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

by Tabatha Kiss

  “Yeah?”

  She nods faster. “Yes.”

  I bend down and raise her up. She laughs, clinging to my body as I kiss her hard on the lips. “Thank you,” I say to her. “Thank you, thank you—”

  “Thank you,” she says.

  I kiss her again and she holds me tighter.

  “See, Mandy? I told you.”

  We look away from each other, realizing that we’re not actually alone in the crowded airport lobby. Mandy and Shawn stare back at us with smiling faces.

  “I’m not sure why I ever doubted you, Shawn,” Mandy says. He wraps his arm around her shoulders and she grips his hand in her own.

  I lower Piper to the floor and use my jacket as a shield to block their view as I kiss her again. “I love you, Piper Lynch,” I tell her.

  “I love you, Kai Casablancas.”

  I take her hand. “Come on…”

  We turn around and walk towards the airport entrance.

  “Hey, guys!” Shawn shouts after us. “Where you going? Our flight is that way.”

  I twist around. “We’re getting married,” I shout back.

  “Like… now?” he asks.

  “Yes. Now.”

  Mandy’s mouth drops. “Are you serious?” Shawn throws his duffel bag over his shoulder and starts to follow us. “What are you doing?” she asks him.

  “Oh, I’m not missing this,” he says. “Come on.” He grabs her hand and pulls her along with him.

  “O… kay,” she stutters out.

  I look at Piper.

  Piper fucking Lynch. The ice princess of Belle Academy. The very bane of my existence. The worst thing that’s ever happened to me in my whole damn life.

  And then, she smiles.

  Chapter 15

  Epilogue

  Piper

  “Are you ready?”

  I hear Kai’s voice, but nothing in the world can tear me away from her face. It’s so small and delicate. White, like a porcelain doll, but so full of life. Even now, while she’s sleeping, it moves.

  “Piper?”

  I don’t look away. “Hmm?” I push my fingertips through the small tuft of jet black hair on her head.

  Kai leans over the thick hospital mattress. I feel his fingers beneath my chin. “Piper…” he says my name again and pulls my face up, forcing me to look at him.

  “What?” I ask.

  He laughs. “They’re waiting.”

  “Oh…” I look down again. “They can wait a little longer, can’t they?”

  He winces. “I’m pretty sure I saw the grandmothers setting up a battering ram in the hallway, so no.”

  I smile once more at her face. “Okay…” I sigh. “But not for very long.”

  “I’ll tell them you’re tired.”

  “Thank you. You won’t be lying…” I chuckle. He kisses my forehead and pauses to slide this thumbs across her head before standing up. “Wait—” I say. “Do I look okay?”

  “You look great,” he says without hesitation.

  “Liar.”

  He smiles and walks to the door. I listen as he pulls it open and pokes his head out into the hall. “They’re ready for you,” he says. He can barely step out of the way before the door bursts open and our family charges inside.

  My mother and Ava split off and claim their places on each side of the bed next to us, their eyes locked on the baby’s face.

  “Oh, my god!” Ava gasps. She covers her mouth. “She’s perfect…”

  “You looked exactly like this…” my mother whispers.

  “Yeah?” I ask. She nods. I look up to see Kai on the receiving end of multiple handshakes from our fathers, each one welcoming him into fatherhood. He glances at me and I laugh at him. Just behind them, Mandy and Shawn linger in the doorway.

  “Okay, move over, everyone,” Mandy announces as she charges in. “Let me see her—” She stops at the foot of the bed and her jaw drops. “Awww!” She spins around and pulls Shawn down for a kiss. “I want one.”

  His face turns white. “Umm…” he mutters.

  “Give her here…” My mother opens her arms.

  “No fair!” Ava snaps. “I want to hold her.”

  “Ladies…” Hawthorne steps in behind my mother. “I’m sure everyone will get a turn.”

  My mother pushes her hands closer to me. “Yes, but I’m Piper’s mother. I get first dibs.”

  “But I’m Kai’s mother,” Ava argues. “I have just as much right to first dibs as you do.”

  “How about…” I say. I look at my father and slowly extend my arms. “Dad, you go first.”

  He takes a quick step forward to stand next to Ava. “I’d be honored, Piper,” he says. The room falls silent as I pass her off to him. He carefully cradles my daughter in his arms and I see a vision of the past in front of me. I look at my mother and she sees it, too. “We need to find you a tiny Belle Academy sweater, don’t we?” he asks her.

  “Ahh, jeez…” I mutter.

  “It’s never too early to get a child interested in education,” he says.

  Kai shakes his head. “I can’t even try to think that far ahead right now…”

  “Don’t blink, buddy,” Hawthorne tells him. “It’ll be here before you know it.”

  Ava stares at the baby over my father’s shoulder. “Now,” she says, quickly wiping her eyes, “can we please find out what you’ve named the darn thing?”

  Everyone chuckles and their eyes fall on me. Kai moves in closer to stand by me. “Paris,” I say. “We’ve named her Paris.”

  “Oh…” Ava coos. “That’s beautiful.”

  “Another P. No surprise there,” Hawthorne jokes.

  My mother lays her hand on mine. “It suits her,” she says. I catch her look up at Kai and she shoots him a quick, knowing wink.

  “Yeah,” he says, clearing his throat. “We thought so.”

  “Who gets to hold her next?” Ava asks with impatience.

  I hold up my hands. “I’ll let you guys fight it out,” I laugh. My mother, Ava, and Hawthorne converge on my father, each one looking to get quality time with their grandchild. Shawn and Mandy step around them to stand next to Kai as he takes my hand.

  “Jeez, you look like crap,” Shawn says to me, smirking with delight.

  “Shawn—” Kai snaps.

  I chuckle. “It’s fine. I know what he means.”

  “Yeah she does,” Shawn quips.

  “Just for the record,” Kai says, “I really dislike you two having inside jokes.”

  “So…” Mandy leans in. “Did it hurt as much as they say it does? I’m asking for a friend.”

  “Please tell her it’s awful,” Shawn begs. “Don’t encourage this.”

  “It’s awful,” I answer, “but worth every second.”

  Mandy beams. “Good to know.” She winks at Shawn and he glares at me.

  I lay back against the thick pillow and stare across the room at the tiny bundle in my mother’s arms. “Every second…” I whisper.

  “All right…” Kai announces. He steps away from the bed and holds out his hands. “Mommy and baby are exhausted and need some rest.”

  My mother smiles as she lays the baby in his arms. She steps across the room to me and kisses my head. “I’ll be back in the morning,” she says. “I’m pretty sure we all will…”

  “Damn right!” Ava shouts. “Oops— sorry. Don’t repeat that,” she tells the baby. She kisses her fingers as she passes by Kai towards the door.

  “Goodnight, everybody,” I say as I wave to them.

  They all pile outside and Kai closes the door behind them.

  “Look at you,” I tell him.

  “What?” he asks with a smile.

  “All demanding and assertive,” I joke.

  “Like a daddy?” he asks.

  I nod. “Yeah, like a daddy.”

  He looks at his daughter in his arms. “Who’s your daddy, Paris?”

  I stare at him. “Never say that ever again.”
>
  Kai laughs and leans in to lay her in my arms. “Yeah, that felt weird.” He sits on the bed and throws his arm around me as he lies down beside us.

  I rest my head on his shoulder. “She really is perfect, isn’t she?”

  “Yeah,” he whispers, “but I’m a little biased.”

  “This kid has no chance of being normal, does she?” I ask, my smiling eyes locked on her sleeping face.

  “Probably not,” Kai answers. “But what’s so great about normal?”

  I look at him and he kisses me softly.

  ***

  Whispers From Tabatha

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  BLIND GIRL: A NOVEL

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  Chapter 1

  Close Your Eyes

  “Come on, Alice. It’ll be fun.”

  I shake my head, unable to fight the smile crawling across my face. Six little words. It’s Gabby’s catch phrase. I’ve lost track of how many times she’s said it to me since a computer randomly assigned us to be roommates in our university dorm a few weeks ago.

  “We’re not going to get away with it,” I say without glancing up from my English textbook.

  Gabby sticks her head out of the closet and rolls her eyes. “That’s not the point!”

  “Can’t we just go see a movie?” I ask.

  “We can go see a movie next weekend,” she says. “Tonight, I want to do this.”

  I sigh and close the textbook. “Fine,” I mutter.

  She smiles wide at me and resumes ruffling through our shared closet, picking and choosing between various articles of clothing. “I say we go with these,” she says as she turns towards me. In each hand, she holds up two little black dresses by the hangers. “They’ll make us look older. Your choice. Which one do you want?”

  I slide off my bed and walk over. My eyes bounce from one dress to the next, finding the little difference between the two. One is strapless, the other features long sleeves. “I’ll go with this one,” I say as I take the sleeved one on the right, recalling that the forecast predicts a cold front on the horizon.

  Gabby shakes her head twice. “So predictable.”

  “Hey, if you want it, you can have it,” I say.

  “No,” she says. “I got the one I wanted. This one shows more skin.”

  I chuckle. “Now who’s predictable?”

  She puckers her lips and kisses the air at me.

  We wait until an hour after sundown to leave the dorm, giving us plenty of time to tweak our appearances to perfection. Gabby herself spends over an hour on her hair alone, curling her short, red locks into symmetrical ringlets around her head. There’s little I know to do with my long, brown hair, so I iron it straight and let it hang down just passed my breasts and focus on livening up my other features with the help of Gabby’s extensive collection of make-up.

  Once Gabby approves of my look — a task she always insists on, even on casual trips across the street to the dining hall — we set out together into the autumn night to find a taxi cab.

  “Where to, ladies?”

  Gabby grins. “Downtown,” she says proudly.

  The driver turns around in his seat. His eyes fall on us, scanning our bodies up and down until a chuckle heaves off his lips. “Whatever you say, ladies,” he croaks out of the corner of his mouth.

  “Erin told me to focus on the smaller clubs,” Gabby whispers at me once the cab starts moving. “The bouncers are usually younger, inexperienced, and more susceptible to persuasion.” She briefly cups her breasts at the last word, pushing them upward to accentuate her sizable cleavage.

  “Isn’t Erin dating a drug dealer?”

  “So?” She furrows her brow at me. “Who cares? She does this like every other weekend. She knows what she’s talking about.”

  “As long as we don’t get into any trouble…” I mutter.

  “Alice, these are the years when we’re supposed to get into trouble,” she argues. “We’re eighteen years old. We are invincible. Nothing can stop us. The world is our oyster. We are woman. Hear us roar.”

  “Calm down,” I laugh.

  “Well, it’s true.” She sits back in her seat and snaps open her clutch to retrieve her phone.

  We ride the remaining way in silence. Every mile we travel increases my heart rate, making me more and more nervous about what’s to come. Gabby is probably right. We’re eighteen years old. The crimes we commit at this age act only as feathers in our cap, a series of cautionary tales we’ll speak of only to our curious grandchildren when their parents aren’t listening.

  Back in my day, it was easy to flirt our way into twenty-one and older clubs. I just flashed my pearly whites, squeezed my tits together, and men fell at my feet!

  Unfortunately, my grandchildren will be sadly disappointed when I tell them about this.

  “No way.” The bouncer crosses his thick arms about his chest. His black shirt stretches tight as he flexes his muscles to illustrate his dominance over us.

  Gabby scoffs. “Oh, come on!” she whines. “I’ll give you my number.”

  “Beat it.” He stands firms, blocking the entryway.

  “Let’s go, Gabby,” I say as I lay a hand on her arm.

  She sighs. “Fine.”

  We continue walking down the street. Gabby’s heels click the pavement harder than mine. “This is such bullshit!” she growls. “Five clubs and not one of them will let us in.”

  “Well, can you blame them?” I ask. “You still have baby fat in your cheeks.”

  “This isn’t funny, Alice,” she seethes as she jerks her face in my direction. “God, this is so humiliating! And I’m freaking freezing!” She wraps her bare arms around her chest and I feel vindicated in taking the dress with sleeves.

  I shrug my shoulders. “There are plenty of places we can get into,” I point out. “And it’s only ten.”

  “I don’t want to go to one of those places. I want to go to one of these places.”

  “Then what do you suggest?”

  She pauses and takes a deep breath. Her toe taps lightly against the sidewalk while she chews her bottom lip in concentration. I can see the wheel spinning inside her head, a look I’ve become all to familiar with as she concocts her rebellious schemes.

  And just as suddenly as it began, her eyebrow flicks up like a light switch.

  “I know…” she mutters.

  She keeps me waiting as her eyes scan the street around us.

  “What?” I ask, the suspense tickling my toes.

  “I think we’ve been thinking a little too inside the box on this one,” she muses. “Bars and clubs aren’t the only place to go when you want to party.”

  “Okay…” I say, “and…?”

  She bobs her head, gestu
ring upward with her eyes. I follow her gaze and crane my neck as my eyes travel higher and higher, stopping only when they reach the top of the skyscraper. I read the name silently to myself: Botsford Plaza.

  “A hotel?” I ask.

  Her smile splits from ear-to-ear. “My cousin used to tell me about all the crazy shit she used to do at fancy hotels like this one.”

  “Like… order room service at three in the morning?”

  She rolls her eyes. “Follow me,” she says as she wraps her arm around mine, locking us together as she struts towards the entrance.

  The doorman stares at us with a raised nose, but eventually grips the door handle and lets us through without uttering a single word. It’s the first victory of the night and a surge of adrenaline courses through me.

  “Oh, my…” Gabby moans as our eyes study our new and exquisite surroundings.

  The hotel lobby shines with walls plated with gold trim and sleek, black leather furniture arranged purposefully about the room. The elevators glow as golden boxes in each corner. The staff don elegant black suits and dresses, embroidered with a shade of gold along every seam. Luxury is the word and it’s not a word I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing in my brief lifetime.

  I glance at Gabby. Her mouth sits open in awe while her brown eyes reflect specks of gold. I wonder whether or not I appear just as silly.

  “Looks like they’re having a party,” Gabby says as she points a finger. I stare straight ahead. Just after the reception desk, far away from the groups of people in cocktail gowns and tuxedos drinking champagne, lies a large set of black doors at the far side of the lobby.

  Three doormen stand guard in front of them with perfect posture. The man in the center carries a golden clipboard. All of them scan the crowd, frowning, no doubt taking their jobs very, very seriously.

  “Let’s go!” Gabby whispers at me as she pulls me through the lobby.

  My heart races more and more with each step. There’s no way we’ll get through those doors, but I don’t have the heart to crush her dreams. It will be the same story as before. And yet, this time, as the black doors travel closer to me, and the eyes of those passing by flick in our direction, a keen sense of dread grows inside of me.