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

LEAVING SUPERHEROES & Scones in my red Audi, I merge onto the freeway. The air is noticeably strained between us since I gave him my eight-page list. While he silently reads in the passenger seat, I concentrate on the road and speed past paparazzi vehicles that attempt to hug me like we’re friends.

Farrow glances up and scrutinizes the various SUVs and sedans racing after us. “I really should be the one driving in this relationship.”

I stiffen at the word relationship. I mentally add in platonic, but my sixteen-year-old self with his sophomoric crush would be hard as a rock right now.

Twenty-two-year-old me is still pissed that I put Farrow in my spank bank.

“Number twelve.” I nod to the list.

He eyes me for a long moment before focusing on the paper. “It says that you’re not used to letting other people behind the wheel.” It actually says I always drive.

I glance at him once, then back to the road. “I didn’t realize that you can’t read.” I switch lanes.

I can almost feel his smile stretch. “Always a precious smartass.” I hear him flip a page. “You have a typo on number thirty-two.”

He called me precious. What the fuck does that even mean? Precious. I have to let it go, but the word scrolls across my gaze like a tickertape banner. “What typo?”

“You forgot a comma.”

I let out an irritated groan. “This isn’t a term paper. Don’t critique my grammar.”

Farrow kicks up one of his shoes on the seat. Balancing his forearm on his knee. Then he bites the staple off and spits it out. I tense and try to watch him and the road simultaneously.

He has a very particular way he moves his hands. They shift with meticulousness and care. A sort of accuracy that belongs to surgeons and someone equipped to disassemble and reassemble a gun blindfolded.

I’ve imagined those hands on me too many times to count. Don’t fucking restart now. I’m trying not to, but having him this close, the NC-17 fantasies vie to breach the surface. Heat blankets my skin and tries to grip my cock.

Thumbing through the papers, Farrow tells me, “You’re about to miss our exit.”

“Shit.”

He smiles a self-satisfied, entertained smile, but I skillfully veer over three lanes of traffic and dodge more paparazzi. Making the exit ramp safely.

Farrow folds nearly all of the pages and only keeps two sheets.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

He waves the folded stack. “How about you ditch eighty-five percent of your rules and be less of a wolf scout, wolf scout?”

“No.” I shake my head a few times. Those rules reflect my current way of living. “This is my fucking life, Farrow.”

“And you have to make room for me,” he says seriously. “We’ll find a groove together, but not when you put me in a headlock before the match even starts.”

I honestly think he just hates being confined by strict rules that aren’t his own. “Declan followed them.”

“To your detriment,” he says bluntly. “You have a speeding habit. I should be driving.”

We’re on that again.

“I drive,” I tell him. “Your options are endless. Watch me drive. Watch the other cars. Watch the horizon. Count road signs. Play with the music—”

“Inaccurate.” He licks his thumb and flips quickly through the pages before landing on one. “Number ninety-two. I prefer no music in the car until noon.” He tilts his head at me. “Because…?”

“I usually have to make business calls. For charity,” I emphasize. He knows that I work nonprofit. Every day will be Take Farrow To Work Day. It’s weird. What’s weirder is that he’s currently working right now. He’s not just in my car to chat. He’s on-the-job.

“Are you planning to make a business call now?” he questions.

“No.”

“Then really this should say ‘I prefer no music in the car until noon when I have business calls.’” He pops open the middle console and finds a pen. He rewrites the rule. “You also have another typo—”

“Shut up about the fucking typos,” I say and adjust the air conditioner, my body hot as his smile stretches wider and wider.

To fill the quiet, I switch on the radio and play an EDM station. Heavy bass pumps through the speakers.

“Music before noon,” Farrow says. “I’ve already started loosening his straight-laces.”

One hand on the wheel, I use the other to flip him off. “I love how you give yourself credit for the stupid things in life. It’s so generous of you.”

Farrow almost laughs, but we both suddenly grow quiet and serious. Two paparazzi SUVs flank my sides and abruptly cut me off from a right turn.

“Get off Market Street,” Farrow suggests.

“That was my plan.” I speed forty over the limit just to pass the SUVs. But they have a Honda friend ahead of me. The blue Honda slams on its brakes. Causing me to slam on mine.

Fuck.

I’m now boxed in. Like a rat in a trap.

I reach into my cup holder for my sunglasses, but Farrow is already handing me my black Ray Bans. Reminding me that he’s trained for these situations. He slips on a pair of black aviators.

Arms and cameras stick out of paparazzi’s rolled-down windows. I’m forced to drive at their speed, and flashes pierce me from nearly every direction. My sunglasses dim the brightness but not my frustration.

Most days, I coexist with paparazzi fine. I’ll answer their harmless questions, sign their photographs that they then sell on eBay, and we respect one another enough.

Then they pull stunts like this and I question the percentage of decent cameramen to the ones that’d run my family into a ditch for a grand.

“Do you want me to help you?” Farrow asks. “Or would you rather just let them capture photos of you glaring?”

I gesture to the windshield. “There’s nothing left to do.”

“I’m not Declan.” Farrow unbuckles, and he leans over the middle console. Towards me. My breath cages in my lungs, and I watch his arm slide across the back of my seat. With his other hand, he slams the heel of his palm on the wheel’s horn.

Blaring into the morning sky.

He extends his body even more over me. While I drive, he’s careful not to block my vision of the road, but I’m more concentrated on the fact that his shoulder brushes up against my chest. And one of his knees sits between my legs.

Farrow rolls down the driver’s side window. He turns his head, just slightly, our faces literally a breath away. Focusing on the paparazzi, he yells, “Tell the Honda to drive off or I’ll shutter Maximoff’s windows!” Shutter, meaning he’ll tape up sheets to block their money-shots.

The cameraman says, “One more minute! Get out of the way!” He makes a shoo motion to Farrow.

“Hey! Now or never,” Farrow threatens, his tone so caustic that I’m not surprised when the cameraman disappears inside his SUV. Moments later, the Honda takes a left.

Freeing the road.

Freeing us.

I speed off as quickly as I can. Declan never had that kind of affect on paparazzi. It stuns me silent for a minute.

Farrow eases back in his seat, and I roll up the window. He picks up his papers, and I glance at him, then the road, then back to him.

He arches his brows. “Want to say something?”

“Where’d you learn that?”

Farrow snaps his seatbelt locked. “When you’re the bodyguard to the most famous woman in the world, you can’t be a passive bystander.”

My mom.

My mom is the most famous woman in the world. She’s the reason her sisters are famous. The reason I’m famous.

The reason we’re all famous.

Lily Calloway is the origin to the public scrutiny, the media harassment, the paparazzi invasion in Philadelphia of all cities—but it’s not her fault.

It’s never her fault.

I wish I could say our fame derived from a pure act of love, of kindness, of rainbows or motherfucking magic—something other than what actually happened.

But it was a scandal. Years before I was born.

Someone leaked information when she was only twenty-years-old.

Lily Calloway, the heiress of Fizzle soda empire, is a confirmed sex addict. The headline about her addiction rocked the globe. A salacious, shocking headline—that’s all it took. The news caused every Calloway sister to go from rich obscurity to instant notoriety.

Our fame burns. And burns. None of us need to stoke the flames for it to stay lit.

And me—fame is my friend and foe. It’s a part of me. A tangible thing that lives inside of me. This is the only life I’ve ever lived.

It’s the only life I know.

THESE DAYS, I currently reside with Jane in an old, historic Victorian townhouse that’s just shy of 900 square feet. All hardwood floors. Interior brick walls. And a kitchen so cramped that a third person has to play Indiana Jones and scale the counters to fit.

I’d live a more minimalistic lifestyle if I could. I don’t need much.

And I’d say the three-bedroom, one-bath is extremely modest for someone with my bank account, but I’m well aware that living in Philadelphia’s Rittenhouse-Fitler Historic District isn’t cheap for most people.

I may be obnoxiously wealthy, but I try my best to understand what I have, what I can give, and what others need.

I drive into a three-car garage, which is a real luxury in this Philly area, and I park next to Jane’s baby blue Volkswagen Beetle.

My car clock blinks 8:12 a.m. before I shut off the ignition. Farrow already unclips his seatbelt and tucks the folded papers into his back pocket. He acts like he’s just visiting, but my bodyguard is moving in.

That’s right.

This isn’t a welcome to my life sitcom. This is a you’ve joined my life drama or possibly, a horror story.

It’s too soon to tell which.

At least we’re not about to be roommates. Above this garage are two identical townhouses that sit side-by-side and share an adjoining door on the first floor. All for easy access.

Security stays in the right townhouse.

Jane and I stay in the left one.

Farrow barely even takes a second to digest his surroundings. I know that he knows he’s moving in—there are two suitcases and a black duffel in my trunk to prove it.

I unbuckle. “Do you need anything else? I can pick up something for you at the store.” I almost groan at myself. Why the hell am I asking Farrow this? I’m on automatic and someone needs to switch me to manual, quick.

He pauses, his hand on the door handle. As he glances at me, his lips rise. “That’s cute that you’re pretending you can go to the store without me.”

“I wasn’t pretending.” I pocket my keys and push open my door. “I just omitted the fact.” For my own sanity. I’m highly aware that Farrow is now obligated to follow me everywhere. Highly aware. I can’t exactly pretend that this twenty-seven-year-old tattooed guy is some random barnacle that attached itself to my ship.

He’s my fucking co-captain right now.

And I’m not thrilled.

In case I didn’t make that vitally clear.

We climb out of the Audi and shut our doors in unison. I pop the trunk, and while I grab his largest suitcase, I tell him, “I retract my offer.”

“That’s too bad,” Farrow says in a serious tone, slinging his duffel on his shoulder, “I forgot shampoo and conditioner.”

“You can borrow mine—Jesus fucking Christ,” I growl at myself, wanting to be an asshat to him for at least two seconds.

Farrow laughs like he won. “I just now remember. I have shampoo and conditioner.”

I glare and remove his second suitcase while holding the other. “You’re an asshole.”

“You’re pure of heart. What else is still the same?” Farrow tries to take the larger suitcase from me.

I tug it out of his grip. “I can carry it for you.”

He gives me a look. “You’re not earning a valor merit badge. I can carry my own shit.” He adjusts the strap of his duffel. “But to be kind, I’ll let you roll in the little one.”

“Oh thanks,” I say dryly and then I shove the little one in his chest and keep the larger one.

We’re two alpha males, and it becomes extremely apparent during these pointless fights. Where we want to carry the heavier suitcase.

I’m just used to helping out, especially since I have a large extended family and I’m the oldest guy. And Farrow—his whole job, his whole upbringing has been about duty and aid towards others. We’re like lightning and thunder, inherently different but alike enough to share the same sky.

Farrow doesn’t argue for the larger suitcase.

So I shut my trunk. “You remember which is which?” I nod to the two entrances. He’s been here before as my mom’s bodyguard.

Farrow keeps his gaze on mine. “Left door goes to Azkaban. Right to Mordor.”

I stare at him like he just grew antlers. I’m the one who cracks the pop culture references. Farrow doesn’t even like fantasy.

He tolerates it like someone who hates mayo and eats it on a turkey sandwich.

“You’ve been hanging around my mom too long?” I question. I have comic-book-loving, pop-culture-obsessed parents. The coolest. I’m sure the two Meadows girls and the seven Cobalt children would protest and say their parents are cool, but there’s no comparison.

Hands down, mine are the goddamn best.

Farrow slowly licks his bottom lip into a smile. My muscles contract, and I try to focus on his eyes and not his mouth. Not his mouth.

“No,” he says. “It’s an inside joke with the whole security team.”

I’m surprised he’s sharing this with me. “Seriously?”

He nods, and we head to the right door. What he called Mordor. “I was told that this one started with your little brother. His bodyguard repeated the joke to another bodyguard, and it spread.”

I could see Xander making a comment about Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. Easily.

We head up the few stairs, and I wait on one below him and place the suitcase on its wheels.

Farrow searches for his key in his pocket. “Declan didn’t talk to you that often, did he?”

I go still, my apprehension filling the garage. In hindsight, I wonder if I was supposed to make a greater effort to know my bodyguard personally. Was I being rude? What if all that time, he wanted me to pry into his fucking life, and I thought I was just respecting his space.

Declan knew everything about me. The world knows most everything about me. And I only knew the names of his kids and wife.

Almost nothing else.

Farrow peeks back at me and assesses my features. “It’s okay if he didn’t.”

I remember the origin of his question. “He didn’t spill any security team secrets, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Farrow finds his key, but he rotates fully to face me. “Let’s deal with this, Moffy—”

“Maximoff,” I correct, my voice firm like solid marble. All of my family calls me Moffy, but when he uses the nickname, I flashback to childhood where he called me that. It makes our five-year age-gap more apparent, and when I imagine my young, teenage self in bed with him (which only happened in my fantasies), it’s cringe-worthy.

So he’s not allowed to call me Moffy.

Done and done.

“Maximoff,” he says like I’m being a stick-in-the-mud prick.

“What are we dealing with exactly?” I put the train back on the tracks before he catches my actual reasons.

“What I share with you—they’re not secrets. At least half of us don’t consider them secrets. The other half are so uptight they could be mistaken for the Queen’s Guard outside Buckingham Palace.”

“So you’re pretty much like a rebel in the security team.” I give him a blatant once-over, eyeing his tattoos, the black wardrobe, the piercings. “All this time, I had no idea.”

Farrow lets out a short laugh into an agitated, amused smile, nodding a few times. I think smartass sits on his tongue, and then his gaze falls to my lips—for the briefest second.

Before I even process what that means, he acts like nothing transpired. And he starts to unlock the door.

It could’ve just been in my head.

I’m prone to fantasizing. What’s to say I didn’t invent that out of the horny recesses of my sexually frustrated brain?

I need to go out and find a one-night stand tonight.

It’s my first thought. My second jarring thought slaps me cold: Farrow has to come with me.

I can’t escape him. For pretty much all of eternity.