Luc muttered, his eyes blazing with fury.
“Yes, Mom.” Rafe nodded, looking contrite. “Sorry.”
Mariella, unable to stay angry when Rafe looked so very miserable, patted his cheek. “We will get through this,” she told him.
“Yeah,” Luc said, his eyes still cool, “but the question remains as to whether we will be everything that we were when we do.”
Mariella bit her bottom lip, bone-deep scared that he might be right.
* * *
Rafe watched his mother walk away and thought, as he frequently did, that his mother had the biggest set of balls in the world. Bigger, possibly, than his father’s, and that was a hell of a statement. Rafe turned his attention onto his still-simmering brother and wondered how long it would take for Mr. Perfect to blame this latest fiasco on him.
Ten, nine, eight, seven, six...
“You shouldn’t have answered that first question,” Luc told him in his oh-so-familiar patronizing tone. God, he was so sick of being in Luc’s firing line. “Once you answer one question, it opens the door to fifty more.”
“I told them that we had no more information than they did,” Rafe argued.
“They can smell bullshit from fifty paces, Rafe! Of course we know more than they do.”
“Like what?” Rafe challenged. “He had an accident, his Bugatti left the road and he’s in ICU with extensive injuries. I never said he was in a goddamn coma, did I? Why the hell are you busting my balls? You also engaged with them.”
If Luc could blame him for climate change and the Syrian crisis, he would. He was, he’d come to accept, a disappointment to his man’s man father and his incomparable older brother. Funny...if he’d been nerdy, geeky and awkward, his life would’ve been easier. He was just the opposite. He was possibly even more naturally gifted at sports than Luc and probably had a bigger brain. Every sport he tried he mastered; there wasn’t a test he couldn’t ace. His dad and Luc hated the fact that he jumped around, moving from opportunity to opportunity. He was wasting his talents, his intellect, they fumed. He had so much potential...
Rafe didn’t understand why his lack of commitment to any particular career bothered them so much. He had a lot of interests, and he liked having the freedom to explore them all.
He felt ill, sick with worry about his dad, but underneath the despair, resentment bubbled. Rafe was so tired of feeling less than because he chose to walk a path that was different than that of his father and brother, tired of the confused looks, the snide comments, the haughty condescension.
Rafe heard the discreet beep of Luc’s phone, indicating that he had a message. Luc pulled his phone from the inside pocket of his tailored Armani suit and looked down at the screen.
“Fuck, I can’t deal with that now,” Luc muttered.
Rafe frowned. “Problem? Was it a journalist?”
Luc looked up and nailed him with another supercilious, distant look. “No, it was an email saying that the American Association for Plastic Surgeons has nominated me for an award.”
Of course they had, because he was the perfect, successful brother. “What... Best Boob Uplift? Bodacious Booty of the Year?”
“Fuck you, Rafe.” Luc’s words erupted like bullets. “You’re just jealous because the only award you’ve received is the yearly what-the hell-are you-doing-with-your-life paper cup.”
Luc’s words held enough truth to feel like he’d taken a punch to the heart. “You love that, don’t you? You get off on telling me how useless you think I am! You’re such a control freak, but you can’t control me, and it drives you crazy.”
Luc looked around and slapped a hand on his chest. “Will you calm the fuck down and shut up? Do you want the press to come back?”
Grabbing Rafe’s wrist like he was a toddler, Luc pulled him to the end of the main hospital building and into a small alley. Above them was an open walkway the hospital staff used to move from the pediatric wing to the main building.
Out of sight of the parking lot, Luc released Rafe’s wrist and lifted his shoulders, still confused. “How did my idle comment about an email I received piss you off so much?”
“You deliberately mentioned it, wanting to rub my face in the fact that you are so much more successful than I am!”
“Not everything I say and do is about you, Rafe! Honestly—” Luc’s lip curled into a derisive snarl “—I genuinely don’t think about you much at all.”
“Why can’t you accept me for who I am?”
Luc’s fist clenched, and Rafe welcomed the anger in his eyes, the tension on his face. “I don’t give a crap about who you sleep with. This is about your aimlessness, your capriciousness.”
“Oh, here we go again! I like what I do and how I do it! You and Dad never got that, never supported my need to do something creative. And it’s not like you are saving lives in your fancy LA practice, so get off your stupid high horse! You’re the king of Botox.”
Luc gripped the bridge of his nose, and Rafe could see the tension building in him. He welcomed it—he felt like a valve under immense pressure.
Luc threw up his hands. “Our father is fighting for his life in there, and you’re out here screaming at me like a petulant child. Grow the fuck up!”
It was a refrain he’d heard all his life: get it together, Rafe. Stop being childish, Rafe. Why can’t you be more like your brother, Rafe? Well, here, today, he could try. By its own volition, his arm lifted, and Rafe plowed his fist into Luc’s perfect face. Nothing gave him as much pleasure as hearing the smack of knuckles against his cheekbone, the sting that rocketed up his wrist, the sheer burst of adrenaline. Shit, this was almost as good as sex. Possibly better, because, hell, it had been so long since he’d had any he couldn’t actually remember how good sex was.
Right here, at this moment, he felt like Superman and Wonder Woman and Hercules and Gerard Butler. He could kick ass—specifically, his brother’s ass. Then Luc nailed him in the stomach, and all the air rushed from his lungs and his knees threatened to buckle. Pain spread like a red tide through his body, but his anger roared and clawed. This time, this one time, he wouldn’t let Luc walk all over him. Rafe dropped his head and charged his brother, wrapping his arms around his waist and twisting so that Luc toppled over, falling to the sidewalk. Rafe’s blow skimmed his eye socket, and he barely felt Luc’s fist connecting with his jaw. As his head flew back, he saw Luc’s confused expression, the my-toy-Pomeranian-just-nipped-me look on his face.
“What the hell, Rafe?” Luc shouted in his ear, using his arms to push Rafe up and off him. He quickly jumped to his feet, his hand cupping the side of his face and his blue eyes blazing. “Have you lost your fucking mind?”
Possibly, yes. But it was worth it. And holding his own in a fight with his older brother was freaking amazing. It was, Rafe decided, worth the pain and a long time coming.
Luc slowly stood up and briefly closed his eyes. When he spoke, his words came out sad and solemn. “That award? It’s a recognition of the pro bono work I did for
