“Shotgun him,” Donnelly suggests to me, his ratty Van Halen shirt almost a decade old. That blue-eyed shameless motherfucker leans on the stove of the cramped kitchen.

We’re in the famous one’s townhouse. Oscar digs through the cupboard for snacks, listening to this conversation take a turn.

“I’m not smoking out my boyfriend.” I spin a butter knife between my fingers. “A. weed makes him sick and B. he’s Maximoff.” I’m sitting on the counter next to melting ice packs, a thermometer, and a portable fan, waiting for a bagel to toast.

Mostly, I’m giving Maximoff alone time with his family. I’ll be up there soon.

Donnelly adjusts his septum piercing. “A. edibles made him sick. We aren’t sure about smoking. I gotta jawn in my pocket.” His lilt is thick on jawn, a word which means just about anything in Philly, but Donnelly uses it mostly for blunt. “B. he’s Maximoff in Pain with a capital P.”

I chew Winterfresh, actually and truly considering Donnelly’s pitch to resolve Maximoff’s distress.

Oscar notices. “Boyfriend is in that much pain that you’re taking advice from Donnelly?” he asks with wide eyes, tearing open a bag of pretzels.

I pop a bubble in my mouth. “Let’s put it this way: I wouldn’t be surprised if he pukes in thirty minutes.”

It’s killing me to see Maximoff in this kind of agonizing pain, and I don’t know how to relieve it. Other than making him more comfortable and distracting him.

Neither of which can come close to easing fractured ribs, a surgical operation on his collarbone, and internal bruising. I didn’t sustain any injuries, and my body is extremely fucking sore and my muscles are shot.

I feel like I’ve been in a boxing ring fighting and grappling for thirty days in a row. Nonstop.

Oscar digs into the pretzels. “He does have a high pain tolerance though. Ever seen that episode of We Are Calloway where he breaks his ankle? Maximoff walked on it for what…five miles? Didn’t even break a sweat.”

I’ve seen that episode. “He’s breaking a sweat now,” I say easily, but that fact wedges like a pit in my ribs. My bagel pops, and I grab it from the toaster.

“We hotbox the attic,” Donnelly offers, tugging open the fridge.

I slowly chew my gum. “Man, that entails getting all the famous ones high.”

“Bonus,” Donnelly says and chucks the cream cheese container to me.

I catch. “Downside: Maximoff will go into big brother mode for the rest of the night if his little sister is high.”

“He’s probably already there,” Donnelly tells me. “I saw her drinking Four Lokos while you were upstairs.”

I roll my eyes. “I love that girl, but fuck.” I’m pissed because Maximoff shouldn’t have to worry about Luna tonight, and he will. Shit, I am right now. She buried her head in her shirt at the hospital, silently crying, and she’s kept to herself since the crash. Now this.

Oscar scratches his unshaven jaw. “Donnelly, you’re supposed to be making Redford feel better not worse.”

“I gave him cream cheese.”

I open the lid. “I’m having a night,” I tell them, being honest. “I’ll be fine later.” I’m just not in the mood for more bad shit. If something else goes wrong in the next twenty-four hours, I’m going to lose it.

Friends make long days feel good, but it’s the simple, little things that make the bad shit feel nonexistent. I just want to crawl into bed next to my boyfriend. Simple.

Easy.

“My guy doesn’t know you like I know you,” Donnelly says, bringing up Beckett, his client, who laid into me earlier. “Or else he wouldn’t have said the things he said.”

I spread cream cheese on my bagel. “I know.” I’ve already told Donnelly not to meddle and share details about me with Beckett. I’d rather earn that trust on my own.

At this rate, it may take years.

I spit my gum on a napkin and ask Oscar, “Charlie ever tell you why he wanted Beckett to do the auction?” I don’t ask Donnelly since he wouldn’t share Beckett’s secrets if he knew them.

Oscar hangs into the cabinet. “That requires having a relationship where Charlie actually tells me things.”

“So that’s a no,” I say, biting into my bagel. I turn my head as Akara fills the archway. A backwards baseball cap pushes back his black hair, and like Oscar, he’s in workout clothes: a muscle shirt and sweats.

“How you holding up?” Akara asks me.

I toss my head from side-to-side. “Better than my boyfriend.” I take another bite. “How about you?” The Omega lead has been attached to his phone for hours. Handling the crash and the aftermath which involves lawyers and police reports. We both haven’t slept since the accident.

“It’s been a day.” Akara watches Oscar take out a six-pack from the fridge. He doles out Coronas to everyone, but I pass.

Akara’s phone buzzes.

“Sulli?” Donnelly asks.

Akara checks Caller ID, then pockets his phone. “No, some guys have been calling me about franchising the gym.” He uncaps the beer bottle on the counter’s edge, acting like that offer means nothing.

Ever since SFO has gained some fame, Studio 9 Boxing & MMA gym has too. Especially since Akara owns it.

“You can be excited in front of me.” I lick cream cheese off my thumb.

Oscar pats Akara’s shoulder. “Congratulations, bro.”

Akara nods and swigs his beer. “I wish I could be excited, but franchising sounds like a headache. I’m already swimming in work.” He checks an incoming message on his phone. “And there it is.”

“Sulli,” we all say, ribbing him together.

His brows crinkle. “Not Sulli.”

Oscar smirks. “It was a ninety-nine percent chance, Kitsuwon.”

Akara shakes his head. “Look, all the subtle Sulli shots at me can’t happen anymore. I know you’re fucking around, but at the FanCon, you threw out hints that I liked her as more than a friend in front of Maximoff, in front of her cousins. Sooner or later, they’re gonna stop thinking that’s a joke. So you all need to cut that shit. Just a friendly warning.”

I don’t mind backing off, but if I slip on accident, I won’t mind that either.

“Aye aye, captain,” I say with a bagel between my teeth while I grab the other half from the toaster.

“Sure thing, boss.” Donnelly raises his beer.

Oscar shakes the pretzel bag, his curly hair falling in his eyes. “How sure are we that you don’t like her as more than a friend?”

“Oscar.” Akara glares.

He puts a hand to his heart. “You know I wouldn’t give you shit, if you weren’t a buddyguard. It’s not a good look. Ask Donnelly.”

Donnelly swishes his beer. “Beckett and I look dope together.”

“Exactly. That’s weird,” Oscar tells everyone.

Akara looks about ready to strangle Oliveira. My lips want to rise, partially-somewhat entertained. The Omega lead points at Oscar with his beer. “I’ve been on her detail since she was sixteen. Her dad will have my dick under a knife if he hears you. Do not push it.”

I let out a low whistle at Oscar. “Keep forgetting that lube before you get fucked hard.”

“Taking one for the team, Redford. You’ve been fucked hard enough today.”

I nod a few times. That was a good one, and Oscar holds my gaze for a quiet beat and nods back, more serious.

“Who was it?” Donnelly asks Akara. “If it wasn’t Sulli texting you.”

“The rest of the Tri-Force.” Akara names the powers-that-be in the security team that consist of the current Alpha, Omega, and Epsilon lead: Price Kepler, Akara Kitsuwon, and Banks Moretti. “Let’s go in the living room. There’s big news.”

* * *

I lean my ass on the iron café table, but the granny-decorated living room has more seating than usual. Mismatched lawn chairs litter the floorboards, accompanying the ugly pink Victorian loveseat and the old rocking chair.

While Donnelly slumps on a lawn chair, Oscar stays in the kitchen archway, and Akara stands front-and-center blocking the brick fireplace.

It’s hard to miss Thatcher.

He towers next to the adjoining townhouse door. Closer to me than I prefer. Arms crossed, he eyes Jane’s cats that dart across the mint-green rug.

I’m hoping to keep the silent streak between us intact.

Jack Highland sits on the loveseat and fiddles with his Canon, but the starry-eyed jock isn’t here to film We Are Calloway. He heard what happened after the auction, and he came here to check on Maximoff and Charlie.

“Put the phone away for a sec, Quinn,” Akara tells the youngest bodyguard.

Quinn is bowed forward on the rocking chair. “How long will this meeting take?” He doesn’t pocket his phone.

“I don’t know,” Akara snaps, not putting up with anyone’s bullshit tonight. “You need to be somewhere? Leave.”

Quinn glances around at us, and ends up looking to me for the right answer. I’m not solving anyone else’s mini-dilemmas unless their name starts with Maximoff and ends with Hale.

Boyfriend privileges.

Before I can tell him off, Quinn starts explaining to me, “I matched with this incredibly cute girl on Tinder and her profile says she’s down for hookups. She can only meet me in like five fucking minutes.”

My brows hike, and Oscar tries to control his laughter. His little brother is asking for my permission to go fuck a girl.

“Man, I don’t give a shit what you do,” I tell Quinn.

Thatcher shoots me a glare. “That’s really your advice?”

There goes that blissful silence. “Technically, it’s not advice. It’s an opinion.”

Donnelly asks to see the girl’s profile, and Quinn passes him the phone. Jack leans over to peek at the screen.

“Be thirty minutes late, little bro,” Oscar tells his brother. “That way she won’t smell your desperation.”

Quinn gives him a weird look. “I’m not that desperate. I’ve gotten hundreds of messages since the Hot Santa video leak. But this girl is out of my league and she doesn’t care.”

In the public’s eyes, Quinn Oliveira became the Casanova of Omega. The Young Stud. And I can see Thatcher weighing Quinn’s dedication to this job. Like he does to me all the fucking time.

Thatcher catches sight of my glare, and he glares back.

My phone vibrates in my back pocket. Just as I reach for my cell, Akara tells Quinn to make a choice.

Donnelly shrugs and hands the phone to Jack. “It’s just pussy, Quinnie. You can eat it later.”

Jack doesn’t flinch, used to blunt talk. “She’s cute. You’d look good together, but I’m with Donnelly.” He passes the phone back to Quinn.

I check my recent message from Maximoff.

“Farrow,” Akara calls me out for my phone while Quinn decides to stay put for the meeting.

“It’s Maximoff,” I say, typing back a reply.

I send: No. What do you need?

Akara doesn’t nag, and he snaps his finger to his palm, “Okay, so here’s the deal. Alpha is still the force that’ll work the night with a celebrity a week from now. Price isn’t compromising or letting Omega take the lead.”

No one thought he would.

“Bigger news,” Akara says, “Eliot and Tom Cobalt graduated high school. For those that don’t know”—he zeroes in on Quinn—“Security Force Omega was formed when Maximoff left home. At that point, SFO became the division of security that protects the kids who turn eighteen and become legal adults. Epsilon handles all the minors. Normally, this means that we’d be welcoming Eliot and Tom’s bodyguards to SFO, but the Tri-Force has decided on a restructure.”

Oscar frowns. “A restructure?”

Akara outstretches his arms. “Omega has gained some fame. We’re the only ones who get stopped for autographs, the only ones getting extra Tinder dates, and if we start adding more bodyguards, there’s a chance they’ll gain notoriety by association. It’s not something the security team wants.”

I understand now. There’s no plan to add extra bodyguards to SFO. Which is perfectly fine by me.

Akara continues, “All of us here—we are Omega. Even if you’re transferred to another client, even if you quit or get fired. We’re the bodyguards on SFO until further notice.”

Thatcher straightens off the door. “What about my brother?”

Akara nods. “We’re still talking about adding Banks to Omega, and it’s likely that’s the way it’ll fall.” No one asks why. Banks and Thatcher are identical twins, and he’s been recognized just as much as Thatcher on the street.

My phone buzzes.

After seeing his cousins carry pillows and air mattresses upstairs, I figured he’d invite everyone to this little “sleepover” thing.

Your text needs an apostrophe and capital letters. And you sure you want Thatcher up there? I send, and rise off the table as a swarm of texts hit me. Everyone in the living room is watching me.

“Boyfriend okay?” Oscar asks.

Maximoff texts me a middle finger emoji, along with these:

These are definitely requests from his cousins.

I instantly call him, phone to my ear. “Don’t you dare move.”

“Too late, I’m already doing cartwheels down the stairs.” His voice sounds tight with pain.

I rub my mouth. “You’re a terrible liar, wolf scout.” My eyes latch onto Akara, and I mouth, upstairs. He nods, and I tell my boyfriend, “We’ll be there soon.”

* * *

Maximoff looks worse than when I left him.

His pallid skin gleams with sweat, dark brown hair damp like he took a shower, and he breathes measured breaths through his nose.

But he’s not shaking. No chills.

Good.

I block out most of the background chatter as SFO and Jack settle into the attic room. Sleeping bags and pastel blankets cover air mattresses that line almost every inch of floor space. Bags of chips and bowls of popcorn are being passed around.

I’m already sitting next to Maximoff on his bed, and while he sticks the thermometer in his mouth, I reach over his chest. Carefully.

And I switch on the portable fan. I sense him watching my inked hands, and our muscular legs unconsciously intertwine.

I grab a limeade Ziff sports drink. Leaving the other half of a bagel on the end table. He has to be too nauseous to eat.

With Maximoff, and even me, there’s a fine line between “coddling” and taking care of each other. I let him adjust his ice packs on his shoulder and chest, and when I unscrew the sports drink, I see the don’t do that for me in his features.

The warning dies out the second I take a sizable swig.

I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. “That’s cute that you thought this was yours.”

His cheeks flush. That’s one way to return color to his face. With the thermometer under his tongue, he mumbles, “Fuck you.”

I smile. “That was the most precious fuck you I’ve ever heard.”

He groans, fighting his upturning lips, and he says with more bite and growl, “Fuck you.”

I suck in a breath. “Still precious.”

Maximoff shoots me a middle finger and then removes the beeping thermometer with the same left hand. He reads his temperature, purposefully holding the screen away from me.

His brows knit.

“Give me.” I motion to him with two fingers.

“Just what I expected,” Maximoff says dryly, “I’m the Human Torch.” He passes me the thermometer.

98.5 degrees Fahrenheit. He’s a fucking dork. “You don’t have a fever,” I tell him.

He takes another measured breath before looking right at me. “Probably because I never get hot when I’m around you.”

I nod a few times. Unable to break his gaze. Ensnared. “Must be why you’re sweating right now,” I tell him.

He grimaces, two seconds from a real smile, but his eyes snap shut abruptly. Pain slamming into him somewhere. I almost wince just watching him. I’m used to seeing people in discomfort at a hospital, but it’s definitely different when it’s someone close to me.

I massage the back of his neck, my fingers skating upward and threading his thick hair. I’m about to pull my leg off his, but he leans more of his weight into my side, like a physical plea for me to stay.

Maximoff.

I keep our legs laced.

His eyes slowly open with a sharp breath, and he’s looking at Luna. She’s looking at him, concern welled up in her amber gaze.

He tries to marbleize his features. Tries to be her strong unshakable big brother. These parts of him are so intrinsically Maximoff Hale that I wouldn’t want him to change. He loves people so overwhelmingly, and he cares. Shit, he cares more than anyone, and when people need him to be their everything, he is always there.

But it only makes me want to be there for him.

Every time. Every day.

Twice as hard. Ten times as much.

“Maximoff,” I breathe, capturing his focus. I lightly shake the sports drink at my boyfriend, what I planned to do from the moment I uncapped the plastic bottle. “I’ll share with you.” And only you.

His eyes fall to my mouth, and then he quickly snatches the drink. I notice how he doesn’t attempt to talk.

“Moffy,” Charlie calls. Our heads turn.

And I reluctantly split my attention between Maximoff and eleven other people. A few pillows prop Charlie’s broken leg, and Donnelly leans over his cast, black Sharpie in hand. He’s sketching the Philly cityscape, and to be honest, I’m surprised that Charlie is letting him. His cast has been blank.

“Yeah?” Maximoff asks, voice tight.

I survey the attic in one sweep, the room loud with chatter.

All eleven people lounge on sleeping bags, but since they’re elevated on the air mattresses, everyone is basically eye-level with us.

The three girls sit beneath the curtained window. Sulli braids Luna’s hair while Jane talks breezily and sips a beer.

Near the dresser, Beckett is telling the Oliveira brothers about New York clubs, Donnelly listening in as he draws, and next to the girls, Jack is showing Akara a photo or video on his camera. That doesn’t shock me. Jack and Akara have been more civil since the FanCon.

Thatcher is the only one observing and not in a group, his back up against the door. And no, I don’t care.

Charlie slips on dark sunglasses. “You look like shit, Moffy. If you’d just—”

“I’m not taking a Vicodin,” Maximoff combats and then winces. An icepack slides down his shoulder—I fix it for him since the sports drink occupies his hand.

Jane says something to her brother in French, and he raises one hand in surrender. Conversations pop up around the room, and I hear the tail end of Oscar talking about the worst flavor of Doritos.

I tune everyone out and hone in on Maximoff.

He’s pinching his eyes, and he readjusts himself, starting to slide back off the headboard.

Shit.

He’s not upset about Charlie nagging him.

He’s physically hurting. More.

And more.

He’s even willing to lie flat and advertise his pain. Before the ice packs slip, I remove them from his body. His shoulders sink onto the soft mattress, and his head finds the pillow. Eyes closing.

I stroke his hair out of his face.

He shifts his head on my thigh. And he tries to roll more towards me but can’t with his bandaged shoulder—his left hand quakes, distressed tears wet the corners of his eyes.

That’s it.

I have to do something.

Spreading my legs, I pull Maximoff carefully between them, and I reach for the ice packs, placing one lightly on his chest, one below the red sling on his abdomen.

I already know it’s not enough to extinguish his discomfort. With his head on my lap, I wipe the wet corners of his eyes with my thumb.

More conversations ignite in the attic, some about the We Are Calloway docuseries and others about the auction. They’re all good about not drawing attention to Maximoff.

The fact that he’s this vulnerable, head on my lap, in front of them is the clearest sign that he’s not doing well.

Maximoff drops his shaking left hand from his face. And he grips my bent knee in a vice, combating that post-op pain. His cheekbones sharpen when he clenches his teeth—and he tries to bury his face into my thigh again.

Fuck, I have to do more. I have to. And I’ve been hesitating on one option because I don’t know how he’ll react.

I love safeguarding the good in Maximoff while also being the one to loosen his tight laces. It sounds contradictory, but to me, good isn’t straight-edged. Good is compassion and love for all people, for humanity. Good is a selfless kindness so unadulterated it stings your eyes.

If there’s anything I know, it’s that the offer I’m about to make won’t hurt his morality. It will just take away his pain.

And I need him to believe this too.

I comb his hair back one more time, and then I dip my head down to whisper against his ear. “Can I shotgun you?”