was gone.

Farrow clicks into another security camera.

Jane nears us, her features soft and empathetic. She reaches out for my hand.

I keep my arms crossed.

“Moffy,” she says tentatively. “I know you’d rather believe Luna screwed up somehow because the alternative is painful, but you need to consider the other possibility.”

That something bad could’ve happened to my sister. And she’s coming to me for help.

I lock all my emotion in an iron-tight trunk. Nothing crosses my face. “I’m aware.”

Farrow scrutinizes me for a quick second, and then he hands me his phone. “I’ll be right back.” He slips out the front door, kicks it closed, and nearly the exact moment a black Escalade pulls onto the curb.

Declan would’ve never given me his phone. I realize that I can watch my sister from Farrow’s cell. He knew I’d want to be outside with him, but to actually keep Luna safe—from media attention, from rabid paparazzi—this is as close as I can get.

And he gave me a better view than any bodyguard ever has.





9





FARROW KEENE





Street lamps and rapid camera flashes illuminate the idling black Escalade. I tune out the security team in my right ear, and I easily walk through the frenzied paparazzi.

About five men swarm the car, pressing their lenses to the tinted windows. Others pace back and forth on the sidewalk and call their colleagues hurriedly.

“Get here now!”

“We think it’s a Hale kid, hopefully Xander.”

Two men crowd the rear door, and I storm ahead. My threatening stride and appearance is like a gunshot. They stumble backwards, and I grip the handle to the Escalade. I mime opening the car door to rid the over-zealous idiots.

One man rushes up and knocks into my hard back. I shoot him a brief, scathing glare.

Brief, because they don’t need to think I care about them. Some paparazzi want a fight for footage or insurance payout (I hurt them, they sue), and then most hecklers want a fight for fame or because they’re morons. And my job is to avoid confrontations.

Not start them.

When I really open the door, I fit my body in the free space. Not letting the cameramen see Luna yet.

I’m not surprised by what I find. A gangly seventeen-year-old girl is sprawled on the leather seat like a starfish. And she’s dressed in a full-body Spider-Man costume. Mask and all.

It’s an easy ploy so people avoid snagging a money-shot.

She looks at me upside-down.

I won’t smile during pandemonium, but Luna always manages to make life interesting. Out of all the Hale kids, I’d say I’m closest to her. For my twenty-fifth birthday, she wrote me an Avengers fanfic where Bucky Barnes and Captain America weren’t merely just friends. It was entertaining as shit.

“Luna, you ready to go?” I ask.

The driver rotates. It’s her three-hundred-pound bodyguard who’s been blowing my eardrum out for the past ten minutes. I’m not close to anyone on Epsilon since the SFE lead calls me a “liability” when really, he could audition for the role of hall monitor.