Damaged Like Us (Like Us #1)(5)

Our new reality.

Him.

Farrow lowers his apple, and my cheekbones must sharpen because his brown eyes brush my most distinct feature.

I seize his gaze, and in our sudden quiet, a thick tension brews. Both of our lives are going to change from this transfer, and there’s an unknown factor.

I can’t even conceptualize what Farrow as my bodyguard looks like. I sense Akara glancing between us. Gauging how well we’re getting along. But his answer is as good as mine.

And I have no answer.

I have no idea what it’s like even cultivating a new relationship with a bodyguard. I’ve had the same one for practically twenty-two years.

Farrow tosses his apple core in a nearby trashcan. Then he drops his knee off the stool, his shoulders noticeably loosened unlike my squared ones. “Let’s start with the basics, wolf scout.”

“Out of all the things you can call me…” But it never stops Farrow from choosing this. My aunt created the Wolf Scouts as a wilderness & survival scouting organization that includes all genders. It gained national recognition, and yeah, I still help in the summer as a troop captain. “And what basics?”

“The basics.” He edges up to the lip of the counter. His face only a few inches from my face. “Every time you leave your townhouse, I’ll be escorting you. I walk in front of you. I enter rooms before you. I go where you go until you return safely home.”

I slowly blink, my skin scorching. Imagining Farrow with me all day, every day this quickly is like digesting a gallon milkshake in one gulp. I have a fucking brain freeze. I rub my jaw that’s a razorblade.

Farrow tilts his head. “Okay?”

“I’m making a revision.”

“To the basics?” He glances at Akara, and they share a look that I can’t decipher.

I bypass their exchange and continue, “You walk into places beside me—”

“No,” Farrow rejects immediately. He runs two hands through his bleach-white hair, combing the strands completely out of his face. Sometimes he does this to give himself more time to answer. Other times, I think it’s a sign that he’s getting serious.

Akara rests his elbow on the counter. “Moffy, he has to assess the room before you enter. Just like Declan did.”

Declan isn’t Farrow. My old bodyguard preferred privacy with me, to the point where I can’t say I know very much about him personally. I know Farrow in a way that I never knew Declan.

It instantaneously changes the bodyguard-client relationship that I’m used to.

“Then when we’re on the street,” I say to Farrow. “You walk beside me. You don’t need to walk in front of me every single time like you’re my labradoodle.”

“A labradoodle,” he repeats, his features balancing on the peak of an eye roll and a laugh. “You couldn’t have picked a more docile animal, could you?” Before I can respond, he adds, “I’ll consider that, but I can’t promise I’ll follow through in every situation.”

That seems fair.

I nod a couple times. “When did you find out about the new assignment?” He looks unaffected, but if he were a superhero in a battle zone, the comic book panel would show Farrow relaxed on a destroyed bench, using his powers to easily survive and make do.

In comparison, I externalize my readiness for shit storms: my back straight, shoulders stringent, and head hoisted.

“I was told last night,” he says.

I let this sink in. “So only eight hours more than me.”

“Twelve, technically.” His lips begin to lift like he beat me at something.

I holster my own smile. “Thank you for that technical adjustment.”

“Anytime, wolf scout.” He eases forward and lowers his voice to the sexiest whisper, “It’s good to remember that I’m better than you at most everything.”

It takes a lot of effort not to stare at his mouth. “Sounds like an alternate universe.”

One corner of his lip quirks, and then he eases back.

Boom.

Our heads whip to the store windows. More people bang against the glass as they try to peer inside, others chatting loudly as they wait for Superheroes & Scones to officially open.

“We need to go,” I say the obvious.

It really dawns on me that the we in this scenario is me and Farrow. Not me and Akara. Not me and a guy I recently met.

It’s just me and him.

And not in a way I fantasized. Farrow is now obligated to protect me, maintain a professional relationship with me, and always keep me safe.

Picturing a polar bear eating Fritos on the moon is easier than imagining Farrow as my bodyguard. I think it’s a sign.

That this is about to get fucking strange.





3





MAXIMOFF HALE





Leaving Superheroes & Scones in my red Audi, I merge onto the freeway. The air is noticeably strained between us since I gave him my eight-page list. While he silently reads in the passenger seat, I concentrate on the road and speed past paparazzi vehicles that attempt to hug me like we’re friends.

Farrow glances up and scrutinizes the various SUVs and sedans racing after us. “I really should be the one driving in this relationship.”

I stiffen at the word relationship. I mentally add in platonic, but my sixteen-year-old self with his sophomoric crush would be hard as a rock right now.