“It was that, but it was definitely something else, too.” I’m conflicted. I tell him that I am, and I explain how that same night I ran into a doctor who’d been in my first-year residency. Tristan MacNair. We talked for a few minutes in the hallway, and then he was paged.
My first thought should’ve been, I’m glad that’s not my call. But all I could think and feel was, I wish that were me. I watched him sprint away to aid a patient. Instinct told me, follow, go help.
And my hunger for medicine just pummeled me.
It’s been eating at me on-and-off since, and then seeing the doctor this morning, that hunger returned. I stop rehashing my story and feelings here, a pit in my stomach.
My actions will affect Maximoff. More than anyone. Even considering what I’m considering eviscerates me. Hacks up my organs and slices me in fucking two.
You selfish bastard.
I love him.
Fuck, I love him more than is comprehensible, more than anyone can possibly see, and I’ve always run towards what calls me.
Maximoff. He calls out to me every second of every minute of every day, and to willingly turn my back and race away from him is unfathomable. Because it’d tear me apart. I’d sooner drop to my knees and scream, and then I’d dig my way back into his arms.
If losing him is a consequence of what I choose to do next, I physically can’t do it. It’d hurt less to ignore this pull than to lose him.
My eyes burn. “I need to know what you think.” I tighten my hand in his. “I’m not sure what to do yet.”
I expected this conversation to surprise Maximoff. But he doesn’t look shocked.
He rests the back of his head on the rock wall, his eyes swimming through my eyes. “Choose the path where you’re not fighting yourself, don’t be afraid of change, don’t live for less than what you love—those are your words, Farrow. To me, it’s obvious what you need to do.”
I rub my jawline. “It’s not.”
“You love medicine—”
“I love you,” I tell Maximoff. “You are who I love, who I live for, and if I finish my residency to be a concierge doctor, it means quitting security. It means working in a hospital for three years before I can even be your family’s physician.” There’s no shortcut to being board-certified; I have to complete my three-year residency.
Maximoff is quietly thinking.
I’ve already drawn closer to him, my legs broken apart. His are spread open too, nearer. Fit together.
Our elbows balance on my kneecap like we’re about to arm wrestle, but our hands aren’t closed in a fist. In the silence, he threads our fingers, unthreads them, and then traces the ink on my hand. Like the tiny blue sparrow along my thumb.
“Maybe we were wrong,” Maximoff says, brows scrunched in deep contemplation. “When we thought we only worked because you were my bodyguard—maybe we were wrong. Maybe it’s just what brought us together. Because I wanted you way before that damn day.”
I watch him watch our interlacing hands. I’ve recalled my past with him, every moment, a hundred-and-five times and more. “I can believe that,” I say, voice husky.
He licks his lips. “Because you knew I may’ve been somewhat-attracted to you for a while?”
“Somewhat-attracted,” I repeat with a small burgeoning smile. “That’s where you’re shelving your sixteen-year-old fantasies of me? In the ‘somewhat-attracted’ category?”
“The holy-fuck-I’m-coming category was full.”
I give him a look. “Of who?”
“Some guy.” He’s lying. It was definitely full of me. He tries to hook our fingers, but I pull back slightly, teasingly.
He glares.
“I’m just some guy,” I remind him.
“No,” Maximoff says, firm and final. “You’re the guy.”
It hits me hard, and I inhale.
Damn. I let him hook our fingers, and I have to tell him this… “I can believe that me being your bodyguard is just what brought us together, not why we’re good together, because I wanted you before that day too.”
His mouth parts, and his elbow almost slips off my knee.
I clasp his hand. “Maximoff—”
“You never said a fucking thing.” He looks a little bit hurt.
My chest ignites on fire. “Because I didn’t think it mattered, and I’m going to be honest here, I didn’t even realize the extent of how much I wanted you back then until after we got together.” It’s only in hindsight.
Just like for him, it’s in hindsight. He never let himself dream about love or what he was looking for in a relationship until he seized it for the first time. Until me.
And yeah, he had a crush on me. Because he allowed himself to fantasize about me. Sex is uncomplicated to him. Love is messy.
I didn’t know these private things about him back then, not completely, but I knew that he had one-night stands. I knew that I didn’t. I knew that I needed the prospect of more if I sleep with a guy.
And I always, always believed he’d never act on anything. Moral, good-natured Maximoff Hale would never get with a friend of the family’s and definitely not his mom’s bodyguard.
I look at Maximoff now and try to wrangle these thoughts.
“I don’t dwell on what I can’t have,” I clarify, “and in my mind, I couldn’t have you for the longest time. I went on with my life, but whenever I saw you, I wanted to be around you. So it’s only in hindsight that I realize how fucking much I was hooked on you.”
Maximoff tries his absolute worst not to smile. “You liked me.”
I smile wider and tilt my head. “You going to write this in your diary tonight? Edit out all the parts about your unrequited teenage love?”
He holds my hand in a tight fist. “You’ve been reading someone else’s diary, man. Mine just talks about fucking you.”
I laugh. “Let me read it.”
“Let me read yours.” His tone is serious.
I nod a few times, understanding that he wants more. “In retrospect, if I could pinpoint a day that I’d say I felt an…” I suck in a breath, searching for the word “…intense chemistry, I’d say it was when I went to Harvard and sutured your leg. I couldn’t stop looking at you, and I fucking craved to know you even better. If you had asked me to spend the entire day there with you, I would’ve said yes.”
He dazes off.
Where’d you go, wolf scout? I snap my fingers until his focus is back on me. I’m smiling. “You can masturbate to that later,” I tease.
“No thanks,” he says dryly, and then he takes a breath. “I was just thinking about which day that I felt we’d be good together. In hindsight.”
“What day?” I ask, curious.
He releases my hand from our stronghold and then outlines the inked letters k.n.o.t. on my fingers. “The day on the yacht,” he says, assured. “The summer bash when I was nineteen. You threw me your shirt after I fought with Charlie, and you made one of the worst days of my life easier. Better. Just being around you…” He threads our fingers again, thinking for a short beat. “You had a boyfriend that day, didn’t you?”
I nod. “Yeah. But it was close to being over by then.”
I replay that memory in my head where Maximoff was frozen next to a cooler on the yacht deck. When I caught his attention, he revived. And he looked up at me.
My lips lift because I’ve remembered that moment before. That one part where he reawakens always floods back and breaks my face into a smile. I remember the salt in the air and how his dark brown hair blew in the wind.
And those tough forest-greens that said I can handle everything.
Now years later, I’m at a crossroads with him. I’ve been vacillating between security and finishing my residency because neither feels one-hundred percent right. If I could speed through residency and just be his doctor right now, it’d be an easier choice. But there’ll be three years where I’m not around him that much.
I do believe what Maximoff said. Being his b
odyguard isn’t what binds us.
It never has been.
And hell, if anything feels right, it’s him and me. We’re better than good together. Better than perfect. Gradually, I start envisioning what’ll happen if I choose medicine. “If I’m not your bodyguard,” I tell him, “that means some other prick is on your detail.”
“Yeah,” Maximoff says. “You’ll have to be okay with that.”
My eyes almost roll around the world because I’m not that excited about it. Somewhat for territorial reasons. Mostly because this’ll upheave his life. He hates big change, and he’s been bulldozed with it recently.
I shake my head. “I can’t do this to you right now. I’ll wait—”
“No,” he cuts me off. “I can take a lot. And a new bodyguard isn’t even that hard to handle. Unless you have an annoying clone, I’ll live.”
I could easily make a joke back, but I contemplate something else. And then I watch him skim his palm down my palm, our hands almost the same exact size.
His fondness for my hands ropes me in. And warms me.
I lift my gaze to his. “You said that I need to do what I love, but I love security, wolf scout. That hasn’t changed. So why do you think that I want medicine more?”
He sees the path that I can’t see yet.
Maximoff clasps my hand tighter. “Medicine is a part of you, and unlike security, that’ll never change. Christ, I know you hate believing that medicine is who you are, but I don’t think it ever left you even when you left it.”
He lists off all that I’ve done just while I’ve been on his security detail.
Including treating his sister’s infected tongue piercing to setting his dislocated shoulder and triaging an entire car crash. I could do more if I were a concierge doctor.
I’d have a license to prescribe medicine. I’d be on-call for all emergencies.
But I waver.
Maximoff sees. “If you’re only fighting yourself on this because you love me,” he says, “I’m telling you to go. It’ll eat at you for the rest of your life if you don’t. So I need you to go.” His voice almost breaks. “Fucking Christ.” He knocks his head back to the rock wall. He’s conditioned himself to bottle up a certain kind of emotion.
He could marbleize his face. But he’s actually wrestling to let go and be more vulnerable.
Quickly, I pull my hand out of his. Only so I can hold his face between my palms. “You don’t need to pretend that it won’t be hard. Not being your bodyguard will be just as hard on me.” I keep swallowing a lump lodged in my throat.
His eyes redden, and he clutches the back of my neck. “You know, the hardest things are usually the right things.”
I nod a couple times, my thumb stroking his cheek. “A philosopher talking to you again?”
Maximoff starts to smile, and it’s drop-dead gorgeous. “If you want to call my dad and uncle philosophers, then yeah. A couple philosopher kings told me that.”
I wrack my brain. Should’ve known. I’ve heard Lo and Ryke say that phrase before.
“Farrow.” Maximoff captures my gaze. “You better choose medicine. Because if you don’t, I’m going to kick your ass.”
I almost let out a laugh, but I breathe deeper with him. And in the tender quiet, my fingers skate through his hair, down the angles of his cheekbone and jaw. To his neck that aches to unwind, and up again. Maximoff closes his eyes, relaxing into my touch.
I pull him closer, a breath apart, and when his eyes melt into me, he whispers, “You know what’s strange? I have zero job options, and you suddenly have two.”
I push back his hair, my fingers trailing down the back of his head. “Can’t be that strange, wolf scout,” I breathe. “I am better than you at everything.”
His grip strengthens on my neck like he’s hanging onto what hasn’t changed. That. In years of time, that back-and-forth has never changed.
He breathes easier. “Tell me the plan for medicine.”
I’ve tried to explain what I’ve done in terms of medicine, but it’s confused him a little bit. I’ve graduated from medical school, and I’ve completed a month of my residency.
“I need to finish my three-year residency at Philadelphia General. I also need to pass my USMLE exam and boards.”
He nods, confident. “You’ll do it.”
There’s something else. I haven’t thought about what returning to medicine means in terms of my family.
I didn’t want it to influence my choice.
But now it slings back at me.
“And I need to talk to my father.”
15
FARROW KEENE
Today marks my last week on security, but SFO doesn’t know that yet. Clock strikes 4 a.m., and quietly, I slip out of Maximoff’s bed and find a pair of my boxer-briefs in his drawer. I search for pants.
Almost all of my shit is in his room: clothes, toiletries, a few medical texts that I dug out recently, and my electronics. I prefer it this way. Not only because security’s townhouse contains Thatcher, and the less time I spend around him, the better. But because Maximoff will sometimes scrutinize all of my belongings in his room and start to unknowingly smile.
It’s cute as hell.
I pull my black pants to my waist, and Maximoff blinks awake beneath his comforter. He extends his left arm to reach for the bedside light.
“Go back to sleep,” I whisper, fishing my belt through the loops. “It’s mail day.” The Omega lead schedules a specific day and time to examine our client’s mail. It’s usually at 4 a.m.—when all the famous ones should theoretically be asleep.
Maximoff collapses back and pinches his tired eyes. “Have fun with that.” His brain must start waking up because he quickly asks, “Are you telling them tonight?”
I pull a black V-neck over my head. “Technically, it’s morning.”
He growls into an uncontrollable yawn. “I don’t think you realize how annoying your technicalities are.”
“Trust me, I do.” I smile as irritation scrunches his brows. “Man, that’s partially why I keep them up, just for you.”
“I’m partially honored.”
I grin and hook my radio on my waistband. Before I go, I return to the bed. And I hang my hand on the headboard and dip down towards him. Close enough to kiss him, and as much as I want my lips against his lips, teasing the hell out of him is too good to pass.
“I’m going to tell SFO,” I confirm.
“Need help or any backup?” he asks. We’ve discussed Omega’s possible reactions, and the only one that I can’t predict is Thatcher Moretti. The rest should be fine. My friendship with Oscar and Donnelly is easy for a reason. We roll with the punches and almost never hound each other.
“I’ll be okay.” I linger for a second.
Maximoff is staring at my mouth.
I smile wider. “You think I’m going to kiss you?”
“Who said I wanted you to?” He’s only looking at my eyes now. Trying to beat me at the whole teasing thing. It’s not going to work.
I lower closer, planning on pulling away at the last second, but he clasps the crook of my neck. Our breaths meld, and our mouths meet like a fucking magnet. I rest my knee on the bed, my hand dropping to his jaw—fuck, Maximoff…his tongue parts my lips. Driving the kiss deeper, a coarse noise scratches my throat.
His left hand sneaks up my shirt.
Shit.
I’m almost about to climb on top of him. I tear our mouths apart. “Damn,” I breathe hard and step back before I end up in bed with him.
Maximoff smiles like he won something. “Looks like you wanted to kiss me.”
I walk backwards. “Never said I didn’t, wolf scout.”
My words and smooth tone must relax him. He oozes into the pillow, as much as he can for being in a sling and without heavy pain medication.
It’s always hard to leave when I love being around him. But this’ll be our regular routine when I restart my residency. And to be honest, I’m not sure h
ow I feel about that.
Exiting the attic, I skip rapidly down the narrow staircase. Cats dart out from under the Victorian loveseat, and then I scare Walrus with my foot. He scurries beneath the iron café table.
“Stay there, you little bastard,” I warn, slipping through the adjoining door. Shutting out the calico cat behind me.
As soon as I’m inside security’s townhouse, I’m met with a stench that I can’t pinpoint.
Let’s just say it smells worse than Ben Cobalt’s rank B.O.
Akara looks up from the leather couch. “I know,” he says, clutching a Lucky’s Diner paper coffee cup, “I can’t figure out which one it is.” He motions with his index finger to the mound of boxes and envelopes. Packages are scattered across the coffee table and the hardwood floors.
Wicker laundry baskets, that aren’t used for laundry, line the brick wall. A name written on a travel tag is attached to each one. And a heavy-duty trash bag hangs off the fireplace mantel.
The smell stings my nose. “I’d say it’s rancid, but I’m not sure that’s the right word.” I step over Quinn’s spread of packages that pile up at the door.
“It’s probably food,” Quinn says, slicing through a cardboard box with a utility knife.
“Even spoiled food doesn’t smell like that, little bro,” Oscar replies, ripping open a manila envelope. He’s seated on a leather barstool at our high-top table. Security’s furniture is more comfortable and less pastel than everything in the neighboring townhouse.
And it’s not a surprise that Oscar is in Philly. Or Donnelly, who straddles the armrest and flips through a few letters. All of SFO spent the night since Charlie and Beckett are crashing in Jane’s room, and Sullivan is asleep in Luna’s bedroom next door.
We all stayed out late for trivia night at Saturn Bridges. Maximoff said most of his cousins would normally pass on those invites. But Charlie showed. Beckett showed, and so did Sulli and Luna.
Whenever they all assemble together, Omega inadvertently gathers. And very fucking soon, my role with the famous ones and security will shift drastically. I don’t try to predict how it’ll feel.
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