Page 2 of I Love You, It’s Ruining My Life

“If his daughter is with him, ignore him,” I groaned. Cassidy, if that was actually her name, was innocent. There was already a lot of simmering resentment in the town toward the band, and I was sure people would be more than happy to take it out on Kameron. But if the kid was there? She'd done nothing wrong, which was more than could be said about her father or uncles. “But if he’s by himself? Glare. The super scary one that makes everyone think they were teleported into a horror movie.”

“Deal, I’ll make sure to practice in the mirror,” Misty snickered, taking my hand and squeezing it. “Are you okay? When Maya mentioned it, you looked like you saw a ghost.”

“I don’t know,” I answered, “I never thought any of them would come back. It’s the only reason I still live here; it was supposed to be Raine-repellant.” I'd grown up dreaming about leaving Briar Hill. Mom had moved us here after my deadbeat and married to someone else, sperm donor, broke up with her. The hospital, a town over, was the only one who'd hire her after he had her blacklisted from surgery everywhere else. Her Grey’s Anatomy relationship turned into a nightmare. She'd told me so many times growing up she didn’t want me in the first place. It was her parents and sisters who'd convinced her she had to raise the consequences of being the other woman. Not to mention my Aunties had been so excited for there to be a baby, they actively peer-pressured her into keeping me. They didn’t do anything to help my Mom raise me, other than show up out of the blue, take pictures declaring themselves Aunties of the Year, and leave before I really got to know any of them.

Between my Mom’s animosity, my extended family’s flakiness, and the general nothing to do in town, Briar Hill hadn’t been my favorite place to grow up. But after RaineFall went viral? It became the safest place I knew. I went to college online just to make sure I didn’t end up with an obsessed roommate who would hate me because of the situation. I became a teacher because I knew Briar Hill always had teaching positions open, and it gave me some stability. I'd torched friendships with people who'd liked their music, locked down my social media and blocked any mention of them, and even convinced the coffee shop in town to remove their music from their rotation so I could relax there in peace.

And the town itself? Between the paparazzi and gaggles of fangirls who descended on Briar Hill, it was almost ruined. Developers tried to come in and gentrify everything in an attempt to turn the town into a Raine Family tourist trap. Fangirls wanted to see if the brothers would show up, only to be disappointed they'd moved away and never came back. The truth was, with a town as small as Briar Hill, there wasn’t room for thousands of people to visit — even during the heavy tourist season of the spring and summer. Every single small business lost money because the hikers and nature enthusiasts were suddenly blocked out by people who only cared about RaineFall.

We’d survived, though for some it was by the skin of their teeth, but nobody ever really forgot what that year was like for Briar Hill. For them or for me. New people came in all the time, either from working for the National Forest or because they were hired at the hospital, but the main businesses were family-owned and operated, and none of them ever forgot the strain the boys’ fame put on the town.

Nobody would be rude enough to try to get Kameron to move away, but the reception was definitely going to be colder than he probably expected.

“If you see him, just ignore him,” Misty said, “What’s the chance of him recognizing you after this long? He would've expected you to have moved away after graduation.”

“You sound like you were here for all the trouble they caused ," I laughed.

“What can I say? I was lucky enough to move here once the craziness died down,” she smiled, “It’s obvious anyone our age moved here as an adult, almost everyone raised here left. Why would he expect to see you?” I shrugged, even though I knew she had a point. The hospital and the forest were the only things keeping the town from dying out completely, but it made for a strange demographic of people.

“Do you think his coming back is temporary?” I asked, sweat rolling down my face as the heat for the next class started getting to me.

“No clue,” she admitted, “I can ask him when I inevitably run into him. I’ve always wanted to be a spy, and you know I’ve got your best intentions in mind.”

“Fine, but after that, go back to glaring,” I insisted, “he deserves it. And if he’s not here temporarily, maybe he’ll rethink his decision after you give him enough jump scares.”

Chapter two

Kameron

“Cassidy!” I called out from the kitchen, putting the breakfast sandwich I’d made on a plate. I’d hoped the smell of eggs, cheese, and bacon would lure her out, but it'd worked about as well as everything else I'd tried over the past few days.

My daughter didn’t fully understand my decision to move us to Briar Hill. And considering how terrible our last few years were, I couldn’t blame her. Watching her Mom fade away from cancer was hard enough, but the friend group she'd been a part of actively made fun of her for not immediately getting over it. And on top of it all, we'd moved away from the only home she'd ever known? The entire world wasn’t fair, especially for a ten-year-old.

I was pretty sure if anyone heard I had money problems, they'd laugh in my face. I knew RaineFall had been a worldwide experience; it should've set me up for life. However, Julia’s cancer treatment was experimental, and our insurance didn’t want to touch it. All of her hospital stays, surgeries, medication, and treatment were out of pocket — millions of dollars I was lucky enough to have that I used to try to save my wife’s life — even if it did drain my bank account in the process. The few royalties that still came in couldn’t keep up with the mortgage payments on the giant house anymore, and it'd felt too empty without Julia there anyway. It'd been easier to sell it, invest the money, and live on that while we moved to the one place we had a fully paid-off house: the one I'd grown up in.

The cost of living in Briar Hill was much cheaper, even though I was more recognizable here than I liked. However, I was the least popular member of RaineFall, which was both a blessing and a curse. I'd faded into obscurity after the band broke up, and the money slowed down. But I'd always been less of a spectacle than my brothers.

Would there be questions from the different residents who still lived here? Probably. But I'd take those over a photographer stalking me any day.

“Cassidy!” I called, opening the door to her bedroom that once upon a time, Jack and I'd shared. “Come on. Out of bed. Time for school.”

“I’m not going!” she shouted into her pillow, “This town is stupid! This school is stupid!”

“Come on, Cass,” I sighed, sitting on the edge of her bed. “You already missed the first two days of school. You can’t keep missing it forever.”

“Watch. Me.” Cassidy snapped, Julia’s stubbornness coming out in every one of our daughter’s words. I used to think it was adorable. Now it gave me nothing but a headache.

I had one ace up my sleeve, and I'd hoped not to use it so quickly, but when she wasn’t listening to me, there was one person who could get through to her: Jack. I should've been shocked my twin had that effect on my daughter; she'd been a toddler when the band broke up and barely remembered him. But Julia’s passing encouraged both my brothers to reach out after years of silence, and Cassidy had latched onto her uncle like Velcro. I didn’t want to pull the “Cassidy’s favorite uncle” card too often, not when I was afraid it would only end in eventual disappointment.

I loved my twin, I really did. But in my gut, I knew it was only a matter of time before Jack accidentally hurt Cassidy the same way he accidentally hurt me time after time.

However, this was an emergency, and as long as he wasn’t too drunk to function, desperate times called for desperate measures.

Jack

Yeah.

Kameron