Damaged Like Us (Like Us #1)(32)

My brows ratchet up. “You’re not satisfied. You’re just resigned.” Before he protests, I ask, “Have you ever wondered what it’s like to hold someone’s hand romantically? To see them in your bed two nights in a row? Cook breakfast the next day, share clothes, wake them up before work? You’ve never imagined that?”

Maximoff shakes his head once. “I can’t.”

“That’s sad.” Because he wants to desire those things, but he’s not even allowing himself that.

And no one else among the Hales, Cobalts, or Meadows would sacrifice the possibility of a relationship just to protect their significant other from the media.

Only him.

“What about dating privately?” I ask.

“No. If I can find someone to trust for longer than one night, they’d be all over the news every time I was spotted with them. Especially if I let them meet my siblings.”

I’m the exception to that. Our eyes meet, and that fact passes between us. He clears his throat and reaches for his Fizz Life, the world’s most popular diet soda.

“Give it here.” I gesture for the glass. He has a rule about ordering drinks. #45: sip all my drinks first. I don’t trust bartenders.

He slides over his Fizz Life and takes a moment to eat another potato skin.

I swig his drink. No alcohol. “It’s good.” I slide the Fizz Life back.

Maximoff Hale doesn’t drink alcohol. He never has. It’s public knowledge that alcoholism runs in his family, and he chose to be sober. Bartenders sometimes purposefully spike his drink. Hell, some people pay the bartender to do it.

Just to see a celebrity break sobriety.

Maximoff washes down his food with Fizz Life. Then he motions to me. “What’s your favorite childhood memory?”

I smile and eat a fry. “What’s with the twenty questions?”

“You can Google me. I can’t Google you.” He wants to be on equal footing.

Okay. I swig my own drink. “My favorite childhood memory is the only memory I have of my mother.” He’s aware that she died from breast cancer when I was four.

Maximoff holds my gaze strongly.

“I can’t distinguish her features, but I can hear her silky voice as she says my name. That’s all, just my name.”

Farrow.

She named me. And she could’ve picked Edward Nathaniel Keene after my father, my grandfather, my great-grandfather, all the men in a long legacy before me, but she chose differently. Apparently she loved the old film version of The Great Gatsby, and she named me after the two lead actors.

Mia Farrow.

Robert Redford.

And I’m a Keene.

I recognize how special and unique Maximoff’s name is too. His parents also named him after something they love, and it’s why neither of us ever use our names in banter—and why I’m trying to honor whatever the hell he wants me to call him.

He nods a couple times, appreciative that I told him that story.

I dunk a fry in mustard. “Anything else?”

“If I asked about medical school, you’d tell me…?”

“That you have to be more specific.” I pop a fry in my mouth.

“For someone who completed all four years, you have to like medicine at least a little bit, right?”

“There are people who suffered through med school, but I wasn’t one of them.” I slide the mustard aside and grab the glass ketchup bottle. “I enjoyed medicine, just not like my family.”

“What do you mean?” He uses a straw to push the ice in his soda.

I unscrew the bottle. “It’s not just about medicine for them. My father, my grandfather, great-grandfather, great-great grandfather all share the same name and the same profession.” I pour ketchup in the French fry basket. “There’s status and pride in continuing this legacy and obtaining the MD. And I really couldn’t care less about honoring a generational tradition.”

“Why not just be a doctor for you and say fuck them?”

“That’s why I finished medical school.” I wipe my hands on a napkin. “I genuinely wanted to help people. But every day I thought about how I was another Keene falling obediently in line, and I just couldn’t breathe. I remember doing rounds in med school and feeling wrong. Like out-of-body.” I rake my fingers through my hair. “Like I was experiencing someone else’s life that wasn’t supposed to be mine.”

Maximoff nods. He’s a good listener; he always looks interested in what people have to say. At least when he’s not staring off into space.

“There’s a possibility,” I tell him, “that I only liked medicine because it’s all I knew; it’s what I was conditioned to do. And I can honestly say it’s the only thing that’s ever terrified me.”

He thinks for a second before asking, “So how’d you decide that security detail was the right fit?”

“I’d been taking MMA classes for years at Studio 9. Akara suggested I try security training. I liked it.”

Maximoff is quiet for an even longer moment.

“You can say it. I’m not easily offended.”

He leans forward some. “So you like the fame without being famous: the fine-dining, the yacht trips—”

“Me?” I give him a look. “I was born to an aristocratic lineage of pretentious assholes; I didn’t need to guard a celebrity to get a five-star meal.”