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.
4
FARROW KEENE
Luggage in hand, I lead the way up two flights of narrow wooden stairs. Much to Maximoff’s chagrin. I’m certain he’d love to be the one leading the nonexistent pack, but he has to be second-place to me this time.
And really, every time as far as I’m concerned.
It’s not just me being pompous or arbitrarily arrogant. For his safety, he has to learn to let me lead.
Thick silence stretches while we both ascend the stairs. I’m not used to uncomfortable tension, and I doubt he is either.
See, I didn’t ask to be his bodyguard. I didn’t apply for the position or submit an application. I fell into the role at his mom’s request.
I like change.
I welcome change. But when one of my favorite pastimes is pissing off Maximoff Hale—I’m not so sure I’d have volunteered for this job.
Another tense beat passes between us before Moffy warns me, “Your room is small.”
I end up smiling because I’ve been in these two townhouses multiple times. They’re identical. Second floor has two bedrooms and the only bath. Third floor is an attic bedroom. Everything else is crammed on the first floor.