Stepbrother Troubled: The Complete Series (2 page)

Chapter 5

The dinner is a success, with lots of talking on Emily and Cassandra’s end, and lots of laughing on Wayne’s. He even gets a few words in edgewise, but mostly it’s the girls speaking, gushing to one another — and the table as a whole — about their past four years and what’s changed and what they’ve gone through.

The only person who doesn’t speak throughout the entire meal is Blair. Blair, who is sitting beside Emily at the table, eats in concentrated silence. Whenever Emily looks at him, taking a break from talking while her mother fills in the silence, she sees a calm, focused look on his face, almost as though he’s meditating.

During one of those moments, as Emily is watching his jaw work and is absentmindedly labelling the parts of his skull and brain in her mind, Blair’s gaze suddenly darts up and their eyes lock for a second. Emily freezes like a deer in headlights before dropping her gaze. She grabs her glass, pretending to take a drink as she blushes madly, feeling the burn of her cheeks like fire. When she finally looks back up again at Blair he’s focused on his meal once more, as though nothing ever happened.

The meal ends and everybody gets up, clearing their plates and putting everything in the dishwasher. Blair disappears before anyone else, gone to somewhere in the house. Emily yawns.

“I think I’m going to go to bed early, actually, mom,” she says. “I had a long flight and I’m kind of jet-lagged. Plus, I want to get up early tomorrow to go over some of my notes before my internship begins.”

“Okay sweety,” Cassandra says, and she kisses Emily on the cheek. “I think Wayne and I are going to watch a movie, if you find you can’t sleep.”

“Okay thanks. Good night mom. Good night Wayne.”

They bid her a good night and Emily climbs the stairs to her room. As she reaches the top she notices that the bathroom door is closed and the light in on inside. Emily stops where she is, her mind searching for a moment before she realizes that it must be Blair inside.

She looks at the door to her room and sees the one beside it, leading into her mom’s office, standing ajar. The light in on inside and from the bit she can see, it looks different. Glancing at the bathroom door again, Emily tip-toes over to the office and pushes the door open. She gasps at what she sees.

The office isn’t an office anymore. Her mom’s desk and filing cabinets have all been moved out, and in their place is a double bed with a nightstand beside it, a dresser, and that’s it. There aren’t any pictures on the walls; there isn’t a mirror, or even any knick-knacks. The place looks completely Spartan, as though a monk is living there. There isn’t any trace of-

“What are you doing?”

Emily jumps at the deep voice and spins around to find Blair standing, staring down at her. She didn’t hear him come up behind her. He’s quiet.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I was just … this used to be my mom’s office.”

“It’s my bedroom now,” Blair says, his bright-blue eyes penetrating hers. She finds herself captivated by them, but tries to shake the feeling away.

“I can see that,” she retorts. “You don’t really decorate much, do you? No pictures or anything?”

Blair narrows his eyes.

“What do you want?”

Emily opens her mouth, feeling offended. Who is this guy, living in her house and treating her so poorly? She just wanted to be friends with her new stepbrother, not have to defend her every move.

“I just … I just got back and I realize that I don’t know anything about you,” she says. Blair’s features seem to soften, if only a tiny bit. “Tell me something about yourself,” she requests.

He pauses, seeming to consider, before saying, “There’s nothing to know,” and pushes past her into his bedroom. Emily turns to follow, just in time for him to shut the door in her face. She blinks a few times and then goes to the bathroom herself to get ready for bed, fuming.

Why don’t you like me, Blair?
she thinks to herself as she brushes her teeth, staring at her reflection in the mirror.
What did I do to make you so mad at me already?

Chapter 6

Emily’s first week in her internship at the hospital is, to put it lightly, a disaster. Emily showed up early her first day, coffee in hand, notebook in her messenger bag, ready to learn and be put to the test. But the doctor that she and the dozen other interns are shadowing doesn’t seem to like her, or really care at all about all of her qualifications. She tried telling him about her high marks in school, hoping that they could find something in common, but he seemed disinterested to say the least. For the first time, Emily found someone she couldn’t impress with her brain.

And then, when it came to the practical stuff, Emily found herself feeling like a fish out of water. It seemed like no matter what she did, she could never quite practice suture the pig’s skin correctly, or administer medicine properly, or even take somebody’s blood pressure the right way. It was like all of her time spent learning and filling her brain with knowledge was for nothing. Looking at her struggle to keep up with the rest of her fellow interns, you’d think she’d just wandered into a hospital, eager to try something out after watching one episode of
ER
.

Emily cried herself to sleep for many nights over these sudden and unexpected shortcomings. She hid it from her mom and Wayne by lying to them, but found that she didn’t even have to worry about hiding it from Blair. Any time they were in the same room together, which was a rare occurrence, he would be looking away from her, or otherwise pointedly ignoring her. He seemed to care nothing for her. After a few days of trying desperately to connect with her stepbrother on some level, Emily had given up in frustration, already stressed enough from her time at the hospital.

That’s not to say that Blair was completely out of Emily’s mind, though. In her four years in medical school, Emily had only gone out with a guy once, and that was strictly so that she could lose her virginity for the sake of educational interest. She figured that, having grown up a virgin, she already knew all there was to know about being one. But you needed a partner if you wanted to lose your virginity, so she did just that: she found somebody, bedded him, and then dumped him a few days later.

Emily had been too preoccupied with her school work to worry about boys, or dating, or any of that stuff. Perhaps it’s because she’s done with college, or because all of the boys at school weren’t that attractive to begin with, but it feels like something hidden deep inside of her has finally been released. Besides, Blair just happens to be very easy on the eyes — her eyes, at least.

Their bedrooms being so close together, and with the two of them sharing a washroom, Emily has caught Blair walking past her room wearing only a towel on more than one occasion. He doesn’t look her way when he walks by, and she’s not sure if he’s aware of the fact that she craves those moments when she sees his tight, muscular body, his strong chest and abs above that treasure trail of hair that leads down to his you-know-what. But she does crave them, and she relishes every chance she can get.

This attraction to Blair is definitely something that has puzzled Emily though, to be sure. Blair
is
technically her family, and for her to be attracted to him is taboo on the highest level. But he’s not related to her by blood, only through marriage. And it’s not like she’s doing anything about it, or
he’s
doing anything about it. And what’s wrong with a little crush, anyways? Besides, it will probably pass in time.

Since she’s found herself struggling at work, every night when she gets home, Emily opens up her books and pores over them in the hopes of finding something in their words that will help her be able to perform better. But nothing in their pages helps her. It’s not until one night, a week after she’s started, that Emily is sitting at the desk in her room reading her copy of
Gray’s Anatomy.
She came home from the hospital, changed out of her scrubs and into pyjama pants and a t-shirt, and immediately sat down to study.

Emily is feeling overwhelmed by everything in her life. The fact that no matter what she does she seems to fail is getting to her: her internship; being a good sibling to Blair. She feels her throat tightening and tries to force the tears back down. But they’re coming up out of her like oil out of a well, and suddenly they take over. Emily feels herself let out a wail before crossing her arms over her book and dropping her head down onto them, sobbing.

Her emotions pour out of her, Emily wallowing in her own self-pity. And that’s when a voice surprises her, sounding deep and lustrous from her bedroom doorway:

“You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself, you know.”

Emily lifts her head quickly and sees Blair standing there, leaning against the door frame, wearing his traditional tight white t-shirt and dark blue jeans. She sniffs back wetly and wipes at her eyes underneath her glasses, blinking at him.

“What?” she asks.

“I said, you shouldn’t be so hard on yourself,” Blair repeats. He doesn’t make to move into the room to comfort her; instead he stays where he is, his eyes narrowed as he looks at her. So far, he’s said more to her now than he has in their entire time living together.

Emily sniffs again. “What do you mean?”

“Those books,” Blair indicates. “Your notes, your brain. It’s not what they’re looking for at the hospital. Trust me, I’ve been an intern before.”

“You have?” Emily asks. “Where?”

A sudden cloud comes over Blair’s face, darkening his features. It looks scary to Emily; Blair suddenly looks like a man who could kill, or who has killed before. But then it clears, and he comes back to earth. The whole transition lasts maybe half a second.

“Nowhere,” he says, and Blair pushes himself away from the door frame, turning to leave.

“Wait!” Emily calls out, and relief floods her chest as she sees Blair stop, then slowly turn back to face her, his eyes still narrowed. She’s felt so alone this past week, and she could really use a friend.

“What?” Blair asks.

“Um … what are you working on in the garage?” she asks after scanning her brain for a topic of conversation.

Blair furrows his brow.

“I’m fixing up a Harley Davidson,” he replies. “I have a client who drove it through a big puddle and soaked the engine. It’s an easy fix.”

“Mom told me that you fix engines,” Emily says. “Have you been doing that for long?”

Again that cloud, and Emily doesn’t know what’s triggered it. It’s gone as soon as it arrives, and Blair says, “Three years.”

“You must like it,” she points out. “I remember when I was a girl, I was really fascinated by the insides of my teddy bears. I used to take knives from the kitchen — my mom never knew about this, of course — and I used to cut them open and take out their insides. It was all this fluff, but I would separate some of it and say, ‘This is the brain,’ and ‘This is the heart.’ Then, once they were all empty, I would examine the skin for anything wrong and then put them all back together again, after ‘fixing’ whatever was wrong with them. And then I had to go to my mom to get her to sew them back up for me. I just told her I ripped them on something.”

Emily finishes her story with a nostalgic smile, remembering how many stuffed animals she’d operated on as a kid. When she looks up at Blair again she’s surprised to see him smiling too — not a big smile, but a smile nonetheless. Her heart skips in her chest; he’s even
more
attractive when he smiles.

“That’s cute,” he says, and once again Emily is shocked.
Blair just said something nice!
She licks her lips and speaks again.

“So … earlier,” she says, “when you said that my books and my brain are not what they’re looking for at the hospital … what did you mean by that?”

The smile has vanished from Blair’s lips, disappearing back into his usual scowl.

“I mean, they already know that you’ve got the knowledge for what it is that you’re doing. You wouldn’t have gotten the internship if you weren’t smart enough. What they’re looking for now is somebody who can actually walk the walk, not just talk the talk.”

“What do you mean?”

Blair blinks slowly at her.

“What are they asking you to do?” he asks.

“Um … sutures, taking blood pressure, administering medication … that type of stuff.”

“And it’s hard to do, right? It’s like you get overwhelmed before you even start?”

“Yeah,” Emily says, feeling like Blair is somehow reading her mind.

“That’s because you don’t have enough practice,” Blair says. “You need to practice doing sutures, and you need to practice taking blood pressure. I’m sure you choke up for the medication because it seems like there’s so many other things to do, but you just need to calm down for it. It’s all just practice.”

“But … how do I get practice?” Emily asks.

Blair narrows his eyes, and for a second he doesn’t say anything. Emily is afraid he’s just going to leave again. But then he says, “Come with me,” and he turns away from the door, walking away.

Emily stays where she is for a second before getting up out of her chair, following Blair.

The two walk through the silent house, Blair leading the way. Cassandra and Wayne are out to dinner and a movie, which means they won’t be back until late in the night. Blair leads Emily down the stairs and towards the door to the garage, where Emily still hasn’t been since she came back home. He opens it up and walks in, Emily following close behind.

The garage looks much different now from how it was before. When Emily and her mom were living together, this space became a sort of catch-all for their clutter. Anything they had that they didn’t know what to do with got sent here, likely never to be seen again. Emily remembers, during a Skype conversation after Wayne and Blair had moved into the house, Cassandra telling her daughter that Blair was really helping to tidy up the garage. Emily had no idea just how much tidying had been done.

The walls are almost completely bare now, save for a few gardening tools left hanging in their racks. The floor looks like it’s been swept clean just that day, and occupying some of the space is a Harley Davidson motorcycle on a fabric tarp and a car with its hood open. Emily doesn’t recognize the car and suspects that it belongs to another one of Blair’s clients.

“Wow, this place looks amazing,” Emily says, her voice echoing in the mostly empty room. “Mom told me that you’d cleaned up, but you really made it look fantastic.”

Blair doesn’t thank her; doesn’t say anything, in fact. He walks over to the motorcycle and stops on the other side of it, turning to look at Emily, beckoning her over with his eyes. She comes forward and stops in front of the machine. She’s never been so close to one in real life.

“So this is the motorcycle?” she asks, looking at the machine.

Blair nods. “The casing needs to be tightened. I want you to do it.”

Emily snaps her head up to look at Blair, who’s staring down at her. So close to her now, his eyes are almost mesmerizing.

“What?” she asks. “You want me to what?”

“I want you to fix the casing,” Blair repeats. “I’ll tell you what to do; you just need to do it.”

“But … I’ve never even touched a motorcycle before,” Emily says.

“I’m sure you’ve never touched a human heart before either,” Blair counters. “Does that mean you’re never going to do any surgery?”

Emily stares at him, her mouth open. After a few seconds she closes it and looks down at the motorcycle again.

“Okay,” she says. “Tell me what to do.”

As Blair instructs Emily, she does what she’s told. At first it seems strange, and the inner workings of a motorcycle are much harsher on her hands than the outside makes them look. But he guides her, and as Emily’s fingers blindly feel their way towards where they’re supposed to go, she feels her brilliant, logical mind putting everything together.

Soon she can feel where the pieces fit, even though she can’t see them and has never touched them before. She finds that she can predict what Blair’s going to say before he says it. And when he finally gets her to readjust the casing on the engine and put it back into place, Emily feels herself smile as she does just that, tightening the nuts and pulling her grease-smeared hands back out.

“Okay,” Blair says. “Let’s see how you did.”

He walks around the motorcycle and turns the key in the ignition, then revs the engine to life. It roars, filling the small space of the garage with deafening noise. But Emily is smiling; she watches the exhaust pipes blow out blue smoke, knowing that she was the one who fixed it. And if she can fix something she’s never even seen before, then surely she can do what’s asked of her in the hospital.

Blair cuts the engine and looks at Emily, who is still smiling brightly. To her surprise, he lets out a short, sudden laugh at seeing her expression. Her eyebrows raise up and her smile becomes wider.

“Are you laughing at me?” she asks, playfulness in her voice.

“No,” Blair says, shaking his head softly and dropping his gaze as he grabs her a rag off of the work bench, his normal scowl returning. “You just … you just reminded me of someone, that’s all.”

“Well … thank you very much for letting me do this,” Emily says, wiping her hands clean and handing the rag back to Blair, who puts it back on the work bench. “This wasn’t that hard, and I think I can probably do what I need to at the hospital now. Hopefully. Maybe.”