Lovers Like Us (Like Us #2)(15)

Results pop up, 99% just hyperbolic bullshit or slang. I scroll and scroll for two hours. Long enough that Maximoff turns on his side towards me, and our legs interlace.

He rests his head on my shoulder, his arm splayed across my abs. A small smile edges my mouth, and I rub his back before holding him against me.

With my other hand, I still scroll. I have to reach the bottom of the list. About finished, I hover over a search result: @maximoffdeadhale

Usernames like that one are rare. I click on @maximoffdeadhale to find the origin. An Instagram account: 3 posts, 0 followers, 1 following.

I go very still, and my gaze narrows on the oldest photo.

Posted 8 hours ago, the user photoshopped Maximoff reading a comic at Superheroes & Scones into a gory death scene. Eyes crossed out, swords impale Maximoff’s chest, and blood gushes. In the comments, the user posted only one thing: #DeservesToDie

Motherfucker. I grit my teeth, my nose flaring. Distaste runs into the back of my throat. I pop up a second photo, posted 7 hours ago.

An altered photo of Maximoff in his Audi. Where he’s halfway out of the windshield. Blood soaking the glass. My stomach roils. I swallow a rock, and I remember to view this horrific account as his bodyguard.

Not his boyfriend.

Right now, I have to separate the two. My job description says, scrutinize visual deaths of your client with rational thought and care. But I’m scrutinizing visual deaths of the guy I love. I may as well slap a hot iron at my face. Painful—and it’s pissing me off.

I grind my teeth a few times.

Be his bodyguard. I can’t lash out in the comment section of an anonymous internet user. I can’t be overly sensitive to idiotic fuckers. I’m the shield that protects Maximoff Hale, and I’m never going to break and leave him defenseless.

See, I have to practice a great deal of restraint. Especially now.

I examine the photo closer. Real threat or fake threat?

It could be a troll account. I don’t have enough information yet.

Third and most recent photo, posted 5 hours ago, shows Maximoff outside of the nightclub Tidal Wave. And he’s decapitated.

Fuck.

My chest constricts, and Maximoff shifts his jaw more in the crook of my neck and shoulder. He’s only vulnerable like this with me, and usually, it happens when we’re alone. Shit, I just want to protect the fuck out of him.

Staying motionless, I try my best not to wake Maximoff.

And I force myself to analyze the third photo. Searching for anything to help determine if it’s a real or fake threat.

Seems fake. But my heart rate elevates. Because I recognize it’s not 100% confirmed. With the slimmest chance, someone out there may truly want Maximoff Hale to die.

Enough to make it happen.

“Farrow?” Maximoff lifts his head groggily.

“Go back to sleep,” I whisper and click his phone screen to black.

He squints and rubs his eyes roughly. “Your whole body is flexed…” His gaze lands on the black-screened phone, and he readies himself like a soldier for combat. Immediately sitting up, alert and awake.

“Maximoff—”

He steals the phone out of my hand. Basically, I let him have it. I’m not here to cultivate secrets and lies between us. Do I wish he wouldn’t have to see that account? Yeah.

Will I willfully keep him in the dark? Never.

Maximoff swipes out of the lock screen, and the @maximoffdeadhale Instagram account is already popped up. Almost instantly, his head swerves to me. “It’s a fucking troll account.” He tosses the phone on my lap. “It’s not a big deal.”

I cock my head, watching him smash the pillow again to lie back down. “You just saw visual depictions of your death, created by someone out in the world, and you feel fine?”

He yawns into his bicep and then clutches my gaze. “I get death threats every damn week. They’ve never been serious.”

“Someone took the time to photoshop your head off your body, and that doesn’t seem serious?” I honestly wonder if he hears himself. When I was his mom’s bodyguard, I saw plenty of fucked-up graphics.

Like pie charts poorly estimating Lily’s sex partners, her head photoshopped on rabbits, slut typed a hundred times on her face—but not her being murdered.

Not like this.

Maximoff brushes a hand through his disheveled hair. “Sounds like a normal Sunday through Saturday to me.”

I nod a couple times. “At least now we know you’re desensitized to your own death.”

Maximoff rubs his jaw. “Maybe I am, but you don’t need to worry about troll accounts and my plausible death with no sleep at whatever a.m.”

“It’s my job,” I remind him. I deal with this so he doesn’t have to. “I’m flagging this fucking account to be taken down.” And that’ll be the end of that. My gut instinct says differently, but I let it go for now.

Just as I report the account, an aggressive knock raps the door.

Maximoff slides off the bed at the exact same time as me. The knock practically electrocuted him into action. We exchange a look that says, I’m answering the door. Stay back.

He’s too stubborn to listen, and I love seeing him try to catch up to me too much to let him go ahead.

We bolt to the door and race to be the first. I’m already out in front. “I thought you planned to sleep,” I say, about to grab the doorknob.