Damaged Like Us (Like Us #1)(53)

Christ.

He’s everything I pictured and more.

Farrow collects his boxer-briefs from the floorboards. He pulls the elastic band to his waist. “Are we going to talk about why you’re nervous?” He glances at me. “Think I didn’t notice?”

I bring my legs up beneath the comforter and set my arms on my knees. “I just thought you wouldn’t care.”

“I care.” He nods and finds his cotton pants. “I care a lot.”

I take a tight breath. “I know sex. I don’t know anything else. Whatever happens after this, beyond fucking each other—it’s a massive mystery to me.”

He’s in the midst of pulling his pants to his waist, and he smiles, his brows arching at me. “Rent a movie.”

“What?”

“Rent any romantic movie—though the hetero ones aren’t great. But just rent a movie, watch two sappy people do stupid, ordinary shit together, and there you go, Maximoff.”

I growl out my irritation, but I keep repeating his words in my head. I catch myself smiling. Jesus. “It’s not that fucking simple, Farrow.”

“Besides the fact that I’m your bodyguard and we need to sneak around, yeah it is.” He nears my side of the bed and rests a knee on the mattress. “You just like being well-informed before you do anything.”

“Thank you,” I say dryly.

“You’re welcome.” He runs his thumb over a bite mark on my shoulder. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be.” I swallow my arousal, and he bends down and kisses me on the lips. So this is what it’s like, huh? I can kiss someone the next morning. I can expect to see them in an hour.

I can do it all again and again.

Something lightens in my chest.

Feels like freedom.



Shower water rains down on me. My phone is docked in a speaker on the tiny sink. Playing a Spotify playlist that Farrow made yesterday. Full of old nineties rock. I have no clue why he likes that genre.

“Cannonball” by The Breeders blares in the bathroom, and I feel like someone is pouring gasoline straight in my bloodstream.

I squirt citrus-scented dollar shampoo on my palm. Lathering my hair with both hands. And then the door swings open. Shower glass is half permanently frosted from the waist-down. The top is just fogged, and I rub the steam with my fist.

Janie yawns sleepily at the sink, pink eye-mask on her head and blue granny jammies on.

“Bonjour, ma moitié!” I shout over the water and music.

“Just you and me, old chap,” she yawns wider and opens the mirror’s cabinet for her toothbrush.

I almost smile. Then I remember I’m hiding something from Janie. I’ve never hid anything from her, and the feeling isn’t great. It’s like lying to half of myself. If I can’t be honest with her, then I’m never going to fully invest in whatever’s going on with me and Farrow.

Just how it is.

With a mouthful of toothpaste, she shouts to me, “It’s raining today, great and miserable thunderstorms!” She spits, rinses. “Chance of the media snapping photos of my frizzy hair, one-hundred percent.”

I barely hear that last part over the song. “Music off,” I call out, and “Cannonball” abruptly stops.

“I should try to curl some pieces for the College Merit luncheon today. Try a new look…where is my…curling iron?” She digs beneath the cupboards.

“You’re not supposed to join anymore charity luncheons,” I say, kind of meanly. College Merit is an H.M.C. Philanthropies program, giving college financial aid to low-income students. “Aren’t you shadowing a forest ranger today?”

She plugs in her curling iron. “I was, but…I mentioned the forest ranger to my brother—”

“No,” I growl out, knowing where this is headed.

Janie fiddles with the buttons on the old iron. “You didn’t see the way Ben looked at me when I said he could take my place. He even hugged me, and he called me cool, Moffy.” She inspects a pimple on her chin in the nearly fogged-up mirror.

I wash shampoo out of my hair. “I’ll call you cool every damn day for the rest of our lives. Just focus on yourself for your deadline’s sake.” Partly, I’m happy she’ll be with me today—but it’s selfish. If she graduates Princeton and still hasn’t found a career path, she’ll refuse to take time for herself like she is now.

Jane will say, I’m wasting time on a fruitless search for a passion that may not even exist. My time is better spent doing charity work.

“Tomorrow, the next day, I will,” she says, but Jane’s overwhelming love of her family is her greatest asset and greatest weakness. I can’t predict whether that’ll ever change.

I finish rinsing my hair. Unsaid things start weighing on me. I grab a bar of soap next to facial scrub and razors. “Janie?” I wipe the mist off the shower glass again.

She curls a brunette strand. “Yeah?”

“I’m seeing someone,” I say, flat-out.

Jane startles, the iron slipping out of her grasp. Burning her wrist before thudding to the tiled floor. “Merde.”

I instantly crack open the shower door, ready to help, but she raises a hand like wait. Jane picks up the iron, sets it aside on the sink, and then runs her reddened wrist beneath the faucet.