RANE: A Rockstar Stepbrother Romance (20 page)

Chapter

Rane

"I want you to listen to something."

She walked into my room like she was stepping out of the dream I had just woken from. "Maddie?" I blinked.

She walked past my bed and set her phone down on the radiator. Then she pulled a small speaker out of her giant-ass bag.

"What's this?" I asked.

She looked incredible. Maybe absence really did make the heart grow fonder, because she looked fucking
edible
.

She also looked pissed.

"I spent last night downloading and listening to this," she announced.

Then she turned on the speaker. A familiar three-chord progression blared out of the tinny little speaker. I was confused as fuck.

"Are we listening to Ruthless?"

"We are."

"I thought you didn't like rock."

"I don't. I also don't like quitters."

"Who's a quitter?"

"You," she spat.

She was still looking at me like I was a puzzle she couldn't quite figure out. "What?" I finally said, angrier than I meant to sound. She hadn't come by in weeks, and when she finally did show up, it was to cop an attitude with me?

Instantly, she snapped shut like a book, and her lips pressed tightly together. "Keir told me you're not doing your physical therapy," she said crisply.

How much longer until my next dose of Vicodin? It seemed like it was never going to come. "Oh, so you and my brother are all chummy all of a sudden?" I shot back.

"He called me. Asked for my help."

"What the fuck? Your help with what?"

She stared me down. "With you. With telling you that you need to do your therapy, Rane."

I shook my head. "You don't understand," I told her flatly.

She leaned forward on the bed. "Oh yeah? Try me. Make me understand why you refuse to do what’s necessary to get your life back on track."

I waved my hand and was rewarded with the sharp, stabbing pain. I could taste hot panic in the back of my throat. "Because that part of my life is over, okay?" I said. I fought to keep my voice from rising. "It's over and it's useless to keep trying to do something when it's clear that ship has sailed. It's pathetic to keep holding on to hope. Whatever. So I'm not going to be playing guitar anymore. It's fine. So I can't be part of Ruthless anymore. It's not a big fucking deal. That part of my life is gone, and the sooner you all get that through your heads, the sooner you can all leave me in peace."

If I thought that would shut her up, then I clearly had hit my head far harder than I thought. Maddie lifted her chin, exposing the curve of her long white throat. My body, broken as it was, couldn't help but respond to the sight of that creamy skin. I could still taste the way her freckles felt under my tongue.

Her eyes snapped. "You're giving up, huh? Don't want to work at it? It doesn't come easy, so whatever, fuck it, right? If at first you don't succeed, fuck it, right? That's your mantra, isn't it?"

I glared at her. How was it possible to love someone and want to strangle them with equal passion? "Yeah," I said flatly, "that's my mantra. That's what I've lived my whole life believing, and nothing you can say is gonna take that away from me. I am who I am, Princess, and one little pep talk isn't going to change that."

Her eyes darkened and a fucking shadow passed across her face. And just as suddenly, all of the anger bled out, stark white, and her lip trembled. "So, if something doesn't come easy, it's not worth working for?" she asked.

There seemed to be a whole hell of a lot more meaning in her words than I understood.

But I still clung to my stubbornness. "That's what I said, isn't it? It's the universe telling you to stop busting your ass for something you can't have."

"So you and I…"

Fear seized my stomach. "I wasn't talking about you and me," I said quickly.

She shook her head. "No, you're clearly talking about us, even if you don't realize it. We were doomed from the start; we knew it. There's too much standing in our way—our parents being together, your brother, my career, your injury.
It's the universe telling us we're not supposed to be together
," she singsonged in a mocking little tune. "Don't you get it, Rane? We should just stop trying. This thing has just gotten too hard."

I felt my hand open and close, but this time, I didn't give a shit about the pain. "Madeline, wait."

But she was already sliding off the bed. She waved her hand. "No, no, I get it. It was good, but now it's over and it's not worth fighting for. Good luck, Rane," she said.

And then she walked out the door.

Chapter

Madeline

I kept it together right up until the second I opened the door to my car. And then I burst into tears.

Hot, angry, wracking sobs consumed me. I folded my arms against my chest and clutched myself, rocking back and forth as I cried harder than I had since I was a child.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid," I chanted, smacking my steering wheel with each word.

How could you not want to fight? How could you not want to do the thing you were born to do? How could you just give up, that easily? All I knew how to do was fight. All I knew was to keep going, never pausing to take my eye off my goal. And it had worked, right? It had worked because he'd helped me. And here I was, ready to help him. Friend, lover, stepsister, whatever the hell I was to him, I was here to help him, and he was too goddamn stubborn and lazy to see it.

I was such a fool.

An elderly couple walked out of the building and shuffled over to the car near mine. The lady peered in, nearsightedly, and her mouth made a tragic 'o' shape.

I looked at myself in the rearview mirror. My hair was hanging in my face, stuck fast against white skin, slicked down with my own tears. My eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, and my cheeks looked like I had been slapped repeatedly. I exhaled and pick up the phone.

"I need you to work your magic," I told Harlow.

She met me in the parking lot of the studio, her kit in hand. "Should I even ask?" she asked me.

"You can probably guess," I told her, leaning back in my chair as she cleaned me off.

"Drizzle?"

"The very same."

"He being an ass?" She dabbed at my puffiness with concealer.

"In the way only he can." I chuckled grimly.

"Ain't love grand?" she asked.

I opened my eyes and looked at her sharply. She waved her hand. "I know you're in love with him," she said.

"He's my stepbrother—well, not officially yet, but he will be. Our parents rescheduled the wedding and everything."

She dipped her sponge into her palette. "And? Remember Jax and Lily? Their parents are married, too." She shook her head. "You celebrity types, you like to make your own rules. Seems like the only people who will put up with you are members of your own family. And stop blushing!" she told me. "I could see you guys together the first day I met you. Rane's awesome. He's a lazy fucker, but you're like the exact opposite of that. I guess opposites really do attract."

She dabbed lipstick in the center of my bottom lip. "Press," she ordered. I did what she told me.

Chapter

Madeline

(Two months later)

The Sunday morning of the wedding dawned damp and gray, with threatening clouds boiling up over the western horizon. It was the perfect weather to match my mood.

Since leaving the hospital on that terrible day, I had filled every spare second of my life with work. Jen was right, I was suddenly a hot commodity again. Once my
Skyline Drive
scenes were in the can, I was flung back into the world of stardom. My face was back on the cover of magazines. "Mad Maddie No More," "Princess Parker Grows Up," "Back From the Brink." I smiled on the late shows and told the sanitized, upbeat version of my story.

And every single one of them asked about Rane.

I wasn't so polished yet that I could say his name without stumbling. In the two months since I last saw him, not a day went by where I didn't pick up the phone.
Just friends?
I would say,
for a little while? I miss you.

But I put my phone back down again, every single time, my hands shaking with the swirl of emotions that threatened to burst free the second I heard his voice again.

And now today, I would be seeing him for the first time.

I tried not think about Rane, to wonder what I was going to be walking into today. I kept myself busy helping my mom and Mike set up tents in advance of the pending storm. Throwing myself into work like I always did.

When everything was finally in place, it was time for me to get my mother changed into the wedding dress I bought her a million years ago.

"You look amazing, Mom," I told her. There was simply no other way to describe her. Tears gathered in her eyes. "And Lord knows you've been waiting long enough for this." I smiled, kissing her on the cheek.

She laughed. "It was worth it making sure that Rane was healthy again."

"He's been fine for a while," I lashed out. "He just didn't want to work."

My mother smiled and rubbed my arm up and down. "You two will figure it out," she said, rubbing my arm so hard I wondered if she was trying to start a fire. "Love always wins in the end."

"Sure it does," I said. I certainly wasn't going to question that theory on the day of my mother's wedding. "Now, let's go get you hitched before something else goes wrong."

Warm gusts seized our hair the second we stepped outside of Mike's house. My mother giggled and tried to shield her hairstyle, but Nature was having none of it. We half-marched, half-sprinted down the little aisle in Mike's backyard, and by the time she reached her soon-to-be husband, we were both breathless and laughing.

The smile slid from my face when I saw him.

Rane stood next to his father, leaning against his crutch, but still devastatingly handsome in his charcoal gray suit.

The wind stung my eyes and I had to look away from him. 

Part of me, the part that still loved him, still wanted him more than I had ever wanted anything, gasped.  The other part of me, the raw, ragged, and self-righteous part, wanted to stay away. To not even look at him, for fear of what I might do. 

The wind tore at the programs and scattered petals from our bouquets. The wind blew at the tears in my eyes as I watched my mother and Mike exchange rings. And the wind nearly knocked the lined paper out of Mike's hands as he yelled his vows over the noise of the gusts.

The ceremony was quick and simple, just perfect for the people it was honoring. My mother vowed to make eggs every Saturday, and Mike vowed loudly to always kill the spiders that gathered in the drain of his shower. They kissed, we clapped, then everyone ran for the shelter of the tents.

Once inside, I caught my breath.

"Hey, Maddie," Keir said, his voice rough and gravelly. "You look beautiful." He sounded like he had been drinking the night before.

I kissed my stepbrother's cheek. "There's some coffee back at the house," I told him.

He shot me a grateful look and headed back up the lawn.

And left me standing face to face with Rane.

"Hey, Princess," he said softly. "I've missed you."

I swallowed hard. "It's good to see you moving around."

He nodded and pressed his lips together tightly. "Got something else I want you to see, too."

He looked past me. I turned around to see Keir returning from the house with a mug in his hand. Something wordless passed between the two brothers.

And then Keir stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled loudly.

The conversation died away as everyone looked towards us. I saw my mom blinking, a smile still plastered across her face. Mike cocked his head to the side skeptically.

"Go sit down, Maddie." Keir nudged me.

Rane stepped forward, clearing his throat. "I know it's not in the program, folks," he said, his smooth baritone rolling easily through the crowd. "But I have a special thing I wanted to do today."

He paused and looked down, flexing his right hand. I watched him, feeling tingles of anticipation running through me.

His hand.

He was moving his hand.

"I've got a lot of people who love me, got a lot of love in my life," he continued. "And I have a lot of love in my heart, too, for the two people over there." He nodded at his dad, who nodded back slowly. "And a few of you out there, too." There were more chuckles, some whispers. "Anyway," he continued, "you all probably know I got hurt a while back, that's why we had to reschedule this whole shindig and everything. I'm here to say, I'm better."

He turned, and Keir handed him his guitar.

My heart immediately leapt to my throat as he curled his long body around the wooden frame. He hugged it to himself, letting his fingers play lightly across the strings. They moved slowly, slowly but smoothly, with no trace of pain or ache.

I realized I was biting my nails. Keir set up a mic stand and Rane began to play.