Page 9 of Baby for Dr. Damaged

I pat the side of the van. “In this thing? I’m the tank on the road.”

My van is big and bulky and secondhand, and totally stands out compared to all of the doctors’ tiny little sleek cars. I used to have one like those but traded it for the van since it’s handicapped accessible—it seemed silly to have two vehicles.

Before I started with my residency, I spent a lot of time helping take Harris places, so that he could still have some semblance of a life. It gets great gas, though, and I don’t mind making sacrifices and changes for my brother. Never have. Never will.

It’s not a long drive from the hospital to my parents’ place. They actually live closer to it than I do, by about eight minutes. The house is a small, quaint-looking thing, with architecture that strongly makes you think of the late seventies, but the interior has been gutted and redone twice by now; once, when they bought the place, and the second time, after they realized that Harris would be in a wheelchair, and the doorways weren’t wide enough to fit one through.

I park out front and head up, knocking twice before letting myself in. “Mom, Dad! You home?”

My father pokes one hand up from behind the couch. “Hey, sweet pea. Your brother’s in his room. Mom’s out getting groceries.”

“Alright.” I swing by the couch, leaning over it to give my dad a kiss on the temple, and then head down the hall toward Harris’s room. “I won’t be here late, I have to get home and try to rest.”

The door at the end of the hall is sitting open. Harris' room is the biggest in the house, so there’s plenty of room for the wheelchair to get around. I find him sitting in front of his TV, the specially made controller for his game balanced on one arm, while he plays with the other.

Margur’s disease causes muscular weakness and as it progresses, it causes paralysis. When he was younger, in the single digits, Harris only had to use the wheelchair on really bad days, or when he was particularly tired and having a flair-up. Now, he’s in it all the time.

“Hey, kiddo.” I slide into the room and snatch the remote from his hands, slamming on the pause button.

“What the hell,” protests Harris. “I was in the middle of that!”

I perch on the very edge of the TV stand, so I’m smack in the center of the TV screen. Grinning at him, I say, “You’ve been hassling me all week about things, and you think I’m not going to actually show up and give you the news?”

“Do you like it?” Harris asks.

I nod. “The residency is great. I’m learning a lot, and there are some really cool people working there. I think that you and Carter would get along. He’s a few years older than you, but he sure doesn’t act it.”

“Uh-huh, that’s awesome, but totally not what I was talking about,” says Harris.

I frown a little bit. “Then what am I supposed to be liking?”

And that’s when he grins, and I know exactly what he’s talking about.

My brother has the biggest, most shit-eating grin in the entire world. It splits across his face like the grin of the Cheshire Cat, and makes you feel as though you’re backed into a corner. I’ve suddenly become the mouse, and he’s the tom cat out on the hunt.

Harris leans forward a little bit and asks, “Working with Jackson!”

“Cad!” I spit at him, without thinking twice about it. “What the hell, Harris?”

Harris bursts into laughter, but even that isn’t enough to clear the glint from his eyes or wipe the smirk from his lips. “I’m serious here! You’ve been goo-goo eyes over the guy for as long as I’ve been aware of cooties. Come on, give me something to work with here.”

“I’m not giving you anything. You’re a snake! I thought that you were concerned with my work, but you just wanted to give me a hard time!”

“Not nearly as hard of a time as Dad’s going to give,” says Harris. It’s not a threat but a warning. That’s part of the reason I’ve never made a pass at Jackson, even though he’s been the only guy that I’ve ever had a thing for.

Dad’s the kind of old-fashioned man that thinks you should marry your high school sweetheart. It worked out great for him and Mom, but not everyone is like that. The worst fight I’ve ever seen them get into was over who needed to make dinner, and I’ve listened to my father’s absolutely scathing reviews of some of the celebrities that date younger women.

He’s pretty much forbidden theTitanicfrom entering the house at this point.

If I actually tried to pursue something with Jackson… It would be an issue.

My shoulders wilt. I only realize that I’m being super, super obvious about how upset I am when Harris says, “Hey, sorry. That’s not what I meant by it.”

I try to pull myself together. Harris has enough on his plate, he doesn’t need me moping about his room on top of it. That’s what Cara and our martini date in three days is for.

“No, it’s fine,” I say, trying to brush it off. “Look, I didn’t come by to stay for long. I just figured this was way easier than texting back and forth.”

It’s pretty obvious that Harris has more to say about my attraction toward Jackson, but I don’t want to talk about it right now. Instead, I bulldoze him over with stories about my residency, telling him all about the other people that I’m working with, Carter and Cara, and even a few of the vaguer, funnier tales of the patients.

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