Damaged Like Us (Like Us #1)(66)

“Eighteen, and that mosquito infestation was not my fucking fault. We were outside. Where bugs live. Naturally.”

“Hey, I’m not the one ragging on you,” Sulli says. “I totally agree. It’s nature’s fucking fault. Not the watermelon that you cut in half.”

I scowl. “You’re right, they’re annoying. Why’d we invite them anyway?” I’m half-serious, half-sarcastic. Even though I spend 24/7 with Farrow, this’ll be the first time he’s technically off-duty around me.

And he just loves his technicalities.

“If we didn’t invite them,” Sulli says, “then we’d have to call this Hallow Family Eve because the three of us don’t have friends. Other than the people we pay to protect us.”

“Jesus, we’re so sad,” I say, sarcasm thick.

Sulli smiles. “The fucking saddest.” She grips a beer by the neck and casually takes a small sip. She cringes, nose wrinkling. Not enjoying the bitter taste.

Her dark hair is parted in the center. Splayed in waves over her broad shoulders. Sulli casts a glance to the living room.

Over the loveseat, I spot Jane entertaining Quinn, Akara, and Farrow with some elaborate story. Gesticulating madly, lemonade mixed drink in her hand.

“She’s so good at that,” Sulli says, wistful. “Half the time I don’t know what the fuck to say to people.”

“It’s a Cobalt thing,” I remind Sulli. “They have a harder time knowing when to shut up.”

She exchanges a smile with me. We love our seven Cobalt cousins—our best friends are Cobalts: Beckett for her, Janie for me—but it’s undeniable how different we are from them.

She nods and takes a larger swig of beer. Trying not to make a disgusted face. She succeeds. Then in a different language, she asks, “Has pensado en la ultra?” Have you thought about the ultra?

Ryke Meadows taught his daughters to speak Spanish. And he taught me. I’m proud to be fluent, but in the past year, being constantly compared to Ryke…I don’t know.

I question everything.

“Moffy?” Sulli nudges my ribs, waking me from a stupor.

The ultra.

I grab a water bottle from the hard-shell cooler on the ground. Thinking. Sulli retired from swimming because she completed her goal. She went to the Olympics. She medaled. And she could’ve returned to the next summer Olympics, but she didn’t want to go after more-of-the-same.

So she set her sights on doing an ultra-marathon in Chile. The Atacama Crossing, a 155-mile race in the desert. It’s her next goal.

Her next fight for first.

And she wants me by her side.

Swimming and running go hand-in-hand. We used to condition on land by doing endurance runs together, and I’d love to make time for an ultra.

If she asked me a year ago, I wouldn’t have hesitated like I do now.

“It’s because my dad ran an ultra, isn’t it?”

“Sul.” I rub my sharpened jaw. “If I go, they’ll compare me more to your dad than they do now.”

Sulli tears at the label on her beer. “Look, I know you’re not my brother—”

“I didn’t mean it like that.” Goddammit.

“Oh hey, I know. I’m fucking terrible with words.” She takes a giant breath. Not giving up yet. Sulli rarely gives up on anything. “Hear me out. We started competitive swimming together, and in the grand universe of friendship and fate, maybe we should start this together too.” She pauses. “And I just can’t fucking imagine doing this alone. So think about it, will you?”

I nod. “For you, I will.”

Sulli puts her lips to the beer rim and catches me eagle-eyeing the alcohol. She lowers the bottle. “You can stop looking at me like I’ve sprouted wings.”

“Actually, I’m looking at you like you’re cradling a lit firework.”

“I know what I’m doing, Moffy,” she tries to reassure me.

Our grandfather was an alcoholic.

My dad is a recovering alcoholic.

Her dad chose to stop drinking alcohol at seventeen.

Alcoholism runs in the Hale and Meadows bloodlines. Just because I decided to never drink alcohol doesn’t mean my siblings or cousins will choose the same.

“Just be careful.” I dump pretzels in another bowl.

Sulli doesn’t say I always am. Adventure and fearlessness also runs deep in her blood. As a Meadows, she grew up cliff-jumping into tropical oceans, riding Ducatis, and paragliding hundreds of feet in the air.

Instead, she tells me, “I know the risk.”

Sulli reaches for a bakery box that contains a dozen chocolate-covered donuts. We carry the assortment of food: pretzels, chips, buffalo poppers, Halloween candy, and a veggie tray. And we skillfully climb over the loveseat without spilling anything.

Akara, Quinn, and Farrow lounge on beanbags, radios set aside. So they’re seriously off-duty. They face the fireplace, television mounted above the mantel. I set the food on a green sleeping bag in the middle, and Janie yanks the cord to the ceiling light.

Blanketing us in near-darkness.

Farrow leans on a black beanbag, nearest the staircase. More off on his own damn island. Akara, Quinn, and even Janie who plops down near the food are clustered much closer together.

Farrow swigs a beer, eyes dead-set on me. He’s wondering what my next move is. So am I. I’m dying to sit beside him. But what kind of message is that sending to everyone else?