Maximoff is so out of it, he lets me clasp his hand and lead him to the second lounge. I’d smile, but I still can’t believe he answered that call.

He holds his phone to his ear, listening to his dad talk. Not saying anything yet in reply.

I swing open the door. Finding Akara and Thatcher in a heated discussion about J.P., and I say, “Get the fuck out. Maximoff has to take a call, and both your clients are high in the first lounge.”

They all bolt into the hall.

Alone, I shut the door, and Maximoff sinks down on a couch, clothes littered everywhere from when the rest of Omega and I undressed. I lower the volume of the musical Christmas lights, and he presses speakerphone.

“…she’s having a hard time here, and I’ve thought about flying out to you a million goddamn times,” his dad says, “but if your mom and I drag Luna home, she could just leave again. Next time, it could be somewhere worse…and at least she ran to you.”

I sit calmly next to Maximoff, but hearing his dad talk reminds me of the years I spent beside Lo and Lily. And each time he turned to me, talked to me.

Trusted me.

At a café breakfast while we waited for Lily in the bathroom, Lo told me, “I woke up this morning, and I went, goddamn, I’m an adult. It still blows my mind that I lived this long, and Lil and I somehow managed to gift the world those four dorks.” He stared lovingly at his teenage children, a few tables away.

Kinney, Xander, Luna, and Maximoff loudly discussed who was better: Batman or Iron Man.

“Parenting never gets easier,” he said to me. “Not when you love them, and you need to be hard on them, but you’re afraid to break them. And you think you’re doing everything right as a parent because you know what’s wrong, but still, it’s inevitable. We’ll fail. We always do, but if I learned anything in my fucked-up life, it’s that picking ourselves up is what matters. And Lily and I—her and me—we can survive anything. And if we can, they can.” He nodded, then looked to me. “Words of wisdom from an unwise man. Take it or leave it.”

I told him, “It’s better than anything my old man has ever said.”

He put a hand on my shoulder. “No offense, I’d believe you more if you weren’t fighting with him.”

I smiled. “True.” But I tried to find a memory where my father looked at me the way that Loren Hale looked at his kids.

Medicine was supposed to bring me closer to family, but I’d never felt the strength of one until I joined security. Shit, I could feel how deep and connected Lily and Lo were to their kids. It doesn’t surprise me how empathetic Maximoff is when he has parents like that.

On the tour bus, Maximoff digests his dad’s words slowly. “So…” he says. “You want Luna to stay?”

“Do I want her to stay? Hell no,” Lo tells him. “But when she talked to me and your mom, she said she felt internally ‘trapped’—like she couldn’t breathe, and she just needed to get out.”

Fame is a motherfucker. Stifling. And Luna is flighty, restless. With that combination, I’m not that shocked she’d try to leave Philly if the opportunity appeared. And it did with this tour.

I unwrap a piece of gum, and Maximoff lies back on the couch, his legs outstretched over my lap. Phone on his chest. He fixates on the blinking lights.

I wave a hand in front of his face. Come on, wolf scout.

“Huh?” He rubs his eyes.

“Can we FaceTime?” Lo asks, concern in his voice.

“I’m alright.” He licks his lips. “So let me get this straight. Luna is staying here?” He tries to sit up, but he just falls back down.

I restrain a laugh and pop gum in my mouth. He flips me off.

“We’re hoping a short experience away from home will make her feel better,” Lo explains. “One month on the bus, then we’re flying her back to finish homeschooling. And she’s agreed to see a therapist again.” He pauses. “You can say no, Moffy. It’s a lot to handle, and if you’re too stressed—”

“No,” he says quickly. “I mean…no I’m not too stressed, and yes, I want her here. I can take care of Luna, I promise.” Maximoff pinches his eyes. His head is spinning.

“I know you will, bud,” he says strongly. “Hold on.” He hangs up too fast for Maximoff to protest, and then calls back for FaceTime.

“Fuck,” Maximoff groans.

I grab his forearm and pull him to a sitting position. His shoulder against my shoulder, and the phone falls to my lap.

“Do I look like I’m high, honestly?” Maximoff asks me.

I chew my gum, studying his reddened eyes, his ashen cheeks. He’s Maximoff Hale, the chance that anyone—his family or security—would think he’s high would be slim to none.

But truly, he looks 5% high and 95% close to puking.

“You look sick,” I tell him.

“I can go with that.” He angles the phone towards his face. Keeping me out of the frame, and then he answers FaceTime.

Lo pops up on screen. A ten-foot Christmas tree decorated in garland and gold bows twinkle, and a towering cardboard cutout of a twenty-something Connor Cobalt stands behind him, a Santa hat on and scarf around its neck.

In December, that cutout is shifted through the lake house every morning. A tradition for their families. People have Elf on the Shelf. Maximoff has a six-foot-four replica of his uncle.

Lo’s brows cinch. “What happened?” He’s talking about Maximoff’s busted lip.

His eyes widen. Paranoid.

My mouth stretches. Maximoff. I squeeze his knee. Speak, man.

He blinks rapidly a few times. “I’m high.”

Shit.

“What?” Lo laughs. “You’re kidding.”

Maximoff cringes. “I’m not. I ate an edible and it tasted like shit.” He rubs his face. “I can take care of Luna. This isn’t a reflection of the tour…she’s not around drugs or anything. I promise.”

“I trust you,” he says confidently. “Your lip?”

“Fight with Charlie. It’s nothing.”

He winces. “I wish you two would just—”

“So does everyone,” Maximoff cuts him off, and he stares at one spot on the floor. Breathing through his nose, pale. We’re encroaching 98% close to puking here.

I put a hand on his back. Guiding him up. When he stands, he’s more in control. “I’ll be back,” he says, dropping the phone. He leaves for the bathroom.

Just as I reach for the phone, Lo says, “Farrow?”

Either he knows I’ve been here or it’s a shot in the dark. Whatever the case, I decide to answer. Let’s see what he has to say.

I flip the camera towards my face, and I take a seat, elbows to my knees. Hunched forward. Casual. I fix my earring that keeps loosening.

His amber eyes dagger me, but I didn’t expect anything softer. “Maximoff isn’t in earshot?”

“Right,” I say.

“I need to know something.” He’s walking around, chatter and voices echoing throughout the lake house, and then he slips into a bathroom. Quiet, more private, and he asks me, “How long have you wanted to be with him?”

I take out my earring to adjust the backing. “Since I realized he wanted to be with me and not just sleep with me.”

He takes a seat on the edge of a tub. “When was that? Before or after you were hired to security?”

“Way after, Lo.” I fit my earring back in. “Around the time I became his bodyguard.”

His brows cinch. “But you knew he liked you before that?”

I pop my gum. “Back on Lily’s detail, sometimes I could tell he was attracted to me, but I knew he wouldn’t act on it.”

“You weren’t attracted to him then?” he asks, voice edged.

I look away and comb a hand through my hair. “You’re asking hard shit.”

“How is that hard?” he snaps.

“Because he’s…” I roll my eyes and say clearly, “He’s your son.”

Lo drills an iced glare. “He was my son before you slept with him, too. But that didn’t stop you from talking to me then.”

I rub my bottom lip. “Okay, but I don’t want you to revisit all the conversations we’ve ever had in the past and think that I was standing there pining after your son. I wasn’t.”

Lo clenches his jaw. “I want to believe you, but I’m finding it difficult trusting you for some strange reason. Oh wait, I remember why.” He flashes a dry half-smile.

“How about we start over?” I ask.

Lo is petty, and I’m not surprised when he says, “Maybe, maybe not.” He waves me to continue. “You never answered me.” About being attracted to Maximoff…

I chew my gum slowly. “I wasn’t always single, Lo. Did I care about Maximoff? Yeah. Was I attracted to Maximoff, three, four years ago? Yeah, but I can be attracted to men and never date them or fuck them. Shit, I wouldn’t even call us friends. We were barely acquaintances back then.” I shake my head in thought. “He was young, and I was doing my own thing.”

Lo contemplates my words with a paternal glare that’s never been directed at me. I glance at the door. I want to check on my boyfriend, but I can’t hang up on his dad.

“You broke Lily’s heart,” he says, which means that I broke his too.

I swallow a rock. “I know.” She made me promise to keep Maximoff safe, and I know she’s blaming herself, believing that I slept with him instead of protecting him, and she trusted me. “I’m sorry.” I eye the door again, and I stand and grab a water from the mini-fridge.

I wait.

Lo watches me.

“Anything else?”

“No.” He hangs up at that, and I roll my eyes again. Out of this room fast. All the girls are in a giggling fit on the floor. Pointing at the ceiling.

Oscar nods to me, then the bathroom. “Boyfriend is—”

“I know.” I enter the small bathroom and find Maximoff sitting against the wall, near the toilet. His forearms on his bent knees. Skin more flushed. Looking better.

“Hey,” he says. “Sorry about that.”

“No problem.” I hand him the water bottle, then I take a seat in front of him, my knees bent just like his.

In the quiet, our gazes unearth each other. Air strengthens to where breath feels like iron and fire, and I slide my arm over his arm.

His chest rises. “What was it like the first time you got high?”

“First time I got high,” I say, starting to smile, “I bought a joint, watched Wizard of Oz alone and passed out.”

His lips lift like he bested me. “I have you beat on the better story.”

Fuck, I can’t stop looking at him. “It’s a better story because we’re both in it.”

He laughs once. “Pretty sure my face in a toilet put it over the top.” He chugs water and then his arm clasps my arm in a tighter grip.

As though to say, don’t fucking leave yet.

I’m not going anywhere.