Lovers Like Us (Like Us #2)(56)

I’m not surprised when Maximoff charges Charlie, but Beckett shoots up, standing in front of his brother.

“Stop,” Beckett says calmly, but Maximoff already rocks back, his fists at his side.

“Charlie,” Jane warns from the bathroom, toothbrush in her mouth.

I try to tear Donnelly’s hand off my lips, but he shakes his head at me a few times. Quinn whispers to me, “Let them be.”

Okay, I’m not taking advice from the youngest, greenest bodyguard. I rip Donnelly’s hand off, freeing my mouth, but I stay silent.

Thatcher motions for me to sequester myself in the second lounge.

I ignore him.

Sulli shouts from the passenger seat, “Can we please have a non-hyped and non-fucked-up conversation?”

“No,” Charlie and Maximoff say.

Charlie is the only one still sitting, besides Akara and Sulli up front.

“You’re so fucking far from the truth,” Maximoff says, “that you don’t even realize—”

“That you’re arrogant and conceited and a bigger asshole than you’ll ever admit? I realize I’m a lot of things, but why can’t you? Oh.” Charlie cocks his head. “Because you’re a coward and a hypocrite.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Maximoff growls. “I don’t pride myself on anything, let alone being respectful. You want me to admit I’m an arrogant fucking asshole? Then I am one. I’m shit on the bottom of your shoe, and that’s what I’ll always be to you, Charlie. At this point, you’re just trying to piss me off.”

Charlie leans back and rubs his lips. “Think what you want,” he says more quietly. “I’m not going to argue with you. You’ll only listen to yourself.”

Maximoff takes a short breath, and his phone rings shrilly in his pocket. Charlie and him stare each other down for one beat longer, and then Maximoff retrieves his phone and pushes towards the hallway.

Towards me and the wall of bodyguards.

As he nears, they all part to let him through. I don’t move, and so he faces me.

His chest collapses and rises heavily, but his defenses start imprisoning his expression. Blank and cold.

Everyone is watching us.

I have to step back and let him through, but I catch his wrist and whisper against his ear, “You’re not alone, Maximoff.”

He inhales stronger, and his expression almost breaks through. But he says, “I have to take this.” I watch his lengthy stride down the hallway, and then he disappears into the second lounge. Shutting the door.

Oscar brings me to the aisle of bunks. “You don’t want to get in the middle of that,” he whispers. “They’ve been at each other’s throats for years.”

I comb both hands through my hair. “I can’t watch Charlie beat him down,” I say just as softly, but all the Cobalts start talking in French on the couch. In deep conversation.

“They’re both beating each other down,” Oscar whispers. “The fact that you’re not seeing that is the problem. You’re too close to this shit. Back away for the sake of not starting a war on the bus.”

“The war is going to start with or without me,” I tell him.

“Without you then.” Oscar places a hand on my shoulder “Promise me, Redford. Because if he goes at you and you jump in, I’ll lose my job defending your impulsive ass.”

“Don’t defend me,” I say easily.

Oscar pushes back the curlier strands of his hair. “You can pretend like you have no close friends, but you and me are encroaching a decade here. You’re stuck with us like we’re unfortunately stuck with you.”

I grab onto a bunk, my arms loosening. “Okay—”

“Farrow!” Maximoff calls me, door ajar.

“Saved by the boyfriend,” Oscar says, and I roll my eyes, quickly reaching the second lounge.

By the time I’m alone with Maximoff, I study his furrowed brows and the phone tight in his hand. His upright posture screams “damage control”.

“What’s going on?” I ask.

“That was your father.”

I frown. Maximoff called my father about his shoulder yesterday. The last time he lifted his arm at ninety-degrees, he said he felt like the muscle was pinching. I told him that, at the very least, he should just make the call. When my father didn’t answer, he left him a message.

“He was calling me back,” Maximoff says and opens the mini-fridge, a game console stacked on top.

“And?”

He pops a can of Fizz Life. “It looks like I need to find a new doctor.”

I’m hearing him wrong. “My father is still your physician.”

“No. Dr. Keene said it’s a conflict of interest since you’re my boyfriend and you’re his son.” Maximoff swigs his Fizz Life, handling the bad news like he’s delivering morning stocks. Outlook: shitty.

“Call him back or I will—”

“No,” Maximoff says firmly. “No, it’s not worth the trouble. I’m moving forward from this.” He’s pivoting, swimming at break-neck speed above a current trying to yank him under. But this isn’t the same as paparazzi ruining his morning commute.

This is a big change in his structured life. Fuck, he’s always had my father. It’s a constant, a safety, and this is a rug ripping out from under him.