Damaged Like Us (Like Us Series: Billionaires & Bodyguards Book 1)

AT SUPERHEROES & Scones, Jane places multiple boxes of pastries on a low table. Bright and neon beanbags are strewn around the loft lounge, and an Avengers movie plays on mounted television screens.

The place is dead at 5:00 a.m., and I sip my coffee and take a seat adjacent to Maximoff on a blue beanbag. I’m almost shoulder-to-shoulder with Quinn.

Not my first choice. But a few days ago, Quinn said to me, “I keep missing you in the mornings. Your bed is empty, too.”

It didn’t shake me, but I wouldn’t concoct a wild, intricate lie that could unravel. I just told him, “Occasionally, I’ll crash on the couch or in one of the cars. It’s colder.” He knows how hot my attic room can get.

Be more careful around Quinn, I agreed to Maximoff’s new rule. I may’ve physically distanced us this morning, but I’m still consciously staring at my boyfriend. I smile into my coffee when he pretends to be more interested in an Avengers film on mute.

He holds a paper cup of hot tea, drinking slowly. Trying not to look at me. We all know he ranks me above Iron Man, Thor, and whatever other Avenger makes an on-screen appearance. Not just because I’m clearly better and clearly not fictional.

But because I’m his bodyguard. His real-life superhero.

Jane opens two pink boxes. “For the meeting, we have croissants, muffins, stuffed donuts, frosted donuts, Danishes, scones, bagels, a few waffles, but do not, under any circumstance, eat these.” She lifts up a heart-shaped tin. “I spent two hours helping my one and only sister with math homework yesterday, and afterwards, she gave me strict orders to deliver these to Oscar Oliveira. I will complete the task.”

I lean forward and grab the tin out of her hands.

“Farrow!”

“Breathe. I’m not eating Oscar’s cookies.” I pop the tin and inspect the perfectly heart-shaped sugar cookies, pink icing and written with Oscar and I love you.

Maximoff grimaces at Jane. “Can your twelve-year-old sister pick someone who’s not thirty-years-old to crush on?”

What about someone five years older? I try really hard not to tease or irritate him.

“You can sheath your swords, Moffy. It’s harmless,” Jane says and eagle-eyes me as I pass the tin to Quinn. He snatches a cookie.

Jane glares and then yanks the entire tin out of his hands. “Quinn.”

I laugh. I like Quinn more and more every day.

Not hesitating, he bites into the cookie. “Oscar is my brother. I should get one cookie out of that. Hey, I’ll be his best man or whatever at their pretend wedding.”

Audrey disinvited me to that “wedding” three years ago after I told her she has bad taste in men.

Jane lowers on her beanbag and protectively clutches the tin to her lap. I’ve noticed the bag of peas she’s been carrying around all morning and sitting on, and my intrigue is spilling into concern.

I have to ask now.

“Did I miss Nate coming over last night?” I motion with my coffee to the peas that she’s using as an ice pack.

Jane looks genuinely surprised that I’m asking. She searches my gaze with intense curiosity. Wondering why—why did I ask.

Because you mean something to Maximoff.

And you’re starting to mean something to me.

Maximoff’s cheekbones sharpen, but he keeps his attention on the TV, not worried. I assume she must’ve told him the news this morning in the bathroom.

Quinn frowns at Jane. “Did Nate sneak in? You didn’t tell me he was coming over—”

“He didn’t,” she says quickly.

“A new guy?” Quinn asks. “Then I should’ve been there. With an NDA.”

“Not unless you’d like to try to give my sex toys an NDA.” Jane smiles as realization parts Quinn’s lips.

“Oh.”

I arch my brows at Jane. “Not enough lube there?”

“No.” She sits straighter. It’s her “I’m preparing a speech” posture. “Sex is almost a family legacy. My parents were in porn.”

Maximoff corrects, “Not willingly.” Their tapes were leaked.

“Still,” she says, “I thought perhaps, my real passion is in sex toys. I could’ve been a fabulous sex toy reviewer.”

I rest my arm on my bent knee. “And what happened?”

“I inserted something in terribly wrong.”

We all make a pained face.

Jane takes a deep, reassuring breath before declaring, “I’ve realized it’s not for me.”

Seriously, I say, “I know what’ll make you feel better.”

“What?” she wonders, a gleam in her eye.

“One of Oliveira’s cookies.”

Quinn laughs, and Maximoff stares between Jane and me like we’re seconds from destroying a relationship we haven’t really even built.

Jane tips her head to me like touché.

“Akara to Farrow and Quinn.” The Omega lead’s voice bleeds through my mic. “Sul and I are leaving now. We’ll be there soon.” A motorcycle revs in the background.

I stand and inspect the pastries. “Sulli and Akara are on their way,” I tell Maximoff. “What do you want to eat?”

His eyes narrow like you shouldn’t speak to me in front of Quinn.

I cock my head, smiling. Come on. It’d draw more attention if we were playing a silent game with one another. I trust myself to rein in the causal flirting. I’m sure he trusts himself, too. He just likes to add five padlocked chains onto a dead-bolted door.

He stands, posture stringent. “I can get my own food.” It’s a common phrase for him: I can do that myself. You don’t need to open my car door. Et cetera, et cetera.

It’s more endearing than he understands. I grab an egg and cheese croissant and watch him grab a blackberry scone. We sit back down at nearly the exact same time.

His attention wants to be on me so badly. He stares at my hair for a long, long beat like it’s brand new.

“My hair has been blue for two weeks,” I remind him, the electric-blue strands pushed back out of my face. I wanted a change. I only have one barbell in my eyebrow now. Plus, I put in my small hoop earring.

“I got that, thanks,” he says, licking his lips and sipping his hot tea.

I laugh into a smile.

Quinn spreads cream cheese on his bagel with a plastic knife. “Can someone explain why there’s a production meeting for We Are Calloway if filming doesn’t start until next January?” He licks his thumb.

That’s why we’re all here.

A production meeting.

We Are Calloway has been an Emmy nominated and award-winning docuseries for over a decade. It’s the only platform that enables the Hales, Meadows, and Cobalts to voice their opinions and tell their stories. It’s to ensure their truth is heard and not twisted on social media.

When We Are Calloway first premiered, I was a kid, and I remember sneaking downstairs and hiding behind my father’s sofa while he watched the R-rated show (for mature themes). I peeked around the armrest and saw Lily Calloway.

A twenty-something, scrawny girl that I’d one day protect. And she looked powerfully in the camera and said, “I’m always going to be a sex addict, but I’m more than just sex.”

Every raw frame of the show struck a cord with me, and by the end, my father sat in silence and uttered one awed word. Wow.

After all these years, the families still film season after season. To humanize themselves, but also for the hundreds of people that relate to them.

Recently, the docuseries has been on a short hiatus, but it starts again next year. I only have one issue with the show.

It makes security harder.

Maximoff breaks his scone in half. “We have early production meetings because we need to talk to Jack before we do anything.”

Quinn nearly chokes on his coffee. “Jack? Like the Jack.”

I say, “The one and only Jack Highland. Take note: remember whose side you’re on. One too many have fallen for his charm.”

Maximoff gives me a tough look. “There are no sides.”

“There are definitely sides, wolf scout.” I motion to Quinn and myself. “We’re in charge of protecting your private lives. And then Jack is in charge of protecting your public lives.”

Still, we have to align at the end of the day and find common ground together. And almost everyone likes Jack Highland. He’s hard to hate. That used to make me a little bit wary of him, but I have no real beef with Jack. He’s the youngest executive producer on We Are Calloway, and he has an enormous amount of contact with security.

He has to. Production and security are intertwined on filming days. These meetings set up most of the prep work.

Someone knocks on the locked entrance downstairs. I stand and peer over the balcony railing. Speaking of Jack… “Go meet him first, Quinn.”

He bites into his bagel and then jogs down the twisting iron stairs.

Maximoff has pushed aside his food and tea. He somehow sits like a board on a slouchy red beanbag, and he cracks his knuckles.

Jane shifts her bag of peas, but I see how uptight she sits too.

“What’s wrong?” I ask them. Staying standing, I lean on the silver wall with a lightning bolt decal.

“It’s Sulli’s first production meeting,” Maximoff tells me.

“It needs to go well,” Jane adds.

Right.

Their cousin has never been on We Are Calloway. By joining the docuseries, Sulli is opening herself up to new criticism from the public.

But Maximoff and Jane have been on the show since they were little kids. Before I even met him, I watched Maximoff Hale on-screen profess his undying love for Power Rangers and excitedly say, “I hope that if I have a brother or a sister, they’ll like Power Rangers too.”

Public fact: Xander is a Power Ranger every year for Halloween.

Jane abandons her frozen peas to flip open another pastry box. “What do you want, Jack?”

Jack Highland ascends the twisting staircase. He has a quintessential “jock” look: broad, cut muscles visible through his tight black button-down, shoulder span as wide as a linebacker, and the charisma and popularity of a letter-jacket quarterback.

In any teen comedy, my “type” should hate his “type” but real people are more than just “rebel” versus “jock.” Plus, we’re both adults.

What I know about Jack: he wasn’t a football player. He did swim in college. He’s twenty-five, Filipino-American, biracial, and he has short dark brown hair, honey-brown eyes, and he’s a good inch taller than me.

“Give me the blueberry muffin,” he tells Jane, and she passes the baked good before gently sitting back down. Quinn slumps onto his beanbag.

Unwrapping his muffin, Jack turns to me first. “Have you reconsidered my offer?”

Maximoff’s brows knit. “What offer?”

I cross my arms loosely. “Jack wants me on the show. So fucking badly.” I emphasize those words. “How long have you been asking me?”

“Three years.” He bites into the blueberry muffin. “The more you keep turning me down, I’m going to start believing it’s personal.”

“Wait.” Maximoff stands. He hates sitting when other people are standing, I swear. “You want Farrow, this Farrow”—he points at me—“on the show?”

I give Maximoff a once-over. “How many Farrows do you know?”

Maximoff shoots me a middle finger.

Jack is used to exchanges like these, not fazed. “I’ve always wanted to showcase a bodyguard on We Are Calloway. Farrow has a good look, there’s a gif of you two…” Using one hand he scrolls on his phone and flashes me the gif first.

We’ve seen that one.

A Tumblr user made a gif from the footage when the court suspended Moffy’s license. In the gif: Maximoff and I push through the courthouse doors, exiting with sunglasses, side-by-side, cameras flashing repeatedly.

We look hot together.

“And Farrow is good looking enough to be a model,” Jack tells my boyfriend.

I raise my brows in a self-satisfied wave at Maximoff. He tries not to stare at me again. He almost has fuck me eyes.

By the way, Jack is straight. And I’d agree, I’m a 10 out of 10, but coming from Jack…

“That loses its meaning when I’ve heard you use the same compliment for forty-two different people,” I say, being precise on the number because I have a great memory. So I can be precise and accurate.

See, Jack has a way of making people feel good. It’s his job to ensure everyone in the room is comfortable. Then they can share information with him.

Even now, his eyes soften on me. “You’re a gorgeous guy. Better?”

“We’re getting slightly more original. But not by much,” I say and return to my beanbag beside Quinn.

In a matter of seconds, we’re all seated around the low table again.

Maximoff refills his tea and says to Jack, “It still doesn’t make sense. If you put Farrow in the show, he’d become famous. He wouldn’t be able to be my bodyguard.”

“Exactly.” I pick up my croissant sandwich. “Jack wants me in the show acting like a bodyguard. What he hasn’t grasped yet is that I like my job as a real bodyguard.”

Maximoff makes a concentrated effort not to look at me and draw attention. But he knows the fuller truth: I love my job because I’m around him.

Jack opens his notepad, slouched coolly on a yellow beanbag. “All I’m saying is one day you may want a change.” He flips a page. “Before Sullivan arrives, we can start with the two of you.” Pen between his fingers, he motions to Maximoff and Jane. “Next season is about big topics. Is there anything specific you want to talk about?”