Page 50 of Tangled Like Us
So they believe, through the oath, that Thatcher finally showed his cards, and now they know that he must like me on some personal level.
My pulse is on an ascent.
Beating and beating, and I’m not sure why I’m so nervous. “So he likes me on a personal level. I’m attracted to him. It’s not like anything can happen.”
Maximoff pops his knuckles, a bad habit.
Farrow lifts his brows. “Okay, here’s the thing.” He places his oatmeal bowl on the coffee table. “Whatever personal and professional shit that I have going on with Thatcher, that’s between me and him. We’re both twenty-eight, not eighteen. We’d put protecting you two above every fucking thing.”
It’s why Farrow has been okay with Thatcher staying on security, even after the dreadedpunch, and why Maximoff was fine with Thatcher remaining on my detail during that time.
They see Thatcher as an experienced, expertly-skilled bodyguard, and they know he’ll keep me safe. Regardless of any bad blood.
So they still trust him, but they don’t like him.
Farrow splays his earpiece cord over his shoulder. “Putting all that shit aside, I’m going to be honest here: Thatcher won’t do what I did. He won’t break the rules for you like I broke them for Maximoff. I can’t even see him breaking a rule for his own twin brother.”
Maximoff brushes a hand through his thick hair. “If he’s unwilling to break those rules, then it’s just going to end badly. Whatever feelings you have for him, Janie, he’s going to crush them.”
I arch my shoulders, inhaling and not exhaling very well. “The only feeling I have isattraction.And I know you want to protect me from heartache, Moffy, but my heart isn’t involved.” I swig a bigger gulp of room temp coffee and lick my lips. “No hearts. No body parts. It’s solely faraway attraction. Love is a two-way street that neither of us are driving down.”
Maximoff stares faraway in thought.
“Famous ones.” Farrow looks between the two of us with slowly rising brows. “Your inexperience is showing.”
I lean forward. “How so?”
Maximoff is still staring off into space, cracking his knuckles.
Farrow has a hard time pulling his gaze off him, but he tells me, “Love can definitely be a one-way street, and trust me, you don’t want to be the one who drives down it.”
“Did you drive down it?” I wonder.
Maximoff tunes in. “Drive where?”
We laugh.
He blinks slowly into a glare. “I apparated to another dimension.”
“Still in Philly, wolf scout.” Farrow smiles wider and then stands up, just to take a seat on the armrest, but he’s much closer to his fiancé.
Maximoff is a wooden board, but his joints reanimate and he wraps a strong arm around Farrow’s shoulders.
Farrow holds Moffy’s waist, his hand dipped beneath his shirt.
They draw closer.
“What were you saying?” Maximoff asks me.
“One-way streets of love,” I explain. “Farrow said they exist, and I asked if he’s driven down one before.”
“Sure,” Farrow answers. “I thought I was in love at thirteen, and that was not reciprocated in the way I wanted.”
“And then Rowin,” Maximoff says, unearthing a name that causes Farrow to roll his eyes into all seven circles of hell.
Farrow’s ex is hated among all of my family and all of security. I was almost tempted to take a page out of my mom’s retaliation handbook, but it’d be like digging up a buried corpse.
Revenge is pointless, my dad would say.
