Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 146548 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 733(@200wpm)___ 586(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 146548 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 733(@200wpm)___ 586(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
“I was eight.” Too long ago.
I look up. “You sure?” I really don’t want to open his medical records, and I need him to be sure.
“Pretty positive.”
I trust him enough. “I’ll give you a tetanus shot before I leave.” I pierce his skin with the needle and weave the stitch.
Maximoff clears a ball in his throat. After I finish the sutures, I redress the wound with clean gauze and bandage. He slides forward on the chair.
“I can do that,” he says and reaches for the gauze.
I put a hand to his chest, my gloves new. “Just relax.”
He lets out a short laugh. “Right.” He cracks a crick in his neck and stares faraway again. Where’d you go, Moffy?
I watch him for a second, then wrap the bandage. “No swimming until the stitches are out—”
“What?” His voice spikes, eyes snapped towards me.
That woke him up. “You can’t swim in a chlorine pool with this kind of cut.”
Maximoff breathes out a weighted breath, and he keeps shaking his head. His eyes strangely carry a mountain of emotion and then no emotion at all. Like he’s fighting to show me something and then nothing. “I’m on the Harvard swim team.”
I expect him to say I need to swim, but he stops there.
He opens his mouth, then shuts it, conflicted.
I raise my brows. “Sad?” I ask.
“No.” He shakes his head repeatedly. “You know…” He licks his lips. “Last night, one of my new teammates shoved me in a pile of trash. There was metal and…” He was cut. He looks away, then his tough eyes meet mine head-on. “They don’t want me here.”
“Do you want to be here?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer. His face is blank.
I crave to hold his gaze longer, but I force myself to look down. And I tape his bandage. “You should’ve gone to Yale. Everything is better there: the people, the dorms, the alumni.”
He feigns confusion. “Really? I heard they churn out white-haired know-it-alls with pretentious lineages and asshole tendencies.”
“Asshole tendencies,” I repeat with a laugh. “I think you mean heroic tendencies.”
“I tell you I got pushed into fucking metal, and you take that moment to tell me Yale is better than Harvard.”
Yeah, I’m an asshole. My smile stretches as I stand up, snapping off my gloves. “It’s still accurate.”
His gaze lingers on me for a long beat. “Maybe,” Maximoff admits.
It’s hard not to stare at him.
I clean up, and I don’t let him help, even when he asks. He’s still a little weak.
“Why are you here anyway?” he asks after I give him a tetanus shot in the deltoid. “I know your father is with my Uncle Ryke, but I thought Trip would be here instead.” I’m known to tag along to calls, not pick them up on my own like I’m in-line to be a concierge doctor.
I pack up the suture kit, and I toss him a bandage for the small spot of blood. He’s been dying to do something himself, and he can at least stick a Band-Aid on his shoulder. “My uncle is with my father,” I tell him. “They needed extra hands. This is a one-time thing.”
Maximoff thinks hard.
I’m going to be a bodyguard, wolf scout.
The truth weighs inside of me, and as I get ready to leave, I recognize how much is about to be left unsaid.
1
FARROW KEENE
PRESENT DAY
“He’s going to throw a punch,” Oscar Oliveira says, observing my hot-blooded, twenty-two-year-old boyfriend.
I watch the same scene from the same vantage point as Oscar.
All six of us in Security Force Omega “guard” the double-door entrance of the Philadelphia Orchestra Hall. Two thousand of the richest fuckers I’ve ever seen fill scarlet velveteen seats. The main level and balcony tiers are packed tight, and a string quartet plays a classical piece on stage, ruby curtains drawn open.
Tucked up against the left-side emergency exit, my boyfriend looks ready to combust.
Maximoff speaks hushed, but his brows furrow and he gesticulates madly. Inching closer and closer to the uppity suit-and-tie organizer of tonight’s “unprecedented” event.
I slowly chew my gum, arms loosely crossed. But I hardly blink. I watch.
And the forty-something organizer with Gucci shoes and glaringly white teeth visibly steps towards Maximoff.
In an affront.
My arms drop, instinct about to propel me down the left aisle—
“Farrow.” My name is spoken in a warning.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spot Akara Kitsuwon, the Omega lead.
“Farrow,” he repeats, his friendly expression now strict. Reminding me not to leave my position. His tailor-fit black Hugo Boss suit is identical to all of security.
Not exactly my style. I shrugged off the required suit jacket an hour ago. What remains: a black button-down tucked in black slacks. I run my thumb over my silver lip piercing and eye my boyfriend.
I can’t fall back in line yet.
Maximoff grows more incensed, his eyes flamed and body bowed forward with fervor. Like if he tries hard enough, he can mold the lopsided world upright.