Damaged Like Us (Like Us #1)(31)

“And?” I ask Maximoff. He knows that Akara can’t hear me unless I touch the microphone.

He leans forward, forearms on the table. “Tell him no.”

I click the mic. “No, not anytime soon.”

Akara says, “Thanks.” The line goes quiet after that.

Taking a deep breath, Moffy straightens up, and neither of us unfastens our strong gazes.

“Did you like that?” I ask, my lips lifting.

“So badly it hurts,” he says dryly, but a real smile crests his mouth. “Would you be willing to do that for me all the time?”

“Would you want me to?”

I love giving him things that no one else can. For a guy who has the world at his fingertips, you’d think there’s nothing left to offer Maximoff. But he’s been denied some simple pleasures and human rights.

Like the ability to drive safely down a fucking highway.

Maximoff cracks his knuckles. “Actually, no. Security will kill you.”

“Now you care if I die? What happened to shoving me out of the car and backing up over my body?”

“Give me five minutes,” Maximoff says, “we’ll be back to your death.”

I roll my eyes into a wider smile, and my tattooed fingers rotate a saltshaker like it’s a coin. I catch Maximoff staring at my fingers for two long beats. He’s in love with my fingers. I try to seize his gaze.

He purposefully glances behind me.

I follow his attention to the bar, and I run my tongue over my molars, my smile slowing hardening. A guy about my age sits on a tattered leather stool, dressed in a black beanie and graphic T-shirt.

My jaw muscle twitches. I look between them, and the guy gives Maximoff a suggestive I-want-your-ass once-over.

Maximoff begins to smile back.

I can’t tell if he’s just being nice or if there’s real interest. My narrowed gaze pings from him to the guy, my muscles burning the longer they scrutinize one another.

I shouldn’t care.

I set my elbow to the table and put my hand to my mouth. I spin a saltshaker with my free fingers while a million replies grind at me.

He’s not good enough for you.

You could do better.

You really like that dickhole?

You’re here with me.

Don’t flirt with him.

Don’t fuck him.

The saltshaker falls on its side.

Moffy glances at me while I upright the salt.

Jealousy. I’m jealous of a nameless, beanie-wearing dickhole on a barstool. My ex-boyfriends would laugh at me for caring this much about a twenty-two-year-old celebrity.

I unwrap a piece of gum, and as soon as I peel the foil, Maximoff asks, “What’s your favorite color?”

The corners of my mouth curve upward. “My favorite color?” I repeat like he asked me a kindergarten question. Which he did. But I keep thinking, he’s not interested in that other guy anymore.

He’s more interested in me.

Maximoff crosses his arms. “What kind of high school names someone valedictorian when they can’t even answer their favorite color?”

I lean forward and whisper lowly, “Says someone who doesn’t know what it’s like to be valedictorian.”

“Just admit it,” he says, “you don’t have a favorite color. It’s sad.”

“It’s silver,” I retort.

He nods a couple times, his own smile appearing, and just as he goes to speak, the waitress brings out two Fizz Lifes, a plate of loaded potato skins, and basket of French fries.

He stares off for a long second, lost in his head.

I wad a straw’s paper and toss the tiny ball at his face. It hits him square in the forehead, and he wakes up to glare at me.

He asks, “Do you know mine?” His favorite color.

“Orange.”

“You actually Google-searched me,” he says it like he caught me jacking off.

I almost laugh. “Man, you have a mom who buys orange plastic silverware and plates for any Maximoff-Hale-related event.” I count off my fingers, starting with my thumb. “Which includes your sixteenth birthday party, your prep school graduation—”

“Alright.” He cringes. “You knew me when I was sixteen. I get it. The world gets it—”

“The world doesn’t care that I was at your sixteenth birthday.”

He flips me off with one hand and grabs a potato skin with his other. He gestures at me with the potato skin. “Eat. Stop staring at me.”

“Not until you admit that I know you better than a Google search.”

Maximoff pauses eating, just to quiz me, “Why don’t I date anyone, Farrow?” That’s not a fact available on the web, and it’s also something he’s kept private from me.

“You’re not into relationships,” I guess.

“Not because I wouldn’t want to be. I just can’t.”

I shake my head. “I don’t follow.”

“I’ll never be in a relationship,” he tells me flat-out. “I’ll never experience any kind of romance beyond a one-time hookup. Because once I date someone in public, media will hound them to the point of intrusion, vulnerability—I won’t ever subject someone to an extreme loss of privacy that they’ll never get back. I’ve accepted that this is my life, and I’m satisfied with that.”