RAIL ME, RIDE ME, RUIN ME: A Stepbrother Romance

by Tabatha Kiss

“How’s your head?” he asks, pointing to his own left temple.

  “Oh—” I reach for the bandage and touch the forgotten bruise a little too hard. I wince in fresh pain. “Ouch…” I say.

  “Careful,” he says with a short smile.

  “It’s fine — just stings a little.”

  It’s frustrating to feel so weak. I’m Piper fucking Lynch, for god’s sake. I take care of myself. I lay down to no one. I’ve been called many things, but weak isn’t one of them. And yet, here I am, lying in a hospital bed after passing out on the street like a damned damsel in distress. Exhaustion? Stress? They’ve never given me any issue before, but all of a sudden—

  “Piper,” he finally whispers. “I am so sorry.”

  I look at my pale hands, my eyes locked on my chipped thumb nail. “Kai, you don’t have to do this right now—”

  “I want to.” He leans forward in the chair. “If I don’t, it’ll eat me up inside.”

  I nod. “Okay.”

  “I’m an asshole,” he says. “I said some pretty shitty things to you.”

  “You meant every word of it, Kai,” I say. “You were just being honest—”

  “I did. I’ll admit, there was a whole lot of truth to it,” he says, “but that doesn’t give me the right to say it out loud. Especially when you’ve done nothing to deserve it.”

  “But you weren’t wrong…” I say. “I should have come to you first, but… I was so worried about your reaction that I just didn’t think.”

  “You were right to worry.” He pauses and sits back. “It was pretty obvious how I’d react.”

  “I wasn’t reacting to it very well either,” I say. “I guess I’ve been in denial about it. I didn’t want it to be true.”

  He nods. “I’m really sorry, Piper.”

  “So am I,” I say. I look into his big brown eyes. I wish the old Kai would look back at me. I want that laid back, carefree kid that made me fall in love with him all those years ago, but I know he’s outgrown it. “But I think,” I continue, “maybe we really shouldn’t be together anymore.”

  “Is that what you want?” he asks.

  “No.” I shake my head. “I don’t think it’s what either of us want, but what we want and what we need have rarely ever been the same.”

  “Yeah…” he breathes a short laugh. “I guess that’s true.” He glances down. “So, what do we do?”

  I shrug. “We wait. Cool off. Give each other a few days to think it over, then go from there.”

  “No, I mean…” He looks down again, his eyes lingering on my belly. “What do we do about…”

  Our baby.

  I honestly can’t even bring myself to say it either.

  What do we do about our baby?

  “I guess that depends on where we are in a few days,” I answer. “Either way though…” My voice breaks and tears attack my eyes. I swallow them down, willing my eyelashes to stay dry. “We probably shouldn’t keep it.” I force myself to look at him, to take in his reaction as it happens.

  He closes his eyes, shielding the emotion from me. “Are you sure?” he asks.

  “Yes,” I whisper. “Unless you have strong feelings about it…”

  “I…” He shakes his head once, his open eyes bouncing around the room. “I don’t.”

  “Okay,” I say. “But, you know… we’ll talk about it again. In a few days.”

  Kai clears his throat and sits back again. “If you want.”

  A knock strikes the door and I look up to see Shawn and Mandy lingering in the hall. “Hey,” I say, forcing a quick smile. “Come on in.” I wave them inside and the two of them quickly de-lock their fingers.

  “Are you all right?” Mandy asks. She moves to the other side of the bed and stands over me. “Does it hurt?” She reaches out and taps the bandage with her fingertips.

  “It’s not too bad…” I say.

  “It looked pretty nasty when it happened,” Shawn says. He places the back of his hand against his head and does a quick spurting motion with his fingers. “Little children screaming. Blood gushing out all over the sidewalk—”

  “No, that never happened,” I chuckle.

  “I know,” he laughs, “but it’s worth it for the horrified look on Kai’s face right now.”

  I look at Kai and notice his eyes change from full-on panic to annoyance. “Not cool, Shawn,” he mutters.

  I can’t help but laugh with Shawn. Even Mandy cracks a smile, her eyes locked on his face. “Thanks for getting me here,” I tell Shawn.

  He shrugs. “You’d do the same for me.”

  I nod. “And as wonderful as the experience has been, I’d kind of like to go home now.”

  Kai stands up from his chair. “I’ll go run a search,” he says. “See if I can find us the next flight back.”

  I nod. “Sounds good.” I sit up taller on the bed and pivot to lay my feet over the side. “Now, does anyone see my clothes…?”

  “Over here,” Mandy says. She grabs them off the counter behind her. “Men-folk, get out.”

  Shawn and Kai step towards the door and she quickly closes it behind them. I let my feet hang down off the side, my bare toes dangling inches away from the cold, hard linoleum floor. Emotion charges through me, paralyzing my entire body. My hands lock against the bed near my knees and I dig my nails into the thick mattress. The tears I held back in front of Kai come in full force to tumble down my cheeks one-by-one.

  “Whoa…” Mandy throws the clothes onto the bed and drops to her knees in front of me. “Piper, what’s wrong?” she asks.

  I open my mouth to speak, but a sob comes out instead. She pushes herself up to sit next to me and holds me against her. “He didn’t fight it…” I say, my voice wrecked with sadness.

  “Didn’t fight what?” she asks.

  I don’t answer her. I can’t answer her.

  I bury my face in her shoulder and let the tears fall down.

  Chapter 14

  Kai

  “Ask Piper to dance with you.”

  I look up at my mother and flash a quick smile as the photographer behind her brings his camera up to his eye to snap yet another darling candid of the two of us dancing together. “Please don’t make me do that, Mom,” I beg.

  She slaps my shoulder. “Oh, come on, Kai…” she says with her own smile, only hers isn’t forced. She’s had a permanent grin on her face since she slipped into her wedding dress this morning. “She’s family now.”

  I turn my head around to look at our table across the room. Little Piper Lynch sits in her chair, doing her very best not to look bored as fuck. It’s how she looks all day, every day, to be honest. Unless someone is singing her praises. Then, she’s all smiles and annoying narcissism. “I’d really rather not…” I say. “Can’t you get Garrett to dance with her?”

  My mother sighs. “I don’t want photos of my nephew dancing with my new stepdaughter. I want photos of my son dancing with my new stepdaughter.”

  “When exactly does the ‘I’m the bride, so you have to do as I say’ card expire?” I ask.

  “About the same time the ‘I’m your mother, so you have to do as I say’ card renews.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought…” I look over my shoulder at Piper again. Even from all the way over here, I can see her blue eyes shining in the bright lights above her. “Okay, fine. I’ll ask Piper to dance.”

  Mom smiles and plants a kiss on my cheek. She lingers far longer than necessary to make sure the photographer has enough time to capture the moment. “Go,” she says. She lowers her arms and releases me from our dance.

  I step off the hard floor and walk across the room, taking my sweet time drifting between the tables. Piper sees me coming long before I get there. A painful look of dread washes over her features as I sit down beside her.

  “Hey,” I say to her.

  She looks up at me and nods instead of responding. Her eyes immediately fall from my face and she turns her head to make her long, black hair c
reate a wall between us. She grabs her water glass and takes a sip, no doubt in a silly attempt at looking busy.

  “Would you like to dance with me?” I ask.

  She whips her head back around. “Did your mother ask you to do this?”

  “Yep,” I answer.

  Piper sighs and grabs the napkin off her lap. “Let’s get this over with then…” She tosses it to the table and stands up.

  I nod. “Okay…”

  I follow her out onto the dance floor, doing my best to keep my eyes from glancing at her ass. Her dress is tight, black, and honestly something you’d wear to a funeral rather than a wedding, but that’s Piper Lynch for you.

  The old speakers play a quick, fun beat, but she rests her hands on my shoulders and refuses to let the tune move her. I pull her in by the waist and we sway slowly back and forth.

  “Don’t step on my toes,” she mutters quietly.

  “You know, you could try smiling today,” I tell her. “This is a wedding.”

  “It isn’t mine,” she says.

  “Obviously.”

  She glares up at me for a moment before her little blue eyes pull away. “Don’t tell me you’re actually okay with all of this.”

  “Not really,” I say. “But there’s not much I can do about it. Might as well give them what they want.”

  “I think they’ve gotten enough of what they want.”

  “Smile. Camera on your left.”

  She flicks her sapphire eyes up at me and bares her teeth for a sweet candid photo. “That’s the only one she’s getting,” she mutters as her lips fall back to their neutral position.

  I look into her eyes and pain stares back at me. “No one’s perfect, Pipes,” I say.

  “Obviously.”

  “Not even you.”

  Her lips curl with devious delight. “Oh, but what about the great Kai Casablancas? I bet he’s plenty perfect.”

  “I’m sure if they could go back and do things differently, they would.”

  “I’m curious, Kai,” she says, “if you were them, how would you do things differently?”

  I smile, accepting the challenge. “I wouldn’t get married in the first place.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Yeah,” I answer. “It’s a waste of time.”

  “And here I thought I was the pessimist.”

  “It’s not pessimism,” I say. “It’s reality. Love doesn’t need a broken system to exist.”

  “Love is a broken system.” Her eyes fall once again and she stares down at our feet.

  “Maybe you’re right,” I offer. “How about you, Piper? How would you have done it differently?”

  She hesitates with tight, red lips. “Same as you, I guess.” Her little blues dart about, looking at anything but my eyes. “Are we done here?” she asks.

  I drop my hands from her waist. “Yeah.”

  Piper lowers her arms and steps off the dance floor.

  ***

  The airport moves with rhythmic life. Passengers arrive and depart, following the same patterns as everyone else around them. Just when I think there can’t possibly be any more of them, a dozen others take their place. I hear their voices buzzing past my ears, refusing to form real words. It’s just noise, fragments of tones that don’t mean a damn thing to me. Shawn’s voice occasionally blends in, along with Mandy’s high-pitched inflection cutting through the fray.

  I sit still, staring out at the crowd of strangers, trapped in my own head, trying to make sense of a puzzle that was never meant to be solved.

  Piper fucking Lynch.

  She sits next to me in a silent haze. Sometimes, I think I feel her looking over at me, but when I finally give in and check, she’s staring out at the crowd just like I am. Maybe I just missed her.

  Doubt it though.

  She told me once that love was a broken system. I never really understood what she meant by that, but I think I do now. Love brings out the complete worst in people. That is a fact. Just look at our parents. Sure, things seemingly worked out in the end, but look how long it took to get there. I don’t believe for a second that happily ever afters exist. Any one of them can break down at any moment and I won’t be the least bit shocked about it.

  Loving Piper Lynch has brought out the complete worst in me. I’m a selfish prick. She told me she was pregnant and my ultimate concern was me. I didn’t care about it. I didn’t care about her. Just me. I’m not a very nice guy. I’ve called her things during bouts of anger that I never thought I’d ever say to another person. I’m sure if I asked her, she’d tell me the same thing. Loving me has brought out the very worst in her.

  Love shouldn’t be like that.

  If I could go back and do it differently, I would. I would have admitted defeat way back when we were eighteen. I wouldn’t have followed her to Europe. I would have just stayed home. None of this would have happened if I had just stayed home.

  Right?

  Eventually, Piper would have come back home. Maybe not as quickly, but she would have come home at some point. Maybe it would have been years until I saw her again. She’d be older, wiser, and so would I — theoretically. How long would it have taken before our tension broke and we tumbled into a bed together? Would I still fall in love with her? Would I still want to lie awake at night and stare at her beautiful face? Would I still quiver at the sound of her voice?

  Would she still fall in love with me, too?

  Fucking hell. I hope so.

  “It’s time to go.”

  I look up at Shawn and Mandy. They stand above us with their hands held tightly together. “Right,” I breathe. I stand up and turn to offer Piper a hand, but she’s already on her feet.

  “You all right, Piper?” Mandy asks.

  Piper sighs. “That’s the last time any of you get to ask me that,” she says.

  Mandy chuckles. “That’s a yes.”

  “It’s a hell yes.”

  It brings a smile to my face, but it fades just as quickly. Her cheeks still sit pink from the fluids the hospital pumped through her system. For anyone else, she really is fine. Almost peachy. But I know better. I watched Piper suffer through years of her father’s influence. He pushed her and pulled her through a life she didn’t want. She never let anyone see her weaknesses and reserved her real emotions for only the most private of moments. She’s wearing that mask again and it absolutely kills me.

  She’s wearing it because of me.

  We all gather our bags and step towards the gate.

  “Wait…” I reach out and wrap my fingers around her wrist. I feel her go tense at my touch, but she stops and turns to look at me while Shawn and Mandy continue forward.

  “What is it?” she asks.

  “You know what?” I mutter, staring into her perfect blue eyes. “Fuck this.”

  She raises an eyebrow in confusion. “What?”

  “Marry me.”

  “What?” she repeats, frozen in place.

  “Marry me, Piper. Here. Now, in Paris.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Completely.”

  She shakes her head. “No. That is a horrible idea, Kai.”

  “No, it isn’t.”

  “Yes, it is,” she says. “You don’t want marriage. You’ve said it before—”

  I step closer to her. “There are a whole lot of things that I want and don’t want, Piper. That list changes every day, but there’s only one thing that I need and that’s you.”

  “You don’t need me, Kai,” she says. “I actually think the last thing you need is me pissing you off all the time.”

  “You are absolutely wrong about that.” I reach out to cup her cheek with one hand. She closes her eyes, reacting to my touch. “You are the most annoying, frustratingly stubborn, enraging, borderline psychotic wench I’ve ever met —” She shakes her head and breathes a laugh. “— but I can’t imagine my life without you in it. I refuse to even try.”

  “Kai, our parents are married. I’m pretty
sure we’re going to be in each other’s lives for a really long time.”

  “That’s not good enough,” I say. “I want all of it — all of you. If this is what I have to do to get it, then I’ll do it.”

  “Don’t do this because you think it’s what I want.”

  “No, Piper.” I shake my head. “This is what I want. Believe me. I’ve never wanted anything this much before.” She stares back at me, still unconvinced. “If you don’t want this, too, then that’s fine. We’ll go home right now. But if you do, then I don’t want us to hesitate anymore. I don’t want to go another day without you being my wife.”

  “Oh, jeez…” she chuckles. “The P-word and the W-word, all in one day.”

  I pull her closer and wrap my arms around her. The familiar scent of her hair fills my nose and I inhale deep. Her hands rest on my lower back, warm and soft against me. “Pipes, we’re gonna fight,” I whisper to her. “We’re gonna argue. We’re probably going to spend a whole lot of time hating each other, but I love that. I love knowing that I can have the worst day of my life and you’ll still be lying next to me that night, no matter what happens.”

  She chuckles and pulls her head back to face me. “Almost sounds too easy.”

  “It won’t be.” I rest my forehead against hers. “But it’ll be worth it.”

  She sighs and chews on her bottom lip. “This is insane,” she whispers.

  I shrug. “It’s not the worst idea we’ve ever had.”

  “Pretty damn close,” she smiles.

  My steady hands hold her in place. “And…” I pause to feel the weight of the words before saying them out loud. “I want to meet this baby, Piper.”

  She looks up at me with tears teasing her eyes. “Kai…”

  “I didn’t realize it until I felt what it was like to almost lose it — to lose the both of you. I don’t think I’ve ever felt more scared in my life.”

  She lets a short smile touch her lips. “I think I know what you mean…” she says. “When I woke up in that hospital… my first thought was about it, or her or him — whatever it is.”

  “Marry me, Piper Lynch. I won’t let you wake up alone ever again.”

  A tear finally tumbles down her cheek. I wipe it away and she slowly nods. “Okay,” she whispers.