Page 59 of Charming Like Us

I nod back, understanding that he’s looking out for me exactly how I’d look out for him. Farrow and I don’t have to dive into the weeds in order to get deep. With few words, we reach that place, and we both drink our beers and bathe in the hot summer sun.

I’m glad to have good friends that’ll be with me when I crash and burn.

Besides my job in security, it’s about the only thing I have going for me right now.

I decide between my paperbacks I’ve read countless times:The Grapes of Wrathby John Steinbeck and Laura Esquivel’sLike Water For Chocolate.Choosing the former, I find the dog-eared spot, and I don’t get far before Farrow and I talk about our clients.

How Maximoff and Charlie seemed more like actual fist-bumpingfriendsat the lake house last week. They sat on the dock talking for about an hour. All of us on SFO theorized about what:

“Religion,” Banks guessed.

“Sports,” Thatcher said.

Akara nodded. “Sports.”

“Dingle-berries,” Donnelly said.

Everyone laughed.

“Plato, probably,” Farrow threw out.

“Ditto, add in Confucius,” I said.

“Who’s Confucius?” Quinn asked.

My baby brother.He should’ve gone to college.I bit my tongue from saying that one becausethatdefinitely would’ve ignited an Oliveira Civil War.

At the rooftop pool, I say to Farrow, “Remember the tour bus days when they were in each other’s face?”Feels like eons ago.It’s been over a year.

“If you mean Charlie getting in Maximoff’s face, then yeah, I remember that.”

It’s not complete revisionist history.

I don’t always defend Charlie—he provokes on purpose, especially Farrow’s husband which puts me and my friend in hard spots. But back then, I know Maximoff’s short-fuse didn’t help. Being Charlie’s bodyguard lets me see his perspective better than most ever could.

“Speaking of the Husband,” I say as Maximoff enters with a volleyball and his sixth-month-old propped on his waist. Ripley has a happy-go-lucky smile in his papa’s arms, sun hat shading his fair Irish skin. We all celebrated Ripley’s adoption at the lake house last week, and I’ve never seen the Hales, Meadows, and Cobalt parents cry so much at once.

Joy is a feeling I live for, and my joyful ass cried too.

Farrow smiles wider. “Miss me, wolf scout?”

“Who?” Maximoff feigns confusion, tossing the volleyball to Sulli, then stepping into the pool with the baby. His tattoo on his bicep is in full view.Farrow’s name. He got Farrow’s name tattooed on his arm. Almost couldn’t believe it when I saw it. But then again, yeah I can. He’s really in love with my best friend.

“Hey, Hale,” I cut in before they launch into five-minute flirty insults. “Did Charlie tell you the reason he wants a docuseries filmed about his life?” Now that they’re chit-chatting around bodies of water without one pushing the other in, maybe my client could’ve dropped a hint to his cousin.

“Other than what you said—how Charlie’s setting you and Jack up to kill the Oslie rumor—no,” Maximoff tells me while Ripley slaps the water ecstatically.

When I told Maximoff about the “set up”, I made sure to leave out the part about Charlie calling melonely.

“But honest-to-God,” Maximoff continues, “I think it’s more than that. I know my cousin, and this colossal undertaking—being filmed day-to-day for who knows how long—doesn’t sound like something he’d do just to squash a rumor.”

“Oui,” Jane Cobalt says, swimming closer since she overheard us talking about her brother. Cat-eye sunglasses cover her blue eyes, and she adjusts the straps of her pastel purple tankini. “Charlie has other motives, most surely.”

“As Charlie’s bodyguard, I agree with that assessment,” I say with the sip of my beer.

Farrow makes an uncertain face. “He could just be 5D chess-ing this show into his version ofThe Bachelor.”

“It is his favorite show,” Jane muses.