“No,” I whisper back to Farrow, and then I smile at the guy who raises a hand in hello. I tell him, “Hey, man. I’m kind of busy tonight—”

“I was just hoping for an autograph.” He reaches over the half-eaten supreme pizza, trying to pass me a napkin and a ballpoint pen.

I have to take my arm off Farrow to grab both. To me, it’s not a big deal to sign a napkin. It’ll take a half a second and could make someone’s day. But I notice how the guy checks over his shoulder and smiles impishly at a booth, a potted plant shrouding the other faces from view.

It puts me on edge.

But I don’t falter, uncapping the pen. “I’m right-handed, so this’ll be sloppy.” It looks nothing like my actual signature.

“Whatever’s good,” he says distantly, zeroing in on Farrow. “Can I get your autograph too?”

Farrow barely blinks. “I’ll pass.” He’s turned down autographs and pictures before, but not with this much coldness attached.

The college-aged guy almost…smiles.

This isn’t a fan.

“Here.” I extend the napkin and pen to the guy. “Have a good night, man.” Please leave. Please don’t ruin my fucking date.

Pocketing the autograph, the guy loiters for another half second. And stiltedly, like he’s rehearsed this line with his friends, he tells me, “I didn’t think Farrow was your type, Maximoff. I thought you’d end up with a rich dick, not a fame whore.”

I narrow my eyes. “Are you fucking serious?”

“I said—”

“Get the fuck out,” Farrow cuts in, standing up. But he can’t usher him away that easily. I’m sure he wants to, but he’s not a bodyguard or a bystander. He’s a part of the confrontation.

The guy laughs, then looks at me. “Is your boyfriend gonna hit me?”

Farrow rolls his eyes. He’s intimidating to most, but as my boyfriend, the worst of the worst kinds of humans will try to provoke him for fifteen minutes of fame.

Chair scraping back, I stand up next to Farrow. “Kids are here,” I growl. “Go back to your goddamn booth.”

My temp bodyguard is speaking into his radio. Hesitating.

“You seem tense, Maximoff.” The guy takes a single step back. “That’s what happens when you trade down—”

“Fuck you,” I sneer, and Farrow fists the back of my shirt—because I almost lunge. Then he holds the back of my head, protective. Comforting. Telling me not to defend him and let street hecklers get to me.

Take a breath.

“You’re just like your dad.” He smirks at me. “How’s Ryke Meadows doing, by the way?”

My fist stays at my side. Ryke isn’t my dad, but I’ve lost the urge or need to spit that truth. I don’t move. I don’t charge at him.

But I also can’t speak.

Farrow raises his brows at the guy. “Your opinions are fucking ugly. And we’re not here for that shit. You want a fight, go fight with the little fuckers you call friends.” He points at the booth.

The guy chokes on a breath. He opens his mouth to say something else, and then shuts it. His eyes dart to the left where my temp bodyguard finally nears.

Farrow turns to him first. “Call SFA and get a couple guys over here. We’ll be in the bathroom until you kick this shithead out.”

“I’m not leaving,” the heckler snorts.

I look to the temp bodyguard. “You have five minutes,” I tell him, my voice stilted and firm. I’m just on automatic at this point. Farrow clasps my hand and quickly leads me through the packed restaurant. Towards the men’s bathroom.

Everyone is looking. Filming us.

My eyes are on the bathroom door.

And then hot liquid suddenly splashes my face. “Fuck,” I curse, rubbing the…coffee off my burning cheek and temple. It’s all so damn abrupt that I have no time to think.

People gasp and shout, while others stand up from their chairs, cell phones pointed at me.

Farrow shoves someone back and yells a threat that rings in my ears. I press the bottom of my shirt to my face that’s on fucking fire. Goddammit.

I’m disoriented. Catching shocked expressions. Some people are weirdly smiling while they film this with their phones. I miss sight of the culprit. But all the people recording are getting great footage. Maybe they’re thinking about how much money they can sell it for. How many likes and retweets it’ll get.

I’m walling up.

I’m shutting down.

This is my first date.

“Maximoff,” Farrow says, hand falling back into mine.

I’m not angry. Just numb, and I fall in line with Farrow. Able to open the door to the single bathroom first, and I slip inside. One out-of-order toilet stall, one urinal, and sharpie and pen is scribbled along the chipped maroon walls.

Farrow locks the door behind us. We’re quiet. It’s calmer here.

I touch the stinging burn, and I glance at the mirror. Skin is bright, bright red along my cheekbone, beneath my eye, and beside my temple.

He snatches paper towels out of the dispenser.

“Welcome to my world,” I say dryly.

He glances back at me while he turns on the sink faucet. “I’ve been in your world, wolf scout.” He runs the paper towels beneath cold water, then wrings them out.

“But now you’re in it, in it,” I tell him.

His brows rise, turned to me. “You know I love your fucked-up world. Because you’re ‘in it, in it’.” He uses air-quotes and then presses the cold towel to my cheek and temple.

Our eyes caress for a second, and I breathe deeper. Better.

He shakes his head a couple times, his jaw tightening. “I should’ve been faster.” Meaning, he wishes he jumped out in front of me.

“I’m glad you weren’t.” Because in that alternate universe, he’d be the one with the stinging pain.

He holds my gaze and then frowns at the burn, lifting the soaked paper towel that soothes my skin. “If your new bodyguard is as bad as that one, it’s going to fucking kill me every time I leave you.”

“They won’t be that bad.” My hand glides up his back muscles, and I replay what happened. “About what that guy said—”

“I’m okay, wolf scout.” Farrow holds the wet paper towel to my face again. His perpetual confidence fortifies him and me together. Over and over and over. “You?”

“Yeah.” My hand reaches his neck, about to bring his mouth to mine—a knock pounds on the bathroom door. Our heads turn.

“I need to piss, dude! Hurry up!”

On top of that hollering, Farrow’s phone rings in his pocket. Without taking it out, he drops the call with one click.

And then he kisses me quickly. Like a peck. Not what I want, but he tells me, “Be patient.”

“I don’t know that word,” I say sarcastically.

“Because I’m smarter than you.” Farrow soaks up my irritation like a sponge.

I blink slowly. “Thank you for the bucket of lies. I needed those—” I cut myself off because his phone buzzes not once or twice. Repeatedly. Incessantly.

Notifications start pinging too.

We both frown.

Farrow digs back in his pocket and pulls out his phone. I stand beside him, and he flips the cell over.

Texts pop up, one after the other.

My stomach nosedives off a hundred-foot cliff. We exchange a cautious look, and then his phone rings with an unknown number.

“Don’t answer that,” I tell him.

“Wasn’t going to.” Farrow skims the screen. “Give me your phone.”

I pull my cell out of my pocket. At the same time, someone calls me. Caller ID: Oscar Oliveira.

Farrow takes my phone, and I listen fixatedly. Ready and prepared for damage control. Another DEFCON 1, here we fucking go.

My boyfriend presses the speakerphone button. “Oliveira.”

“It’s bad, Redford,” he says. “Your info has spread across the whole internet. Phone number. Childhood address. Names of your family: father, stepmom, stepsister, and ex-boyfriends.”

Farrow shuts his eyes before they roll in a giant arc.

“Your seventh-grade MySpace page,” Oscar continues, “the name of your pet guinea pig.” Scuttlebucket. The only pet Farrow ever had died when he was twelve. “Email address, any old usernames on social medias, a password to your bank account—”

“Where’s the security tech team?” I ask, and Farrow hands me my phone. He puts his own cell to his ear, calling the bank to freeze his accounts.

“Tech team is preventing a phone hack. But, Hale, this info is coming from other sources. Like Redford’s friend-of-friend-of-friend’s social media accounts spread over fucking years. Anytime he popped up in pictures or by name, people are connecting it together and finding more info about him. It’s snowballing.”

Farrow speaks hushed near the sink. Talking to the bank.

“He’s being doxxed,” I realize.

His private information is being leaked for public consumption. I’ve tried to prepare for this doomsday. I’ve told myself for years that it could happen to whoever I dated publicly.

And I won’t let anyone, especially doxxers, make me regret our decision to go public. But fuck those people who do this to human beings for shits and giggles.

I’ve never had complete privacy. So I’ve never experienced what Farrow is going through right now. I imagine it’s like you’re suddenly being disrobed in front of the whole world. And you can’t grab the robe back—and I hate that I can’t shield him. That I have no power to protect him.

All I can do is just be here.

It doesn’t feel like enough.

Oscar tells me that the security team is calling an emergency meeting. Even though Farrow doesn’t have a 24/7 bodyguard and he’s not one himself anymore, he’s still being protected by Alpha, Omega, and Epsilon.

They’re treating him like family. And I don’t just mean a part of the Hales—I can’t take credit for this. I think it’s mostly because the security team loves him.

I hang up with Oscar.

“I need to piss!!” Knocking on the door.

“Fuck off!” I yell.

“…okay. Bye,” Farrow says before hanging up his call. He slips his phone in his pocket. He’s relaxed, but there’s a tinge of frustration and anger reddening his eyes that I can’t miss.

I just want to help.

Any way that I fucking can.

Farrow leans on the sink. “Looks like we’re not going to be fighting over who pays for this date.”

I near him. “They drained your money?”

“Two grand five minutes ago. Gone. The bank flagged the activity and froze all of my accounts.”

As soon as I’m in arm’s reach, we draw together. Instinctively, our hands roam and hold and grip. He whispers, “I don’t have any cash on me.”

I trace the wings on his neck. “I planned to pay anyway.”

He stares into me. “And I planned to ruin your plan.” His palm runs up back. Pushing me as close to his chest as possible with my sling.

I hug him tighter around the shoulders. His jaw skims against my jaw. His fingers massage the back of my head before clutching harder.

I don’t let go of him.

I can feel his chest collapse. I hold stronger.

Breath deepening.

We stay in this embrace for a long moment. Our pulses thumping together, and the world seems to go calm. And quiet.

As we pull back, our eyes say the same thing:

Let’s get out of here.

* * *

101k viewers and counting listen to me talk about boundaries on an Instagram Live. Coffee thrown at my face, Farrow being doxxed—this is not how I saw our date going. Instead of drowning in resentment, I remind myself to look on the bright side. I went on a public date with my boyfriend.

We’re here today. Breathing, living, and we have love—so much damn love. He’s okay. We’re okay.

Leaning against my bed’s headboard, I angle the phone, everything below my abdomen not in frame. I already struggled out of my shirt and attached my sling to my bare chest.

Farrow helped. Kind of.

Kind of a lot.

And then he had to take a phone call from the hospital. Paperwork shit, his words. So while he stepped out of the attic, I decided to go live and get this off my chest.

Boundaries.

Human decency.

Don’t fuck with my boyfriend.

“I get that you all will have your opinions on Farrow. But shitting on him because you love me makes no damn sense.” Emoji hearts flutter up the screen, and the tickertape of comments speeds rapidly. Making them hard to read.

But I catch these:

“Farrow is the last person in the whole universe who’d hurt me.” On the live stream, my sharp features stare back at me. My forest-green eyes look greener tonight and almost pierce the screen.

I rest my head back. “When you fuck with Farrow, you hurt me. So if you care about me at all, don’t come at him with things like I deserve better and he’s not good enough for me. Farrow Keene is the only one I let in. The only one.” I’d point at my chest if I could. “That’s not by accident. It’s because he’s more than enough for me. He’s every damn thing.”

The door squeaks open.

Fuck.

I had no plan to make some sappy declaration. One that Farrow would love to quote for eons upon eons of time. Just to agitate the fuck out of me.

Dear World, tell me my boyfriend didn’t hear me profess a colossal amount of love. Sincerely, a human in love.

Farrow kicks the door closed with a growing smile. He nears my dresser and then leans his elbows on the surface. Looking only at me.

He heard what I said.

Without a doubt.

Using my feet, I push myself higher against the headboard. Gray sheets are crumpled beneath me. Sitting straighter, I’m careful not to jostle my phone in hand. And I focus on the live stream.

“You all should know…” I pause, layering on severity. “…I’m Farrow Redford Keene, and I have a gigantic, massive crush on Maximoff Hale.”

I look up, and Farrow rubs his bottom lip, giving me a long scorching once-over. He approaches, the bed undulating with his weight, and he’s suddenly right next to me.

In the camera frame.

The comment section explodes.

Me too.

Farrow looks at the live stream, both of us able to see ourselves in the screen. He cups the back of my head, his fingers running casually in and out of my hair. “I’m Maximoff Hale,” he says to the 117k viewers. “And thirty-four seconds ago, I lost my honesty merit badge.”

I try to feign confusion, but laughter rumbles in my lungs.

Farrow lifts his brows at me like you liked that. All comebacks and potential one-upping flits away, starving for more physical contact, for his mouth against my mouth and to connect hard body to hard body.

Before the viewers see me flash fuck me eyes at Farrow, I shut off the video. Tossing it aside, my phone slips off the mattress and clatters to the floorboards.

I turn into Farrow; he turns into me, and our eyes meet head-on first, pulsating with need.

And our lips collide. I break apart his mouth as I breathe into the kiss, and I taste mint against his tongue. Our hands wrestle with our clothing. He unzips me, unbuttons and wrenches my jeans to my thighs.

My cock pulses and pulses, and he eats up the arousal in my eyes like my pleasure feeds his pleasure.

I tug his pants halfway down his legs. Farrow grips the back of his black shirt, pulling the fabric off his head. Revealing his nipple piercing and the inked dagger and skull pirate across the ridges of his abs.

Fuck me. I pull off my jeans, and he throws his own pants off the bed.

Down to boxer-briefs, our mouths crush together again. And we inch off the headboard, until his head meets a pillow.

I split his muscular legs open with my knees, and while I deepen the roughest, most untamed kiss, I lower on top of Farrow, my left forearm braced on the mattress.

A tinge of pain flares up in my shoulder, but I hone in on the mounting heat that ignites us.

I grind my hips into him. His mouth-watering erection rubs against my hardening cock every single time I drive forward.

Sweat builds, and between each kiss, our heavy grunts break the quiet. Farrow digs his fingers in my back and rakes his short nails across my skin. Scratching down towards my ass.

Fuckfuck.

Our tongues tangle more languidly than the forceful thrust of my hips. His hand—his hand draws down my boxer-briefs and seizes my ass with the hottest goddamn squeeze.

I tear from his lips, a raspy groan expelling from my burning lungs. Spurring me to grind harder. Rougher.

His muscles strain. “Fuck, Maximoff,” Farrow groans, his other hand clasps my jaw in the best grip. He grapples for the lead and control. About to flip me. But I bear more of my weight on his chest. Staying on top.

Our eyes attach for a nerve-pricking beat.

“You want to fuck me?” he asks, his graveled voice stroking my cock.

Goddamn. “More than you want to fuck me,” I breathe heavily.

He nips my lip between his teeth, and he whispers, “Not possible.”

I rock harder, fabric of boxer-briefs still separating us. My ass flexes beneath his palm. I grind and grind—he grits down, nose flaring in intense arousal.

“Fuck,” he grunts, his lips almost splitting apart in a coarse breath.

Blood pounds in my veins, and I groan against his neck. Fuck, Farrow. He pushes me as hard against him as he can without causing me pain.

My bound right arm obstructs our bodies from completely meeting. And my arm jerks in the canvas, wanting and aching to be all over him like he’s all over me.

I lift my head. “Fuck my sling,” I mutter, frustrated.

Farrow pants as hard as me. “It’d be easier if you weren’t on top. If you’d let me flip us—”

“I’m doing great, thanks,” I say, too stubborn to lose the lead right now. Plus, once I’m on my back, I won’t have enough strength to wrestle out from under him.

Farrow studies my body. My left arm is more carved and toned than ever since it’s been picking up my right arm’s slack. And whatever pain exists in my collarbone has melted beneath five-hundred degree, blood-boiling desire.

I rock slower and kiss him again, lips stinging beneath the force. And he pushes my ass for a deeper grind. Fuck.

Me.

I need inside of him.

Soon.

I lower my mouth to his chest, trailing over the inked lines of a pirate ship. Reaching his nipple, I suck and flick my tongue over the metal barbell.

Farrow lets out a rougher breath, and he palms my cock.

I lose balance on my left hand. “Fuck,” I curse.

He hooks his legs around me, and before I even blink, he flips us in one careful and effortless movement. Tapping into his strength and MMA skill, he tops me.

And my back gently meets the mattress. He’s protecting my body from my aggressive self-destruction.

I like to manhandle and be manhandled. Not new news. But it’s pretty difficult with a surgically repaired collarbone that’s in the process of healing.

He straddles my waist, and his chest is hoisted off mine. Tattooed hands splay on either side of my shoulders on the mattress.

Our eyes create hot tracks along our faces, and I run my large hand across his rough jaw, a less-than-close shave. God, his masculinity fists me, and my carriage elevates in a blistered breath.

He turns his head slightly and kisses my palm. I rake my fingers through his bleach-white hair, and then hold his warm neck.

Farrow rubs my bicep before whispering, “I’m being as rough with you as I can be without hurting you.” He wishes he could give me more.

If he had fractured a bone, I would’ve been the same way with him. Not hesitating or bubble-wrapping him, just highly aware of his physical limitations. And knowing that he’d want to push against them.

I nod once. “I get it, man.”

Farrow starts smiling.

“What?” I ask.

“How you call me ‘man’ in bed,” he tells me, lowering his lips to mine, a teasing breath away. He must catch my confusion because he clarifies, “It’s the way you always say it with extra force. It sounds more like I’m your man. Not just any fucking man.” He raises his brows at me. “It’s hot.”

I barely have time to react to that. Because Farrow lowers more of his weight into me, and I throb.

Fuck. I reach down and free us from our boxer-briefs. Shedding the last fabric, we kick the underwear off our ankles.

I grip his length and mine together, rubbing us in a tight fist. Pre-cum slick in my palm—I flex, breath knotted in my throat.

Farrow shoves my hand aside and sits up off me. “Don’t jack us off.” He reaches for the end table, his mosaic of pirate tattoos cascading down cut muscle. I watch his hands, two images inked on top: sparrows by his thumbs and skull-and-crossbones in the middle.

I crunch upward and push myself to my knees with one hand. He’s knelt too, holding my gaze. Farrow shakes a black bottle and squirts lube in his palm. He strokes us, mixing lube with pre-cum, while we kiss.

More aggressively. Passionately.

He tosses the bottle aside, and our mouths break, catching our breaths.

“What position were you thinking?” Farrow asks since many have been hypothetically eliminated. My brain says most sex positions are doable.

And by most, I mean all.

“Me topping you, on our sides facing each other.”

He tilts his head at me like I’ve flown to Mars by myself and built a colony of one. “On your side?” he repeats. He makes a point of eyeing my shoulder, the bandage gone. A thick reddened puffy scar lines the length of my left collarbone.

“Yeah.” I don’t concede.

“No, fuck no,” he says easily and waves me on. “Keep going.”

I glance at his long, hardened cock. I want that in me as much as I want mine in him.

“I spoon you.” If there are proper terms for these positions, I don’t know them. I have a lot of sex. But I don’t research the fuck out of it on the internet.

“That’s also on your side,” he says. “Keep going.”

I exhale a hot breath. “Doggy-style or the one where your legs are splayed to the side and I’m standing off the bed and entering you from behind. But I could bottom for that one.” It’s one of my favorite positions I’ve been in as a bottom. I think because he wrapped his hand around my neck while he pounded into me, and I was so into it, into him, and I saw how much he got off on that.

Farrow contemplates for a half a second, and then waves me on again. “Getting closer.”

“With you flat on your back, missionary.”

He shakes his head, motion with two fingers to keep going.

My brows knot. “I’m getting the feeling you just want to know which positions I like.”

He smiles at me like the word pure is on his tongue. “That is part of the point, wolf scout.” His matter-of-fact voice pumps my blood.

I growl out and then exhale roughly. “I’m picking one now. Dresser. Standing.”