A Cardiac Mistake

Chapter 2

"Who are you?"

When the door opened two minutes later after mother left me on the front porch, I didn't expect some tall scrawny kid to answer the door. I didn't especially expect him to have the most beautiful sky blue eyes I'd ever seen in my whole life. Max would have been thrilled to see this.

"Who are you?" The kid repeated, impatience in the tone of his voice.

I cleared my throat, clutching tightly on the only luggage I had. "I-I'm Sam Standford?" I was stuttering. God, I was stuttering. I mustered some courage and said in a straight voice, "Mother just left a while ago. We were on the way home when she received an emergency call about some surgery she had to do."

The kid kept staring, as if considering if what I was saying was false. How else could I have proved to him I was Sam, and not some stranger posing to be the same person?

He eyed me from head to toe, then brought his fingers to his chin, thinking diligently. "I just thought Sam was a guy. Come in."

He moved aside for me to pass through. Awkwardly, I slid inside the lit room and stared at how wonderful the home was. Unlike in Southampton where the house was focused on heavy wood and plentiful books and plants, this house was filled with whites and modern stuff, clean stuff. Which kinda screamed "mother" all over the place.

"My brothers might be shocked to know 'Sam's a girl, so..." He gave a lengthy pause, looking at me again. "You should go up to your room and get changed, I think. Or whatever it is you do. It's all boys in this house, plus Louisa. So..."

He was stunned, not knowing what to say. I gave a light laugh, and smiled, "I'll go put my stuff away, but first, I'd like to know your name?"

"Oh," He stretched his hand out formally. "I'm Logan."

"I'm Sam,"

"I kind of got that," He replied stiffly, but he had a tinge of a small smile growing on the corners of his lips.

I was still shaking his hand, when I asked, "So are you one of my...?"

Logan raised an eyebrow, then coughed. "Ah, your brother? No, I'm not him. He's a lot younger than I am. Prolly step-brother now though." He pulled his hand away and started walking. "I'll take you to your room."

"Is he home?"

"Yeah," He nodded, climbing the stairs. "We'll pass them."

When we turn at the corner, I begin hearing children's laughter in the distant room. There's two voices, one baby-ish and one commanding, who was probably the older of the two. When we passed by the open door, Logan peeked inside and said, "Look who's here."

I lean my head inside the doorway, smiling sheepishly as I see two unfamiliar faces staring back. "Ma?" The younger one asks, sucking his thumb.

Logan chuckles, pulling me into the room. "No," He said, bending down. "This is Sam."

"Sam?" The older one asks, standing up and glancing at me. "I thought he was a girl."

They both have remarkable sea blue eyes and stark dark hair. They stood behind Logan and continued staring at me. They were obviously curious so I bent down and smiled. "I'm the new addition in the family," I said.

Logan points at me, pulling at the younger one's hands. "This is your older sister, Leon. She's Sam."

"Sham?" Leon asks, smiling a toothless green.

I nod, holding his fingers afterwards. "It's nice to finally meet you, Leon."

The other one looks up at me, squinting. "She looks a lot like Louisa, without the green eyes." He muttered. He was terribly smart for a boy that looked almost eight years old. He stretched his hand out and reached for my shirt. "Hi, I'm Taylor." He softly said.

"I'm just showing her a tour of the house," Logan says, now standing up. Taylor doesn't let go of him and so does the little one, my half-brother, Leon.

"Can we come?" Taylor beams, running out of the room and into the hall. "I know where your room is. I can take you there." He holds my hand eagerly, pulling me against my will. "Come on, I helped make your room."

A giggle escapes my lip as I let him pull me along. Down the hall, Taylor pauses in front of a closed door down by the window. He reaches for the doorknob, pulls downward, and pushes the door inside.

"Here!" He beams happily, running into the room and stretching his hands out widely.

It's a plain nude colored room, with a queen sized bed sitting comfortably in the middle of one side of the room. At the side of the bed were floor to ceiling bookshelves that was bare except for a thin layer of dust resting on its shelves.

I grasp the beauty and simplicity of the room, and pull on the doorknob that was in the room. "This is the walk-in closet," Logan added, opening it. "It's connected to the bathroom, then to my brother's room."

"Remember to lock it if you don't want a peeping tom," Taylor giggles, earning a chuckle from Logan.

Leon waddles through the room and tries to climb up the bed. Logan naturally helps him and helps himself on the edge of my new bed. He watches me stare around the room. "You like it? We kinda designed the place up as plainly as possible."

I bogged my head up and down, smiling. "It's lovely."

Taylor pulled my hand again, running towards the table on the other side of the bed. "I picked this one, Sam. Do you like it?"

Again, I nodded my head. "It's beautiful, Taylor, thank you."

Logan picks his youngest brother up and heads to the door. "I guess we'll leave you at your pace. Have some time trying to unwind for now, the journey must have been tiring." My step-brother said, waiting for Taylor to follow him outside the room. "When Louisa said you guys were coming, my brother went out to buy food for everyone, so I'll just call you when he's home."

"Noted on that," I said, crashing into my bed. "Thank you, Logan."

"No problem," He replied quietly, closing the door.

I lied down on the bed, checking the plain colored ceiling. The room was neat and full of light, almost similar to the room I had back in Southampton. I clung tightly to the pillow, resting on my side and tried to close my eyes.

I was really living in Philadelphia now.

Sighing, I sit up on the bed and unpacked the only thing I brought with me: my small luggage with only a number of clothes, my phone, my books, my macbook pro, and of course, the hard drive which housed a lot of memories of dad, Ben, Max, and a whole bunch of other people.

Placing my stuff in their respective places, I placed my stuff in the walk-in closet. I just realized there weren't any clothes inside it, probably because it meant this was mine and mine alone.

Reaching the end of the closet, and into the bathroom, I shook the doorknob, only to realize it was open.

Peeking inside, it was definitely a man's room: dark blue shades of wallpaper, lots of pillows, a desk with a laptop and some papers. Other than that, it was really neat for a guy. The stench however, made me want to hurry and close the door.

Immediately, I remembered Max's room back in Southampton. I don't know why but men were bound to be messy when it came to their room, always forgetting to clean up after the house keeping. I sighed heavily, wishing this were Max's room instead.

Stopping myself from feeling more sadness of the transfer, I pulled the pants off my long legs and put on a pair of comfy shorts.

Jumping on the bed again, I reached for my phone and typed in a message for Max: [ So, guess what, hun, I'm officially in Philadelphia and already missing u terribly. ]

Seconds only, he replied, [ That wasn't long. Miss you too. ]

[ u busy? ]

[ Sort of, ] The message read. After a few minutes, another message came in. [ You busy? ]

[ Not really, I just didn't have anything to reply to ur message. What're you doing? ]

[ Cooking away my sadness. ]

I raised an eyebrow. [ Cooking? ] I started with the reply. [ What're u cooking? ]

[ Stuff, anything. I don't know, I'm still looking through Youtube. ]

Lying down on the soft pillows, I placed the phone to my ear after ringing him a call. Only two rings passed until he answered it and said, "Learning how to cook via Youtube is never, apparently, easy."

A laugh escaped my lips. "When did you start wanting to cook anyways?"

"I have to," He gave a pause. "It's for work."

"That café makes you cook?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. "I thought you were a waiter at the place. Not a cook."

"Well, it happened all of a sudden," Max replied softly. "Before I went to your place yesterday. They called me in to substitute for someone who was absent. I didn't have anything to do so I went. And I realized too late they called me in to cook them food."

A gasp escaped my lips, and soon I was laughing. "Oh my gosh, they made you cook? Did you burn anything?" I chortled. "I have to know if that café is still up and running after making you a chef overnight."

"I'll have you know I was actually good at it."

"But you made terrible omelets," I retorted.

Max clicked his tongue, and I could just imagine him rolling his eyes. "Actually I only helped place the food or heat up the pasta. But I realized if I could do that stuff, maybe cooking wouldn't be so hard. But it actually is."

I tried not to laugh at him. "So are you putting cooking off your list of things to learn?"

"I guess so," My best friend replied. "I think I'm sticking to library work after my contract at the café. Being a waiter is tiring too. Lots of randomgirls come at the Cafe and try to take pictures with me."

It was my turn to roll my eyes. "As if."

"What! It's true. Good publicity for the café too." He was laughing now, and seconds later, it died down. "So how are you doing there? What was the family like? What was your brother like? Have you met him yet?”

I shrugged, even though he wouldn't be able to see it. "I haven't met everyone, I think." I paused to give it a thought. "There's this kid who's only a few years younger than we are; His name is Logan. Then the next one is Taylor, who seems awfully smart. And my half-brother, Leon."

Max sucked in a deep breath. "Woah, that's a lot of siblings for someone who was an only child until yesterday."

"Kind of," I giggled, lying on my side this time. "The room they designed is nice too. Lots of white, full of sunshine. There's even shelves on either side of my bed." I could hear tires running on the gravel. Immediately I sat up and looked out the window. "I'll call you later. Someone just came home."

"Eat lots of me." Max suddenly paused, and I did too. "That came out wrong."

I laughed, pulling the blinds back in their place. "I'll eat lots for you, I gotta go. Talk to you soon."

"Sure." And then he dropped the call.

I dipped the phone into my pocket and rushed out the door, hoping that somehow it was the older brother Logan was talking about. I was weirdly hungry, even when I had just eaten breakfast only a few hours ago.

"You're home!" I could hear Taylor's loud voice ringing from the kitchen and imagined him rushing to greet his brother. His brother's reply was hardly understandable, his voice hushed. "Yeah, she's here! You'll be surprised that Sam's actually a girl."

A quiet reply again. That or Taylor's voice was really loud.

There were steps going up the stairs, and I was ready to greet him, when I stopped dead in my tracks and sucked in a large amount of air. He did too, except, he was nearing the top of the stairs when he did.

He blinked his eyes, looked up at me, then asked in an incredulous voice. "Sam?"

"Dexter," The name slipped out of my mouth even before I noticed, and, quickly, I stepped away from him. I was deciding whether I should run into my room or not. Or just out of the house while I was at it.

Was this really happening?

Dexter, with that same devilishly handsome look he had since way before, placed his hands in front of his face and sighed heavily. "I can't believe this." He said, exasperated.

Standing in front of me, one foot on the stairs and the other on the floor, was the last person I wanted to see right now. Especially since this person was the same person I had dated two months ago.

We were wary in front of each other, obviously shocked, and the tinge of anger hung around us. "So… You, huh." He muttered, giving me a disdain look. "Was hoping it was't, but I guess Lady Luck isn't on my side."

"If I'd known you lived here, I wouldn't have come here in the first place," I spat.

Any trace of thinking this place was going to be the next best home after Southampton faded away instantly at the sight of him. Of all the guys in the world, Dexter had to be one of the brothers. But I didn't expect him here; I never expected to see him again. Period.

I asked the one question that lingered in my mind: "Do they know?"

"That we dated?" He laughed coldly. "As if."

We were stuck in place, not knowing what to do. We couldn't move aside for the other, and I didn't really feel like eating anything he bought me now. It wasn't until Logan popped out of his room and said, "Oh, you've met Sam."

Dexter was all calm smiles now, sliding past me and holding the doorknob which led to his room. "Yeah, I was surprised she was a girl." He said kindly, then he glanced at me with cold eyes. "Really surprised."

"Me too," Logan laughed, slipping past me, oblivious to the oncoming war between Dexter and I. "Come on, Sam, let's go eat. What did you buy for lunch?" He meant this for his brother.

"Same," My ex-boyfriend replied, waving his hand lazily. "I'm not eating, lost my appetite."

He walked into his room and slammed the door shut immediately after that. He was hostile, and even his younger brother looked apologetic. "He isn’t usually like that," Logan explained, confused, walking beside me as we went down the stairs. "He was honestly a happy go lucky guy. Until almost two months ago when summer started."

"Two months ago?" I echoed softly, entering the kitchen.

Logan nodded, pulling out the food Dexter had bought. "If you ask me, I think he got heartbroken, big time. He was never really lucky with girls." Lady Luck isn't on my side after all, he had said.

My new step-brother prepared the table, and I tried helping out from time to time. He said he was fine with handling the kitchenware so I fished my phone out while he readied the food.

I sent a message to Max immediately: [ u won't believe who I just met. ]

[ Try me. ] It wasn't even a minute before he replied.

[ I just met him. Dexter. He lives here. He's Philip's kid. ]

Logan was already done preparing the table, and still Max's reply was nowhere to be found. I was in the middle of eating with Logan and his two adorable brothers, when my phone rang on the table.

"Excuse me," I bid my new family, sliding out of the seat and walking over to the living room. My phone had rung three times before I answered the call. "Max?"

"Are you serious?" He asked me, his tone quiet.

I nodded even though he wouldn't be able to see it. "I'm not lying."

His reply was perfect to what I was currently feeling: "Well, fuck."