Stepbrother Troubled: The Complete Series (4 page)

Chapter 8

You would think that, given how little Emily and Blair had talked before, Blair being even
more
standoffish would be something of a marvel. But somehow he manages to make it happen, as during the days following their time in the garage Emily finds herself feeling more and more like a stranger in her own home.

She goes to work at the hospital every morning and comes home every evening, in time to eat dinner with her family. Blair, who works in the garage repairing cars and motorcycles, somehow manages to wake up before her, so she never runs into him on her way to the bathroom. At the times when she’s tried knocking on the door to the garage to say goodbye, he never responds, the door once again being locked from his side.

When Emily gets home Blair is nowhere to be seen, him being either still in the garage or out test-driving the vehicles, usually without wearing a helmet or even seat belt. Dinner is actually the only time during the day when Emily is guaranteed to see Blair, but that doesn’t mean that he speaks to her, or even acknowledges her presence. Their parents notice the tension, of course, but they just chalk it up to Emily being too tired to talk and Blair being his usual self. Besides, for Emily, this isn’t exactly the type of thing you can bring up over dinner:

So sweety, how was your day at the hospital?

Oh, not too bad, mom. I had a busy day, but I’ve been thinking a lot about when Blair and I fucked in the garage. Oh, plus I saw an cool ad for a movie on YouTube. How was your day?

After dinner, Blair usually goes back to the garage to keep working, up to lock himself in his room, or otherwise disappears from the face of the earth. He helps with cleaning up when asked, but always does it as quickly as possible, his eyes either on the ground or on the work in front of him. Emily’s questions are inevitably greeted with grunts and a brisk walking-away.

There is one good thing, though, to have come from Emily and Blair’s rendez-vous in the garage: she’s finally gotten the courage to approach things at the hospital with a clear head, and is able to do what the other interns have been doing from the start. Where before, Emily would find herself taking blood pressure like she was trying to strangle the patient’s arm, now she finds herself doing everyday tasks like she was born for it. She’s even gotten a commendation from the doctor she’s shadowing, which is something considering no other intern has gotten one yet.

And it’s all because of Blair. If he hadn’t come to her room that night that she was crying, if he hadn’t taken her to the garage and made her reach into the Harley Davidson’s engine and actually
do
what needed to be done, she never would have found the confidence that she has now. Now Emily approaches every task not as something to be terrified of, where her education flies out of her head like a startled flock of birds, but as something familiar, something intimate. Something that she
knows
she can do because everything she needs to do it is right there in front of her, in her hands and in her mind.

Emily wishes that there’s some way to thank Blair for all of the help he’s given her, despite it coming in such an unorthodox way. One morning, as Emily is getting ready for work before the sun has even started to rise, she’s standing in the kitchen smearing egg salad on slices of bread when she hears a door open and shut.

The noise is nothing special, but in the dark and silent house it sounds enormous. Emily freezes where she is, knowing that neither her mom nor Wayne would be up this early. That mean it can’t be anyone but …

Blair appears from around the corner, heading into the kitchen, and freezes when he sees Emily. His expression — dark, and brooding — doesn’t change, but she can see his body tense up, and his eyes widen only the slightest amount. Emily’s heart beats quickly in her chest.

“Hi,” she says, her voice soft. Blair hesitates for a beat, then he continues walking, as though she hadn’t said anything. He makes his way to the fridge and opens it, pulling out a carton of orange juice.

“Blair,” Emily says, turning to face him, her egg salad sandwich and her need to get to work gone from her mind. “Can we talk? You’ve been avoiding me.”

“I haven’t been avoiding you,” Blair says in an equally soft voice as he takes a glass out of the cupboard and sets it down, pouring the bright orange liquid into it. “And there’s nothing to talk about.”

“Blair, what happened in the garage-”

“What happened was a mistake,” Blair cuts her off, his voice raising not in volume but intensity. Emily’s heart is hammering and, had she been paying attention, she would have noticed that her palms are sweaty. But she’s not the type to give up easily.

“It wasn’t a mistake,” she says as Blair puts the carton down on the counter. His hands grip the hard linoleum edge before him and he hangs his head. Emily takes a step towards him, her hand out but not quite touching his arm. “Blair … what happened between us … it wasn’t a mistake. I know it might seem like one because we’re stepbrother and stepsister, but that doesn’t matter to me. I don’t care. I want to be with you, Blair. I don’t understand why you’re acting this way …”

Her fingertips brush his arm and he pulls away, as though he’s been burned. Grabbing the orange juice carton with a grip that threatens to burst it, he strides towards the fridge and yanks the door open, puts the juice back, slams the door.

“You don’t understand,” he says, walking back to his glass of juice, his eyes on the counter in front of him. “You can never understand, okay? It would never work out between us.”

“But why, Blair?” Emily asks as he downs the juice in one go, slamming the glass back down on the counter so hard that Emily thinks it’s going to shatter.

“Just shut up,” he says, finally turning to her and putting those bright, burning blue eyes on hers. She forces herself not to shy away, to keep looking back at him, but it’s hard. She can see so much intensity in his eyes, but there’s something else there too. Something hidden, broken, shattered into myriad pieces so that no one but him will ever know.

“You don’t understand what you’re trying to get into,” Blair tells her. “You don’t want to get involved with someone like me. You’re young and sweet and … and too innocent. I’m a bad person, kid. Trust me, it’s not worth it.”

He takes his eyes away and Emily exhales, surprised to find that she’s been holding her breath. She spins to follow him, but he’s gone before she can say another word. Emily stands, staring at the empty corridor in front of her, as the sound of the garage door opening and closing comes to her again, and then he’s gone, as though he had never been there in the first place.

Blinking, Emily looks down to the counter and sees her half-made egg salad sandwich in front of her. Swearing under her breath, she finishes it up quickly and packs it into her lunch, swinging her back over her shoulder and making her way out the door. She arrives at work only five minutes late.

Chapter 9

The hospital corridor is bustling as Emily stares at the chart in her hands, looking at but not seeing the information in front of her. Patients and doctors, nurses and hospital workers, all make their way up and down the hallway, some passing by her without a second glance, others taking their time to see the pretty-looking girl in hospital scrubs, a vacant yet sad look on her face.

“Hey, Emily,” comes a voice, and Emily snaps out of her reverie to see Amanda, one of her co-interns, standing in front of her. The girl is tall, taller than Emily by a head. She has dirty-blonde hair that’s tied back in a ponytail and a kind face with rosy cheeks. She’s looking at Emily now with something like concern on her face.

“Is everything all right?” Amanda asks.

“Oh, yeah. Thanks,” Emily lies. Amanda furrows her brow.

“Are you sure? I walked down this hallway twice in the last five minutes, and each time I saw you standing here, the same chart in your hands, the same glazed look on your face.”

Emily puts on a fake smile. “Yeah, I’m just tired, that’s all,” she says. “But thanks for looking out for me.”

“No problem,” Amanda says, leaning against the wall. Emily puts down the clipboard, thankful to be in somebody else’s company; somebody she can maybe call a friend. “God, this job is great but the hours are shit. Plus I’m tired pretty much every day, you know?”

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Emily agrees.

“I haven’t had a decent meal or spent a good night out with friends since I started. But I guess that’s all part of the job, right?”

Emily nods. “I’m actually able to go home for dinner every night, which is pretty great. I’m one of the lucky ones, I guess.”

“Oh, you live in town?” Amanda asks.

“Yeah, about twenty minutes from here.”

“Wow, that must be nice. And you’re living at home, too? Rent-free?”

Emily laughs. “One of the fringe benefits, yeah.”

Amanda nods. “I’m renting a bachelor up on Queen Street. It’s a nice place, but the neighbours are noisy as hell. I hear them having sex through the walls almost every night. I was thinking of asking them to keep it down, but instead, if I ever bring a guy back home, I’m going to be breaking their eardrums.”

Emily lets out a laugh — an honest one, the first she’s had in a while.

“How about you, kid?” Amanda asks, and Emily’s head turns at the nickname — the same thing Blair called her earlier that morning. “You getting any action?”

“Uh …” Emily begins, visions of her and Blair coming into her head. “… no,” she finishes, not the truth, but not quite a lie either.

“Yeah, I figured,” Amanda says. “This type of job, you’ve basically got to be living with a guy already before you can even think about sleeping with him. Ah, but what I wouldn’t give for some fucking cock, you know?”

Emily gives a polite smile as Amanda leans in to her, lowering her voice.

“Actually, I heard that Xander, the intern in Radiology, is some kind of a sex king. Late nights working double shifts … an empty bunk room …” She straightens up. “But don’t tell anybody. We can get kicked out for having sex in the hospital.”

“Right,” Emily says as Amanda pushes herself away from the wall.

“Okay, I’ll see you later, Emily. Here’s to hoping we can both get some before the week is out, eh?”

“Yeah … thanks,” Emily says, and Amanda walks away, leaving Emily alone once again. She watches the girl’s tall, skinny frame walk around the corner and out of view. Emily sighs to herself.
She wouldn’t understand,
she thinks.
No one would.

Chapter 10

It’s funny, sometimes, the way that life can surprise you. One moment it seems like nothing is going right; that no matter what you do, everything will always turn out wrong.

And then, out of the blue, something comes up that seems to open a door. Or, if not a door, then the tiny crack of a window. And it’s up to you to decide if you want to act on this sudden and unexpected miracle, or merely let it slip away, leaving you right back where you were.

Emily’s miracle comes in the form of a family dinner, one that’s not different from any other in the past, but one that is accompanied by a specific conversation and stern parental figures.

“So anyway Jerry, my butcher, he tells me, ‘Look, Wayne, if you want to make beef stroganoff then you gotta get the chuck.’ And I’m thinking, ‘What? Jerry! Everyone knows that stroganoff is made with ground beef!’ So I tell him …”

Wayne’s continues talking as Emily stabs at the “beef stroganoff” on her plate, trying to pierce the noodles laden with ground beef, as opposed to the beef chunks that should be there instead. Beside her Blair is eating with a dark, unreadable face. He takes a sip of his water and swallows it as his father finishes his story with a laugh.

“That was a very funny story, honey,” Emily’s mom says when nobody else speaks. “Oh, actually that reminds me. Emily, sweety, Wayne and I need to go and try to find a decent cake for Margaret’s 50th tomorrow. Would you and Blair mind cleaning up the kitchen for us while we’re gone?”

Emily swallows her saucy noodles as she looks up at her mom.
Did I just hear that right?
she thinks.
A chance to be alone with Blair?

Emily’s heart soars in her chest, but as she shifts in her seat, ready to say that she wouldn’t mind at all, an unfamiliar lump makes itself known against her side, clipped to her belt: her pager. She and the other interns had been given them the day before at the hospital, and Emily is rudely reminded that tonight she can’t leave her work at the door.

Emily sighs. “I’m sorry mom, I’m actually on call tonight so I don’t know if I’ll be able to stay long. I can definitely help clean up, but if I get called in then I’ll have to go.”

“Of course, sweety,” her mom says. “You go if you have to.”

“I have to work too,” Blair says, not looking up from his plate, and Emily’s stomach drops again.
Maybe there won’t be any alone time after all.

“Oh no, Blair,” Wayne cuts in. “You work from home, so you have all the time in the world. The least you can do is spare half an hour to clean up a kitchen. Okay?”

Blair looks up from his plate at his father, and a tense silence falls over the table. Finally, after a few seconds that seem to stretch on for hours Blair says, “Fine.”

Emily’s heart soars again. She struggles to hide her elation. She and Blair are going to be alone together, tonight! Even if only for thirty minutes, that could be more than enough time. She racks her brain for what she’s going to say. Should she bring up what happened in the garage? What if he doesn’t speak to her? Should she tell him that she still has feelings for him, despite the conversation they had in the kitchen, and despite their being stepsiblings?

The dinner can’t end quickly enough, and when it does and everybody’s eaten their fill Blair quickly takes the plates into the kitchen and Emily hears the sink fill up with water. Her mom and Blair’s dad mill about, taking their time to get ready to leave, even though Emily is trying to will them with her mind to just go, go, GO!

She clears the table and puts the leftovers into a plastic container, and Blair’s already finished washing the plates. Their parents are still getting their coats on. Emily can’t bring anything up to Blair, not when their parents are still here. Finally, at long last, the older couple wishes their children a good evening and leave, the front door shutting behind them. Emily sighs inwardly.

There’s silence in the house, save for the sound of soapy water sloshing about, the tap being turned on periodically to rinse off whatever’s in Blair’s hands. For all her excitement and mental preparations, now that the time is finally here Emily finds herself unable to start. She doesn’t know what to say.

She’s wiping off the counter and she opens her mouth, determined to say something, even if it’s total nonsense. What comes out of her brain is: “Good stroganoff.”

As soon as the comment leaves her Emily feels like banging her head on the counter. She looks over at Blair to see if he’s laughing at her, or even smirking at how stupid she can be sometimes, but all she can see is his back, and for all the change in his actions you’d think he hadn’t heard her at all.

She’s ready to call it quits, thinking that maybe this isn’t the best time to talk to him, when she hears, “The beef shouldn’t have been ground. It should have been the chuck.”

Emily smiles, a flood of relief washing over her.

“I know, right?” she responds. “I think your dad needs to update his recipe book.”

Silence this time. Emily looks at Blair’s back for a long moment, waiting for him to respond, but he doesn’t say anything. She keeps wiping off the counter.

“So, um, Blair … how are things going in the garage?”

A pause, and then: “Good.”

“Ah, that’s good,” Emily says. “I haven’t seen you that much lately, only at dinner. And we don’t really talk, so I didn’t know …”

She trails off, and Blair keeps washing the dishes, not saying anything back. Perhaps this
is
useless, and Emily is just grasping at straws. If Blair doesn’t like her, then there isn’t anything she can do to change that. Maybe she should just focus back on her work, and try to see if any of the other interns are available. Xander, that guy Amanda mentioned, seems like he could be nice, if she got him to settle down a bit …

“How are things at the hospital?”

Emily snaps back at the sound of Blair’s voice. He’s still washing the dishes, and she still can’t see his face, but she’s certain that he just asked her how her work is going.

“Um … it’s going well,” she says. She feels her heart flutter;
should I say more?
“I’m on call tonight,” she decides to add.

“I know. You told us at dinner.”

“Yeah …”

“How are you dealing with the long hours?” Blair asks, and Emily can’t believe the string of questions. She’s not going to give this up so easily.

“I’m doing okay,” she admits. “It’s tough, sometimes, but I don’t really have a lot going on in my life outside of work, so at least I can find the time to sleep.”

Blair nods. “When I worked long hours I found that napping really helped. If you can catch a quick nap, it’ll keep you going for a while.”

“Long hours?” Emily repeats. “You mean doing repair work?”

“No,” Blair says, and she hears an edge to his voice that wasn’t there a moment ago. “This was before I started doing that.”

“Oh,” Emily says. Then, forcing herself to ask, “What did you do before?”

Blair’s hands stop in the water, and Emily knows that she’s crossed a line. But to her surprise he doesn’t leave; he doesn’t yell at her; he doesn’t even ignore her and completely shut off. Instead, he answers her.

“I was in Chemical Engineering,” he says, a response that Emily would have expected as much as she would have “Astronaut” or “Magical Dragon.”

“Wow, really?” she says. “I didn’t know that.”

“Not many people do,” he says. “It was a long time ago, and I was a different person then. But … I got out of it, and now I repair cars.”

“What made you get out of it?”

Emily can tell from the lack of dishes being done that she’s stepping into dangerous territory, but she can’t stop now. She has to know what lies beneath the dark facade of this man in her life. Of her stepbrother.

“I made a mistake,” he finally says. “One that took somebody from me. Somebody I loved.”

Emily’s breathing has stopped.
Victoria.
The name is a whisper on her mind, but the memory of Blair saying her name as they made love in the garage is as fresh as anything.

“Victoria?” she asks, and she hears the water slosh as Blair’s hands slip. He suddenly pulls them out of the soapy bath and spins around, his gaze down but his eyes glistening, something that Emily wasn’t expecting at all.

“I have to go,” he says, and he starts to leave the kitchen, not even taking the time to dry his hands on the towel.

Emily’s mouth opens, and before she can stop herself she calls out, “Wait!”

Blair slows down and then stops, the tight white t-shirt he’s wearing expanding and contracting as he breathes. He isn’t turning around; he’s not looking back at Emily. She stares at him.

“Blair wait … wait, just come back. Please.”

A long moment passes before Blair slowly turns around, his gaze still down on the floor but his eyes no longer glistening.

“Blair, I don’t want there to be this wall between us,” Emily tells him. “I want us to be able to be brother and sister to one another. What happened in the garage, it didn’t have to happen, and it doesn’t have to happen again, not if you don’t want to. I … I can’t deny that I have feelings for you, but that doesn’t mean that I have to act on them, okay? I’d just rather you and I be friends than for me not to have you in my life at all. Is that okay? Can we do just that, please?”

Blair is breathing heavily, and he’s still not looking at her. Finally he says, “I can’t do that.”

“Why not?” Emily asks. “Why can’t we just be friends.”

But Blair is shaking his head. “You remind me too much of her. I can’t do it.”

“Of Victoria?”

“Don’t say her name!” Blair suddenly roars, and Emily jumps. He visibly deflates. “I’m sorry. I’m … I have to go.”

“Don’t do this!” Emily calls again just as Blair starts to turn around. He stops again where he is, still facing her. Emily, mustering up her courage, walks towards him and stops a foot away, trying to look into his face, but he’s keeping it down. “You don’t have to run away from your past like this. We can be friends, Blair. We can talk about things, and be open with one another. You didn’t have any siblings growing up and neither did I. But we can help each other out, okay? We don’t have to go through our problems alone anymore.”

Blair doesn’t say anything. Emily thinks she can see his eyes shimmer again, and she takes a tentative step towards him. He doesn’t move, so she takes another, placing her right in front of her stepbrother. She can feel the heat coming off of him; his white t-shirt is practically etched against his chest.

“Do you want me to give you a hug?” she asks, and Blair doesn’t respond. Emily hesitates, waiting for any sign of affirmation or rejection. Finally she decides to go for it and lifts her hands up, wrapping them around Blair’s arms and pulling herself close, pressing her body to his.

The hug is completely one-sided for a long few seconds, but then Emily feels her stepbrother’s arms lift up and out of her grasp as he wraps them around her as well. Emily readjusts herself, the two being brought closer together. She can feel her breasts and stomach pressing into his abs, the fronts of her thighs touching his. Despite all that she said about only being friends, Emily can’t deny the strong physical attraction she has towards Blair. If this hug could go on all night, she would let it.

Blair is breathing deeply, and Emily feels him burrow his face lower down against her shoulder, into her short, straight hair. His fingers clench on her back, clawing slightly at the shirt that’s covering her. Emily allows herself to be pulled in deeper to him, breathing in his scent, closing her eyes against him.

She feels Blair’s grip lessening and Emily relaxes her own arms too. She starts to pull away, but as they separate Blair’s hands come up and land on her upper arms, gripping her there. He holds her as Emily, honestly confused for a second, furrows her brow, looking up into Blair’s face. She sees him looking down at her, his expression unreadable, his glowing blue eyes alive with something … something …

Emily can’t breathe. She’s trapped in those eyes of his, unable to get away. She feels her lips part and Blair’s gaze drops down to them for a second. She sees him part his own lips, ever so slightly, and as he moves his head down to hers she closes her eyes, her body acting through instinct, without any intervention from her brain.

Their lips press together and Emily feels herself being lifted off the ground, off this earth. Blair’s hands on her arms squeeze tighter and Emily moves herself towards him again, pressing her body into his, making him let go of her arms only to wrap his around her back again. The two kiss passionately, deeply, their tongues bursting forth and into each other’s mouths, exploring one another, tasting the depths of the other person.

Emily can hear Blair breathing heavily through his nose, and his hands move down quickly to the bottom of her shirt. She feels him grab onto the fabric, pulling it up, revealing her curvy body, her breasts clad in their bra. The unneeded fabric drops to the ground and Blair reaches around her back, undoing her bra with surprising quickness. Emily’s breasts lower under their own weight and she moves her arms, helping him to disrobe her top completely.

When her bra is on the floor as well Blair pulls his lips away from Emily’s, leaving her feeling empty for a quick and terrible second. But then he drops down to her breasts and takes one of them into his mouth, and that emptiness is replaced with a surge of decadent passion as Emily gasps, grabbing onto the back of Blair’s head, feeling him suck her hard and sensitive nipple into his mouth.