IMPACT: A Secret Baby Sports Romance

by Vivian Lux

  He ducked under a scrub tree, leading us along a narrow outcropping that hugged the sloped cliff precariously. I tried not to look down at the water, the rock falls below, but Rane seemed utterly content to leap from rock to rock. The blood in my head pounded louder.

  "You go ahead," I said, straining to sound calm. "You're faster than me."

  "You sure?" he said.

  "I need both hands," I confessed, clinging to a scrubby tree. "The height is freaking me out."

  Rane looked concerned. "We can take a different path, but we'd have to double back."

  I looked back and nearly swooned. "No." I gulped. "We've come this far."

  "Okay, well, step where I step."

  "You sure you're not a mountain climber in your spare time?"

  He smiled at me and turned to lead the way. I followed his broad back, concentrating on putting my feet where he put his. We were making our way to the apex of a horseshoe-shaped notch in the cliff. Rane hopped from boulder to boulder easily, while I huffed and puffed behind him. "I'm starting to really regret my choice in footwear!" I called over the sound of the gulls.

  He turned at the sound of my voice, just a little too quickly. As I watched, the thick sole of his boot slid on loose gravel, and he went down hard on one knee. I shoved my hand in my mouth but there was no stopping the scream that tore from my mouth as I watched Rane slip...

  sliding...

  falling...

  falling.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Madeline

  Two weeks and six days. I counted on my fingers one more time, just to be sure. It didn't seem possible, but that was all it had been.

  Everything had changed in the span of only two weeks and six days.

  I sat in the parking lot, counting on my fingers over and over again, but always coming up with the same number.

  Two weeks and six days since Rane fell.

  Two weeks and six days since I last saw him.

  Two weeks and six days since our lies were exposed.

  Two weeks and six days since his grief-stricken brother slammed a fist into a wall and told me never to come near him again.

  It all felt like it happened an hour ago, a second ago. But when I closed my eyes and counted, I could remember all the moments since then. The sleepless nights staring at my ceiling, waiting for news. The day I woke to Jen's ecstatic phone call that I had landed a part in Skyline Drive, overshadowed by my worry. The day spent helping my mother take down the decorations that she had set up for her wedding, now postponed indefinitely.

  And now. This moment, sitting in the parking lot of a bar, ready to meet a friend like I was some kind of normal person, who hadn't been turned inside out with heartbreak and worry.

  It was a low-key sort of neighborhood bar. A haven for office workers hitting happy hour before heading home to their takeout. The kind of place left unmolested by paparazzi.

  Pressing my hand against the heavy wooden door, I took a deep breath and was grateful to see that I could do so without feeling like I was going to break down in tears. Today had been harder than I wanted to admit.

  I breathed a silent prayer of thanks that there was no one in the parking lot, no telephoto lenses poking their way into my private grief. No one there to witness me slumping against the entrance before pulling myself together and pushing open the door.

  When things went to shit, you found out who your real friends were. Harlow Grant was turning out to be the most genuine friend I’d ever had. She spotted me walking in and waved from her perch at the bar. "Hey there, sugar!" She slid off the stool and gave me a quick, fierce squeeze. "How was it, being back down in the coal mines?"

  I hopped up on the stool next to hers and set my purse down on the bar. I carefully pulled out my phone, checked it out of force of habit, and set it right in my line of sight. Then I checked it one more time before looking at my friend.

  "It was...." How could I describe today? "Emotional?" I said, lamely. "Have you already ordered?"

  She nodded vigorously. "Two vodka gimlets, of course." She licked her lips. "I had no idea I liked those things so much until I met you. I suppose I have you to thank for my burgeoning alcoholism."

  "I do what I can." I forced myself to smile

  She cocked her head to the side in a way that used to make me self-conscious, but now I was realizing it was just Harlow being Harlow. Always wanting to understand. "So...emotional? How so? Weren't you happy to be back in the saddle?"

  I tapped my fingers on the dark wood of the bar. It was ever so slightly sticky. "I was. Happy, I mean. Sad too." She nodded and closed her eyes. "And," I continued, "I'm kind of out of practice." I shook my head and sighed. I seemed to always be sighing these days.

  Harlow eyed me over the top of her glass. "I'm sure that's not true," she said, giving me a smile that had me wondering if she missed her calling as a support group leader.

  I shot her grin. But even I could see, in the reflection of the mirror over the bar, that it was watery and weak. "Thank you for humoring me," I said, sighing once again. "But it's true. I guess I have to wait a sec for it all to come back to me. The table read was a little awkward, and I definitely don't like the guy who plays my father. But I'll get over it.…"

  Just then, my phone buzzed on the bar. Both Harlow and I jumped. "Do you recognize the number?" she asked, peering over my shoulder.

  I looked at the screen and shook my head. "Just another pap," I sighed.

  Harlow shook her head. "Fucking vultures," she spat. "I don't know how you stand them, day and night with the phone calls. Why don't they just leave you alone? There's nothing new to tell about it..." She paused. "Right?"

  I stared at my phone for several seconds until the ringing finally stopped. It would go to voicemail. It always did. And whoever was on the other end of the line would ramble on breathlessly until my voicemail system cut them off. "Just want to let you tell the whole story...our readers are anxious for another angle...just hoping you might change your mind...give your side...a chance for the world to know what really happened..." Another two-bit tabloid reporter trying to get the "full story" on what was turning out to be an endless subject of fascination for the American public.

  Rane's accident.

  I took a quick gulp of my gimlet. Tears stung my eyes as the lime stung my lips. Harlow seemed to pick up on the change in my mood. "Any word?" she asked softly.

  I shook my head. "Mike said he'd let me know as soon as he knew anything," I told her. "And he's the only one I can count on. Keir isn't speaking to me."

  Harlow let out an explosive sigh. "That guy needs to lighten the fuck up," she said feelingly. "It's not like you pushed him over the edge."

  I squeezed my eyes shut tightly and tried not to think about Rane's face, the sound of the gravel under his boots, the way he fell forward on his hands and knees and tried desperately to grab onto something, anything, but the rock was too sheer. And how, at the last moment, the very last moment, he looked at me.

  And then he wasn't there anymore.

  It felt like he had lain there for days. But in reality, it had taken only forty-five minutes from the time I ran full tilt back to the car, found my cell phone, called in the rescue attempt, and the helicopter arrived. He fell nine feet, saved but shattered by one of the jutting outcrops in the cliff. One very much like the one we had made love on only minutes before.

  He had been airlifted as quickly as they possibly could, received the best medical care available...

  "But he still hasn't woken up," I said, more to myself than to Harlow.

  We drank in silence for a moment, Rane's accident hanging like a storm cloud over both of our thoughts. This should have been a celebration. My triumphant return to show business. Skyline Drive was in pre-production. I attended my first table read this morning, getting to know my costars. My scenes were scheduled for shooting next week.

  I was finally working again, the only thing I'd wanted for so long. But with Rane in the hospi
tal, I couldn't find the joy. My triumph felt completely hollow without him there to share it with me.

  "Well, if you want me to come to the hospital with you…" Harlow began, then paused to sit up straight. She sipped her gimlet. "Sorry, I'm going to try not to be so morbid. Casper left this morning. His three-week stay of execution has ended. Had hit the road again. I hope you don't mind me becoming a completely insufferable shadow of yours now."

  I laughed and smiled at her. "Only if you don't mind me doing some clinging of my own."

  She gave me a quick, grabby hug. But when my phone began buzzing again, she pulled back. "Holy shit, another one? How do they even get your number?"

  I didn't want to look at the phone. I knew it would be yet another one. And I didn't want to talk about it. I had given my official statement to the police. All of the questions the paparazzi wanted answered, I had already answered: who I was, who he was, how we were related, what we were doing there. What we were to each other.

  Those statements got back to Keir. To our parents.

  They knew.

  "Oh, thank God it stopped," Harlow said.

  Just that second, it started buzzing again.

  She looked at me in shock. "Want me to throw it out of the window?" she asked. "I'm not even joking. I used to play softball; I've still got a killer arm. Ask Casper. I can chuck a flip-flop at him at forty-five miles an hour."

  I felt the blood boiling behind my eyes. I was ready to throw my phone myself. I yanked it off the counter without checking the caller ID and stabbed the green button.

  "Leave me the fuck alone!" I answered.

  There were several seconds of silence, then a harsh click. I pinched the bridge of my nose and sighed for the billionth time in three weeks. "Great," I muttered. "Way to go, Mad Maddie."

  "'Crazy Child Star Curses out Caller?'" Harlow recited. "Oh, hey, that's a good one!"

  "You have a talent," I told her, pushing my phone to the side and out of sight. "But don't quit your day job. Please." I snuck one more look at the blank screen, hoping I could will it to light up with the news I was waiting to hear.

  Would they even call me to let me know? My mom would, of course, if she was there with Mike when Rane woke. Mike would, out of obligation to my mom. Both of them seemed bewildered by how the accident happened in the first place. They knew Rane took me hiking and they seemed to know there was more to it than that, but their worry consumed their curiosity and they let me be. Ignorance was bliss, even when the truth of our relationship was splashed across every tabloid. But until Rane woke, that conversation was far down on their list of priorities.

  But if Keir was the one who was there? Would he let me know so I could stop obsessively checking my phone in the hope of good news?

  No, he wouldn't.

  At first, he only wanted answers. He hugged me in the waiting room that night, his eyes dark and shadowed with grief. "Where were you? Why were you there? What were you doing?" The more he quizzed me, the more I tripped over my words, caught up in the memory of calling out to Rane. How he had stumbled because he looked back to answer me.

  The more I stammered, the more Keir's face darkened. And as his grief turned to anger at our reckless stupidity, my own grief turned to bitter, acrid guilt.

  "Do you want me to stay with you?" I begged him, desperate to feel some kind of redemption.

  He looked at me, eyes hollow, and inhaled sharply. "No."

  "Don't you want me to get you anything?" I danced from side to side in front of him.

  "There's nothing you can get that I would ever want," he snarled.

  I stepped backwards, catching the heel of my foot against a chair leg and sitting down heavily. Keir stood up, pacing back and forth, turning rapidly like he was looking for a way out of this nightmare, before whirling and slamming his fist into the bland white wall. "Get out of here!" he snarled. He slumped down and cradled his head in his hands. "Please. You've already done enough."

  He blames you for Rane's fall. He hates you for hurting his band. His father. His family. He's not going to tell you if his brother wakes up. He doesn't want you coming around.

  I slipped my phone back into my bag and signaled for another drink.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Rane

  I didn't want to wake up. I wanted to keep floating down here in this sea of quiet nothingness.

  But I was being dragged upward.

  The first thing I noticed was pain. Pain...everywhere. My head, my body...my bones.

  The second thing I noticed was Keir.

  The image of my brother slouching against the radiator swam slowly into focus. I blinked and was able to see the light streaming in through the window. I blinked again and was able to read the title of the paperback he was frowning over, not turning the pages. I blinked again, and somehow he knew to turn and see me.

  His eyes went wide. "Holy shit," he exhaled. The paperback fell from his hands and he bolted towards me.

  He moved so fast it made me nauseous. "Rane, you there, man? You can hear me?" His voice was as loud as thunder in my ears, but somehow muffled too. Like I was hearing an explosion underwater.

  I groaned and shifted. "Water?" I croaked. It was so fucking cliché, but my throat felt raw, and dry as a desert.

  "Hang on, I'll get you some ice chips or some shit. I don't want you puking on me." He stuck his head out the door and started waving his arms frantically down the hall. "Hey! He woke up!" He signaled someone unseen and then whipped back to my bedside. "They'll bring you something. They have to let the doctors know you woke up."

  "How long was I asleep?" I said, shifting around again. My whole body was stiff.

  Keir leaned over me. This close, I could see the tired sag to his face, the bags under his eyes. His hair looked greasier than usual and he smelled like fast food...something my health-conscious brother abhorred. I could feel fear gathering in my chest even before he started speaking.

  "Twenty-two days." Keir exhaled. He looked down at his phone. "And three hours."

  I blinked. "You're shitting me," I managed to say.

  He shook his head. "Wish I was. Today is June sixth."

  I felt myself sagging into the bed. Why couldn't I still be asleep? At least when I was asleep, I didn't know anything. "What...?" I couldn't finish.

  "You fell. Do you remember that?"

  Memories jumped and skittered out of my grasping hands. The harder I tried to hold them, the more slippery they became. I closed my eyes again and tried to remember.

  The waves crashing below. Maddie, her freckled tits, her cries that sounded like the gulls overhead. I wanted... I wanted to show her the lighthouse. I wanted to blow her mind even more.

  She told me she loved me.

  "Where's Maddie?" I asked, opening my eyes again.

  Keir had been watching me, but the second I asked for Maddie, his face slammed shut. "Maddie who?" he said icily.

  "You know who I'm talking about," I said, and then coughed. "Where the fuck are those ice chips?"

  Keir stood up and crossed his arms. "You're talking about Madeline? Our stepsister?"

  I swallowed and my dry throat made an audible click. "Yeah. Maddie," I muttered dumbly.

  Keir growled. He stood up and gave the bed a shove with his hip, jostling me. "Fuck!" I hissed as pain coursed up my side.

  "Yeah, you feel that? You nearly died, and you know why? Because you were sneaking around, looking for a quiet, remote place where you could fuck your stepsister."

  "Keir, shut up...."

  "No, you shut up. She's got you twisted, the crazy bitch. You've always been a selfish prick, but you've never been such a stupid one. You want to know where Maddie is? Out of your fucking life."

  My blood ran cold. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

  "She's not coming around any more. I think I was pretty fucking clear on that point."

  Fury clenched its fist around my throat and strangled my words as I raged. "You...the fuck do you think
you are...you had no right to..." I struggled against the machines, a millions tubes and straps and fucking poking needles sticking out of me. "I'm going to kill you, asshole!" I made to make a fist and swing.

  I felt a sharp, stabbing pain.

  That's when I saw what was left of my hand.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Madeline

  My phone buzzed. I didn't even look at it before I threw it into a heap of laundry in the corner and fell back into bed.

  Then I sat right back up again and went to retrieve it.

  It was still buzzing. I stabbed the button breathlessly. "Mom?"

  "Did I wake you?" she asked.

  I groaned and rubbed my eyes. "It's okay," I said. "Just have a wicked Ambien hangover."

  "My poor girl," she clucked.

  "I'm okay, Mom. I really am. What's up? How's Mike doing?"

  "He's actually right here, honey," my mom replied. "He was the one who told me to call."

  I felt ice water flow in my veins. "Is everything okay?" I asked tightly, praying my voice wouldn't betray me.

  I heard Mike's voice, low and tired. My mom must have covered the receiver because I couldn't make out the words. She had been staying at his house ever since Rane's accident. Mike was completely occupied with keeping vigil over his son's bed, and my mother had busied herself caring for him. I had barely seen her since that day we bought her wedding dress a month ago.

  "Everything is...wonderful, actually."

  I let out the breath I didn't know I was holding and gripped my phone tightly. "Yeah?"

  "Rane woke up yesterday."

  I tried to stifle the sob, but it tore loose from my lips before I could catch it. Every emotion that I had been trying to keep bottled up over these past three weeks came rushing to the surface. All the love, all the confusion, all the fear, all the frustration suddenly broke free in a storm I couldn't control.

  "Maddie? Maddie, honey?" My mother's tinny voice echoed out of the speaker. I hadn't even realized I dropped the phone on the bed.