Headstrong Like Us Read online

  Contents

  Title

  A Note from the Authors

  Character List

  Prologue

  1. MAXIMOFF HALE

  2. FARROW KEENE

  3. FARROW KEENE

  4. MAXIMOFF HALE

  5. FARROW KEENE

  6. FARROW KEENE

  7. MAXIMOFF HALE

  8. MAXIMOFF HALE

  9. MAXIMOFF HALE

  10. FARROW KEENE

  11. FARROW KEENE

  12. MAXIMOFF HALE

  13. MAXIMOFF HALE

  14. MAXIMOFF HALE

  15. FARROW KEENE

  16. MAXIMOFF HALE

  17. FARROW KEENE

  18. MAXIMOFF HALE

  19. FARROW KEENE

  20. MAXIMOFF HALE

  21. MAXIMOFF HALE

  22. FARROW KEENE

  23. FARROW KEENE

  24. MAXIMOFF HALE

  25. FARROW KEENE

  26. FARROW KEENE

  27. MAXIMOFF HALE

  28. MAXIMOFF HALE

  29. MAXIMOFF HALE

  30. FARROW KEENE

  31. FARROW KEENE

  32. MAXIMOFF HALE

  33. MAXIMOFF HALE

  34. FARROW KEENE

  35. FARROW KEENE

  36. FARROW KEENE

  37. MAXIMOFF HALE

  38. FARROW KEENE

  39. MAXIMOFF HALE

  40. FARROW KEENE

  41. MAXIMOFF HALE

  42. FARROW KEENE

  43. FARROW KEENE

  44. MAXIMOFF HALE

  45. FARROW HALE

  46. FARROW HALE

  47. MAXIMOFF HALE

  48. FARROW HALE

  49. MAXIMOFF HALE

  Dear World

  Thank You!!

  Also by Krista & Becca

  About the Authors

  Acknowledgments

  Headstrong Like Us Copyright © 2019 by K.B. Ritchie

  First Edition - Digital

  All rights reserved.

  This book may not be reproduced or transmitted in any capacity without written permission by the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any names, places, characters, resemblance to events or persons, living or dead, are coincidental and originate from the authors’ imagination and are used fictitiously.

  Cover image © Stocksy

  Cover image © Shutterstock

  Book cover design by Twin Cove Designs

  www.kbritchie.com

  A Note from the Authors

  Headstrong Like Us is the sixth book in the Like Us Series. Though the series changes POVs throughout—and even though this book returns to Maximoff & Farrow’s POVs—to understand events that took place in the previous novels, the series should be read in its order of publication.

  Headstrong Like Us should be read after Sinful Like Us.

  LIKE US SERIES READING ORDER

  1. Damaged Like Us

  2. Lovers Like Us

  3. Alphas Like Us

  4. Tangled Like Us

  5. Sinful Like Us

  6. Headstrong Like Us

  7. Charming Like Us

  8. Wild Like Us

  Character List

  Not all characters in this list will make an appearance in the book, but most will be mentioned.

  Ages represent the age of the character at the beginning of the book. Some characters will be older when they’re introduced, depending on their birthday.

  THE HALES

  Loren Hale & Lily Calloway

  Maximoff – 23

  Luna – 19

  Xander – 16

  Kinney – 14

  THE COBALTS

  Richard Connor Cobalt & Rose Calloway

  Jane – 23

  Charlie – 21

  Beckett – 21

  Eliot – 19

  Tom – 18

  Ben – 17

  Audrey – 14

  THE MEADOWS

  Ryke Meadows & Daisy Calloway

  Sullivan – 21

  Winona – 15

  THE ABBEYS

  Garrison Abbey & Willow Hale

  Vada - 14

  THE SECURITY TEAM

  These are the bodyguards that protect the Hales, Cobalts, and Meadows.

  Kitsuwon Securities Inc.

  Security Force Omega

  Akara Kitsuwon (boss) – 27

  Thatcher Moretti (lead) – 28

  Banks Moretti – 28

  Farrow Keene – 28

  Quinn Oliveira – 21

  Oscar Oliveira – 31

  Paul Donnelly – 27

  Price Kepler’s Triple Shield Services

  Security Force Epsilon

  Jon Sinclair (lead) – 40s

  O’Malley – 27

  …and more

  Security Force Alpha

  Price Kepler (lead) – 40s

  Bruno Bandoni – 50s

  Tony Ramella – 28

  …and more

  Prologue

  4 1/2 Years Ago

  MAXIMOFF HALE

  I think a ton.

  I’ve overthought what I’m about to do about a billion-and-one times. I could just forget about it. Because that’s so damn easy for me.

  Yeah, I wish…

  But then again, I don’t want to just sit here. I don’t know…I don’t want to not go over to him. That feels worse, somehow.

  I lounge pretty rigidly on a burnt-orange outdoor blanket. I’m doing a piss-poor job at trying to relax in a beautiful Philly park. Like seriously beautiful. The October air is crisp, a twinkling, star-blanketed sky overhead. Not far away, my sister Luna lies back and traces constellations with her finger, one eye shut.

  Laughter carries across the grassy knoll as a talking black cat cracks a joke on a big screen. Hocus Pocus plays for tonight’s Movie on the Green. A public event.

  Kinney had the option to do a “private” movie screening for her birthday, but she wanted to do the whole public park thing that the city hosts every October. I’m happy that I could fly home from college to celebrate my little sister turning ten.

  It’s a huge milestone. Ten-years-old.

  And it’s not like I’m having a fucking blast at Harvard.

  I’m a major distraction to students. They film me during class. Some just stare open-mouthed and short breathed the whole hour. A professor told me, “I need to be able to do my job.” He sent me study packets and suggested I skip lectures. Another professor asked me to leave class and complete take-home tests. I’m impeding their ability to teach people who are paying for an education.

  It still makes me feel like shit.

  Just knowing my presence is hurting someone.

  I keep thinking about how I dreamed of having the ultimate college experience: learning more, sitting in philosophy lectures, swimming for a team, meeting new people like they show on overly happy collegiate infomercials.

  I know it’s not meant for me. In the past couple months, I’ve been slowly realizing that I can’t have something so painfully normal.

  Maybe it’d be easier if Charlie were with me, but that hope died too. I’m alone in Cambridge.

  Coming home to Philly, I’ve smiled ten thousand times more. Right now, the park is jam-packed with gawking strangers, camera-wielding fans and paparazzi, stoic bodyguards, and my famous family—it’s my usual mix.

  My normal.

  And God, I missed this. Strangely, I even missed you. The noise, the world. A constant in my unconventional life.

  But you’re highly unaware that I’m not actually paying attention to the 90s movie, even though my eyes are super-glued to the jumbo screen.


  I’m in a colossal-sized internal crisis.

  It has nothing to do with college and everything to do with my mom’s new bodyguard: the twenty-four-year-old tattooed know-it-all who can’t know that I’m thinking about him.

  Too damn much.

  I shut my eyes in a slow blink. Forcing myself not to scan the park for Farrow Redford Keene. He’s blending into the scenery with the rest of Alpha, Omega, and Epsilon. Bodyguards lounge on blankets several feet away from my family.

  I know because I looked already, once…or twice.

  He didn’t notice me staring. Yeah, I fucking hope.

  While the Sanderson witches grace the big screen, Jane tears open a yellow box of Raisinets beside me. I lean over to my best friend. “This is a bad idea, right?” I whisper. “The worst I’ve ever had?”

  Janie pinches a chocolate between two fingers. “On the contrary, old chap. It’s far from terrible.” She starts to smile. She’s the only one who’s known about the humongous crush I had on Farrow.

  I almost smile and groan, but my stomach overturns. “Maybe I should just stay here with you. We haven’t seen each other in a while.” We FaceTime and text a ton, but I’ve missed Janie while she’s been in Princeton. Homesickness has infected her too.

  We’ve also been blanket-hopping most of the night. Spending time with our younger siblings and cousins who group off in different familial cliques.

  She sips a fountain soda. “I’ll always be here. It’s not as though you’ll be gone forever.” She glances at her pastel blue wristwatch. “By my predictions, you should only take thirty minutes, tops.”

  I scrunch my face. “If I spend thirty minutes with Farrow, I’m going to die of Chronic Agitation.”

  She grins. “Twenty minutes, then.”

  I shake my head and slip my backpack strap over a shoulder. “Cela va durer une solide minute.” This is lasting one solid minute. “Any longer and I’ll need a stretcher and CPR.”

  I try not to remember that Farrow graduated from Yale medical school.

  He’s a doctor.

  He can perform CPR on me. Mouth-to-mouth—stop thinking.

  She taps my arm. “You should go now.” Jane is looking to our left. At my mom, whose gangly frame is hidden in an oversized black cable-knit sweater. She’s heading to the pop-up concession tents.

  And her bodyguard is leading the way.

  Approaching Farrow will be easier if he’s separated from the security team. Quickly (but not too quickly) I stand up, adjusting the other backpack strap on my muscular shoulder.

  Janie raises her drink to me in cheers and encouragement. “On se voit dans une solide minute.” See you in a solid minute.

  I wave goodbye, and I weave through sprawled bodies on picnic blankets, the click-click of flash bulbs barely registering. I’m too used to the sound of cameras. Declan, my bodyguard, materializes out of thin air, already on his feet and in front of me.

  “Moffy!” Tom catches my ankle before I pass, Luna and Eliot slouched beside him. “Can you get me peanut butter cups?”

  “And more popcorn,” Luna adds, one eye still shut.

  “Yeah.” I glance to the tents, where my mom waits in line at the cotton candy stand. Farrow is speaking to fans before they reach her. I focus back on my sister and cousins. “Anything else?”

  They all want root beer floats.

  Nothing too complicated, so I take mental notes.

  As I walk past the blanket with the four youngest girls (Audrey, Kinney, Winona, and Vada), I place a loving hand on each of their heads.

  “Stay here,” they all plead and talk to me at once.

  “I’ll be right back.” But I linger a second longer. Crouching down next to Kinney. “Hey, birthday girl.”

  “Hey.” She wears a blasé, unconcerned expression while watching Hocus Pocus. Pictures of her goth outfit—laced sleeves, black hat, combat boots, and choker necklace—are already all over the internet.

  “You want anything to eat?”

  “The souls of my enemies,” she deadpans.

  I smile. “I’ll work on that.” I miss being home.

  She shrugs, turning more towards me. “Then a candy apple. No nuts.”

  “Got it.” I take more orders, the list piling.

  Ben and Xander seem satisfied over on their blanket. They share a tub of kettle corn, and my younger brother might as well have dressed up as a mummy. To hide from paparazzi and you. Because right now he’s shrouded behind dark sunglasses, a baseball cap, and hoodie.

  At least he came out to celebrate Kinney’s birthday. Our sister already warned him that if he didn’t show, she’d etch “turd hole” on his tombstone.

  After the pit stops, I trek down a grassy slope to concessions. The cotton candy line is slow-moving. My dad has joined my mom, and they haven’t reached the front yet. Currently a few teenagers are snapping selfies with them while their bodyguards loiter close.

  Farrow observes the fan interaction, and I eye the skulls, pirates, ships, swallows, and more ink that decorates his lean-cut and sculpted MMA-build. Half a skull peeks out of his black V-neck, his whole being screaming I’m too cool for school. From gorgeous tattooed wings on his neck, to his nose and lip piercing, and bleach-white hair.

  He looks like a Grade A rebel and rule breaker. Unlike me and my faded jeans, hiking boots and plain gray crewneck, which molds my muscles from swimming. His stance is even casual and relaxed—like this job is the easiest in the world.

  And I know it can’t be that easy. On my way home, Declan got an elbow to the eye outside the airport. His face is still bruised.

  My stride is unwavering. Firm, and in less than a minute, Farrow locks eyes with me. He assesses me in a quick sweep, and his smile stretches.

  He knows I’m coming towards him.

  I mean, I’m not hiding the fact, but Christ, that widening smile—the one that reaches cheek-to-cheek and is too teasing, too confident—it bugs the hell out of me.

  I scowl into a glare, only five feet away, and I bypass his spot, sensing his gaze attached to me as I round his body. I decide to stand in the line right beside him where people wait for hand-dipped candy apples. The sweet scent permeates around me, and the movie is more muffled over here.

  All I want is to look at Farrow. But in the same breath, I want to give him a hard time. To make him squirm like he’s easily making me feel…something.

  I turn my head.

  Our eyes catch again, and I gesture to the candy apple tent. “I’m getting food for my family.”

  Farrow raises his brows. “I didn’t ask.” He’s an asshole, and I must be weird because I like that he’s not fawning all over me.

  He smiles more, and the back of my neck heats. It’s rare that I feel my age, but I feel nineteen around him.

  Maybe that’s a good thing…

  “Great,” I say dryly. “I didn’t tell you shit then.”

  Farrow glances at my mom. He’s doing his job—and it’s strange. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that he’s a bodyguard. He tilts his head back to me. “You definitely said something, wolf scout.”

  “Not a lot.” My voice is tough with that endnote.

  He rolls his eyes into a short laugh.

  Talking to my childhood crush is starting to erase a quarter of my brain. Where all the food orders exist. I need to write this down.

  I pat my pockets for my phone. Fuck. I left my cell with Janie.

  “Looking for something?” Farrow asks while splitting his attention between me and my mom, our lines moving forward at the same rate.

  “Just my phone.” I rake my hand through my thick hair. “It’s fine. I know where it is. I just needed to make a list.”

  “A list,” Farrow repeats, too amused, like I’m the most uptight, do-gooder he’s ever met. “Of course you were about to make one.”

  I feign confusion. “Because I’ve shared so many lists with you before.”

  He has gum in his mouth,
and he slows down chewing while another smile spreads. He’s the epitome of nonchalant coolness—and I’m never telling him that. “I just meant that you’re the list type.”

  Great. “So I’m more prepared than you.”

  He seesaws his hand. “Not really.”

  I grimace.

  He laughs.

  I gesture to him. “Try remembering a billion food orders without a list and see how you’d do.”

  Farrow fixes his earpiece, his laughter softening. “I can remember a lot more than you.” He speaks before I protest. “You don’t need to write this shit down. Just tell me the food order. Whatever you forget, I’ll remember.”

  That last part blasts on repeat in my ears.

  Whatever you forget, I’ll remember.

  My chest swells, and I face forward some. “I don’t want to distract you, man. You’re working.” Ahead in my line, I spot a couple teen girls snapping photos of me. Usually I don’t mind when fans approach, but I’m hoping they wait. Just so I can keep talking to him.

  “You’re not distracting me, wolf scout.”