Breaking the Rules: A Brother's Best Friend Romance: The Rules Duet: Book 2 (The Dating Playbook)

by Mariah Dietz

  If I want a say in the matter, why am I running when I should be fighting?

  A fresh round of tears spring to my eyes as I think of his words while I packed to leave, him telling me he loved me, and how I didn’t reciprocate the words though I’ve felt them and thought them no less than a million times.

  “You’re right,” I tell her.

  “Which part? Because I’ve said a lot.”

  I laugh, wiping my nose with the back of my hand. “All of it.”

  “It’s okay to feel overwhelmed. Love has a way of making even simple things seem overwhelming if you try to dissect it, rather than just live in the moment—and then when you find that balance, everything feels easy.”

  My thoughts flip to times we’ve been alone, to him meeting me after Maggie left, and the past week where each moment has felt easy and natural and too good. A lead weight presses against my stomach. “I think Pax figured it out. He was confronting Lincoln, and I left.” I groan. “I left him to face it alone.”

  “It’s probably better that way, honestly. They need to have it out and clear the air.”

  “Yeah, but I should be there.”

  “Actually, you shouldn’t,” Poppy says. “They’ve been best friends for three years. You and Pax will need to have a conversation, sure, but so do they.”

  I consider Poppy’s words, thinking about the bond she and I share—how when she started dating Mike, our solid relationship suddenly felt flimsy because, like our egos and our hopes, relationships can be severely damaged with our own negative thoughts.

  “If Dylan doesn’t like my eyeliner, he’s in for a show when he sees my current look.”

  Poppy chuckles. “Pizza? Chinese? Thai? What do you want?”

  “I’m not hungry. I just need to sort out my feelings and try calling Lincoln so I can apologize. But, you’re right. They need their time, and I don’t want to interrupt.”

  “My mom’s working late, so I’m getting pizza and Thai. Once you smell it, you’ll be hungry.”

  The last thing on my mind is food as I glance at my dash to see if I’ve received any texts from Lincoln. There’s none.

  Ahead is the exit for the Sound. It feels like a beckon—kismet of sorts, and I’m already pulling the wheel to take it.

  “I’m going to stop at the marina. I just need to gather my thoughts for a few.”

  “It’s raining.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s getting dark,” she says.

  “I know. I just need to go there for a little while. The ocean and I, we’re still trying to make peace ourselves.”

  “I know. I get it. Have you talked to your mom? She’s getting home tomorrow, right?”

  I release a sigh. “Yeah. She called this morning. She asked if I wanted to move in with her or stay living with my dad.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “I didn’t know what to say. I mean, I don’t know if she wants me to be with her and I can make it easier for her to go through this transition or if she asked out of obligation?”

  “Your mom loves you. You know if she had her way, all three of you would be living with her still.”

  I think of Mom’s reaction when Paxton had started talking about moving out, how she’d made all his favorite meals and bought a larger TV in the living room in hopes he’d change his mind. Even then, it didn’t feel like she was trying to bribe him—it still doesn’t. She was just trying to fight for him to stay longer without actually saying the words, knowing she’d put him in a tough place.

  “You’re right. I think part of it is I always imagined that when I moved out, it would be because you and I were moving out into an apartment together—not because my parents were getting a divorce and my dad had a girlfriend who was one year older than me.”

  “Technically, two. She’s Paxton’s age.”

  I groan. “Don’t tell me the details. I don’t want to know.”

  “I know. But you’re going to have to face them, eventually. Not now, not tonight, but soon you’re going to have to talk to your dad and at least figure out where you guys stand. He’s going to be back at school soon.”

  “What? But, he resigned?”

  “I guess, he withdrew it.”

  “Can that even happen?”

  “I guess so,” Poppy says.

  I sigh deeply. “I heard it on the news yesterday while I was working. He made a public apology, and I guess it’s with a review board or something? I didn’t catch the end because the phone was ringing off the hook.”

  “It still feels like he’s a stranger.”

  “I know—I get that. Maybe if you guys met somewhere on neutral ground, like, to get breakfast or something, it would be better?”

  “But what do I even say? Hey, Dad, how’s your girlfriend? Was it worth losing the family over?”

  “Probably not the best opening line…”

  I chuckle—it’s a dry and mirthless sound. “Probably not. We’ll see. I should probably see him before I run into him on campus.”

  “Exactly my thought.”

  I pull into the familiar gravel parking lot, my thoughts racing in more unwanted directions.

  “You’ve got this, Rae. It’s going to suck, but you’re going to get through it, and you won’t have to do it alone. We’re all here for you.”

  Her affection makes my eyes burn with tears. “You’re the best, and I really appreciate you going through all of this with me. I don’t know where I’d be this year without you.”

  “I’m pretty sure my debt is still greater. While I try to block out most of last summer, I vividly remember you showing up every single day, sitting with me while I played Tracy Chapman on repeat and ate my weight in frosting.”

  “You were dealing with a broken heart.”

  “And so are you,” she tells me. “Not all broken hearts come in the same shape and size—just like not every broken heart is due to a boyfriend. In your case, it’s your dad. And that’s okay. You deserve to be sad and mad and grieve. And when you’re ready to start, I’ll be there with the tubs of frosting and movies, and Oreos, just like you were there for me.”

  I swallow the denials that start to bubble up like a geyser, wishing to be heard.

  I start to open my door, not ready to end our conversation, but anxious to get closer to the water. The moment I open my door, the cold air leaches through my damp clothes, heckling me for leaving. If I hadn’t overreacted—if I’d stayed and asked Lincoln about the necklace—I’d likely be dancing with him and eating what appeared to have been the best wedding cake in the history of cakes.

  “Should I call Lincoln and see how things are going? Or text him?”

  “Raegan,” A woman’s voice calls, making me jump.

  I turn, chills coursing down my arms. A woman is a few steps behind me, a purple coat with sleeves too short. Her proximity makes my heart accelerate, but then she pulls her hood back, allowing me to see her face.

  Lindsay Meyer.

  My muscles all feel weighted and sluggish, like my bones are made of uranium, too heavy to move as I stare at her, considering all the millions of silent questions I’ve wanted to ask her. The information I’ve worked to avoid with every paper that has had her name and face strewn across the front.

  Her hands are together, her thumbs brushing over something white between her fingers.

  “Why are you holding that?” I ask, recognizing the crane as one of more than a dozen that I’ve found over the past few months.

  Lindsay’s eyes grow dark as she sneers, yelling a sound that makes my heart feel both fearful and sad—a pit of emotions I can tell she can’t translate into words. She throws the crane at me, hitting me in the chest.

  “It’s all your fault.” She pulls back, and I’m frozen, attempting to digest this moment: her presence, the cranes, her involvement and knowing so much about me when I’ve questioned so much about her. “You took him away from me.” Her hands pull from her pockets, and the sadness in her voi
ce is cut by the sight of a gun that looks heavy and clunky in her hands.

  “Rae!” Poppy says in my ear. “What are you doing? Is everything okay?”

  “Lindsay’s here,” I say, my voice rushed and too quiet.

  “What? Lindsay? Lindsay who?”

  “Hang up,” she demands. Her anger is intense like the sun, burning me just by our nearness, scaring me further because I can tell she’s not acting on a plan but emotions. “Poppy, I have to go.”

  “Rae, is that her? Oh my God. Rae. Get in your car. Rae? Get in your car. Now. Lock the doors.”

  “Turn it off!” Lindsay shrieks.

  “Poppy, I have to go.”

  “Raegan, get in your goddamn car!”

  Before I can reply, Lindsay reaches forward and rips my phone away. I don’t try and stop her as a familiar feeling floods back into my body—I spent weeks obsessing over the moments I spent underwater, remembering the details to a painful extent—yet this part, the surge of emotions and energy that makes everything seem more intense: louder, brighter, slower—I’d somehow forgotten this part.

  40

  Lincoln

  “How in the hell am I supposed to trust you?” Pax asks, pausing when his phone rings, playing a tune for several seconds before he reaches for it. “Yeah?” His brow creases. “Poppy, what?” He shakes his head in tight jerks, his brow furrowing. “Slow down. What are you talking about? What do you mean?”

  I swing my door open, ready to climb in when Paxton yanks me backward, his eyes round, and his lips agape. “Call the cops, and tell them what you just told me. We’re leaving now.”

  My heart feels like a firecracker exploding, each blast a fresh fear as Pax goes silent, his brow stitching as he listens to something more that Poppy says. Paxton swallows, then looks at me, his face pale and his eyes too round. “Shit. Shit. Shit,” he chants. “Call the cops. We’re coming.” He ends the call and looks at me again. “We have to go. Let’s go.” Paxton moves around to the passenger side of my truck and climbs in.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Rae’s in trouble. Our dad’s girlfriend followed her… She’s at the marina. She’s there with her.”

  My blood turns to ice, crystalizing as the idea percolates, making my skin prickle. My knuckles turn white as I grip the steering wheel, reversing and coming to an abrupt halt that makes my tires squeal before I peel out, resuming my earlier race. “What do you mean she’s there? Like, she’s talking to her?”

  Pax shakes his head, working on dialing a number that I presume is Rae’s. “I don’t know. I don’t … I don’t know.” His throat clears, and then he punches the dash of my truck with his phone. “Fuck!” He returns to his phone too fast as I turn my windshield wipers up even higher. “Poppy said she’s who sent the cranes. That Rae’s still been getting the fucking cranes…” He lands an accusing glare on me before hitting more buttons on his phone. His words settle against my nerves, raking against me like a vegetable peeler, making me feel raw and exposed in the most painful ways.

  Paxton puts his phone to his ear again, impatience has him tapping a beat on the dash. “What’s going on?” he demands. “What have you done?” There’s a rush of words I can’t hear, and then Paxton slams his knuckles against the door. “Your girlfriend’s been stalking Raegan for months. She fucking followed her to the goddamn marina. Don’t tell me you have it under control.”

  My thoughts are consumed with images of Raegan in the ocean, imagining her face down, floating across the surface. It’s a nightmare that’s plagued me since the night of her accident and took her sleeping beside me to end. I blare the horn, riding someone’s bumper like a royal asshole until they move out of my way.

  “You haven’t handled it. This isn’t handled.” He hangs up, running a hand over his hair. “I’m going to kill him if something happens.”

  More cars honk and flip me off as I pull to the shoulder and drive like it’s an added lane, but I don’t give a single fuck as I listen to these foreign words process with the impossible situation at hand.

  “What are we going to do?” I ask.

  Paxton shakes his head. “Caleb,” he says. He fumbles with his phone once more, cursing before his phone starts to ring on speakerphone.

  “Dude. How do you always know when I’m getting food?” Caleb answers.

  “Caleb,” Pax shakes his head like the words are impossible to find to describe the current situation. In truth, they are.

  “The person who was leaving the cranes for Raegan,” I say, “It was the dean’s girlfriend. She’s left more, and now she followed Raegan, and she’s with her at the marina.”

  There’s silence. “What?”

  “What do we do?” Pax asks.

  “You call the fucking police. Don’t get involved. You don’t know what you’re doing. You could make it worse.”

  “It’s Raegan,” Pax yells, his frustration vibrating around the cab of my truck, landing on me like the rain falls on my windshield, soaking into my fears and pooling with my own anger.

  Caleb sighs. “When you get there, talk to the girl. Calmly. Don’t try and get too close, and just buy time until the police arrive.”

  I shake my head, hating his words nearly as much at the situation. Being told I once again can’t interfere is like sitting on the sidelines of a losing game, like watching Raegan walk away and not working harder to fight for her.

  “What if she’s not close to Rae?” Pax asks. “What if we just take her down? Tackle her.”

  “You don’t know if she has a weapon or if she’s going to hurt herself or Raegan,” Caleb warns. “You don’t want to spook her or make her feel worried. That will lead to a bad scenario.”

  We reach the gates that are permanently propped open, my tires spraying gravel against the metal post. I slow down, my headlights bouncing off the ground with the sudden dip in the road.

  “Be calm. Keep your distance and try to find some middle ground with her. Get her talking to you. Make her see Raegan as a person rather than a hindrance,” Caleb continues.

  “There!” Pax says, shooting his arm up and pointing near the dock.

  I pull as close as we can get, leaving the engine running and the headlight on for additional light as we pile out, trying to slow our speed as we make our way down the dock that sways with our added weight.

  They’re standing near the end, under the single lamp post. The ocean a black backdrop that crashes, trying to meet the heavy rain that continues to splatter against every surface. Raegan’s body is tense, her hands on her head as a girl dressed in a purple coat stands next to her, a gun in her hand moving toward us as we near.

  “What is this?” the girl yells. “What did you do?” She swings her attention to Raegan, her voice and motions unsteady.

  The sky is growing darker, trying to meet the heavy rain that continues to splatter against every surface. As we get closer, I inspect Raegan, tracing her pale face, her hair which is soaked like her clothes. She flicks her attention to me, her eyes wild, but her body still.

  “We just want to help,” Paxton says, raising both hands in the air as he steps next to me. “We aren’t going to hurt you. We aren’t here to blame you. We just want to make sure everyone’s safe.” This is a one-eighty from the side of Paxton, who was ready to throw down in the driveway fifteen minutes ago.

  “Why are you here?” Lindsay yells. “How did you find us? What did you do?” She yells the accusation again, turning the gun back on Rae, who meets her gaze.

  “You don’t want to do this,” Paxton says. “Let’s just talk. Tell us what we can do.”

  She shrieks. “It’s her fault!” She moves closer to Raegan, who grits her teeth as Lindsay waves the gun over her. “She made him choose between her and me, and he chose her. He’s always chosen her.”

  “He didn’t choose either of us,” Raegan says. “He chose himself.”

  Lindsay stares at her, a heavy frown marring her face.

  “She’s ri
ght,” Paxton says. “He’s who did this.”

  “No. No. No!” Lindsay shakes her head in rapid jerks. “After she was hospitalized, he started to pull away, and then after she walked in that night, she ruined everything.”

  Raegan watches her, and I recognize the rapt attention, the way she’s reading her body and movements like she reads the screen while watching tape.

  “If he loved you, he’d make it happen. Trust me. When a person loves someone, they aren’t afraid to go through hell,” I say, distracting the girl, hoping her anger and attention will shift to me because I’m the farthest from Rae.

  “You have no idea what love is!” Lindsay shrieks, her attention snapping to me, moving the gun to follow suit. “You guys barely know each other. You’ve been together for a second, and we’ve known each other for two years! Two years!” she yells the words. “She was supposed to move out, and then he was going to get a divorce.” Her attention starts to redirect back to Raegan too quickly.

  I step forward, the action immediate and unmeasured, a reaction because I can’t sit back any longer. It has her swinging the gun back at me, her eyes hard and narrowed. “Why does everyone want to save her?”

  “It was me,” Pax says, taking a step closer as well. “I told our dad I’d never speak to him again if he left our mom for you. It was my fault. If you want to blame someone, blame me.”

  “He’s lying,” Raegan says as the gun turns to Paxton. “He didn’t even know until the video came out. It was me. But, it wasn’t to hurt you. It was to protect my family—my mom. He made this mess, and we’ll help you. We’ll help you figure everything out.”

  “How?” she yells. “I was kicked out of school. My parents won’t speak to me. My friends call me a homewrecker, and he’s not even here to help or stand by me after everything I’ve lost—everything I gave up for him.” Tears choke her up, and for a second, I almost feel sorry for her, realizing she drew the short straw.

  “My dad can help you,” I volunteer. “He’s a lawyer, and he can get you back into school. He’ll take it on pro bono. It won’t cost you a cent.”