It seemed like hours just to drive from the station to the new house. Maybe they hadn't taken the best route, because Mr Spanner didn't know the area. Or maybe he was getting used to a new car that was almost as old as Tegan. But from the point of view of the morose girl in the passenger seat, it was an eternity without explanation. In between her dad's stressed fragments of conversation, she couldn't think of anything to say. She didn't even have anything to think about, save how her new stepbrother would treat her.
She was sure he would start with some show of dominance. Would he want to show that he was strong, or would he try to make her feel weak first? She tried to guess which would take priority, but she really didn't know. Perhaps more important was whether he would go first for physical or mental superiority. If he tried flexing to show off strength, she might be able to undercut his confidence by showing that she didn't care. If he tried to put her in her place with immediate acts of violence – what her mother had always called 'playing rough' – that wouldn't be an option. And if he could see one of her emotional weak points, that would be a real problem. She'd heard that he had been offered some kind of scholarship, but had been forced to turn it down due to his temperament. Maybe that meant he was an angry jock; or maybe he was actually smart but had gotten in more trouble even than her brothers. That was possibly the worst case scenario for Tegan, because she knew it would be hard to ignore someone insulting her intelligence or looking down on her.
Tegan had no idea what she would be facing; she'd seen so many different kinds of bullying from the boys she'd known at school, always trying to ensure they were in control, even if she hadn't been a real target for most of them, and she didn't know whether the new brother would be remotely similar to the three she was trying to avoid. And she didn't have a clue how much support she could expect from her father, when it was his boyfriend's son causing the problems. He'd said that they needed to 'help' Ness, which in Tegan's experience probably meant giving him everything he wanted in the hope he would somehow decide he didn't need to hurt anyone else. All she could plan for was her own defence. And by the time thee car pulled into a residential neighbourhood, she had thought of a dozen elaborate plans with no possible hope of working.
The closest she had to a usable plan was just watching what he said, and what he didn't say. If she could deduce his insecurities, she would have something she could use to keep it in check. And if she spotted them soon enough, she could make sure that she started out at the top of the pecking order. She just needed to be observant, and hope that he wouldn't start trying to break her down right away.
The house was unimpressive. The door was a white-painted slab with a tiny panel of frosted glass. There was a window either side, and another two upstairs. There was a garage on one side, probably too small for about half the cars on the street, and beyond that a space of just an inch or two separated the house from its neighbours. The identical house on the other side was just as close, and Tegan guessed that access to the backyard would only be possible through the house. It looked like someone had poured out a solid cube of despair and painted windows on the front; a street of dozens of units that varied only in the level of disrepair, or the height of the weeds around tiny threadbare lawns.
"Want to go inside?" her dad said, and Tegan quickly realised that he had already stopped the car in the driveway, and was waiting for her to disembark. It was so easy to get lost worrying, and not to realise what was going on around her. That was another thing that she needed to avoid when she met the enigmatic Ness.
Tegan nodded, and opened the car door. She didn't take her bag with her, not yet. She didn't know what to expect, and some instinct needed to be ready to run at a moment's notice, not loaded down. So she stood and walked over to the front door of their new home. They had already received a set of keys, and the first thing her dad had done was getting a second set made for Tegan. He wanted to make it clear to her that this was a home, even if she hoped to move away to a different college when their financial situation improved a little. So she fumbled the key into the lock, tried to turn it, and nothing moved. With a brief complaint under her breath she tried the other one, and this time it worked as she had hoped.
"I think the labels are the wrong way around," she called to her dad, who was getting a box from the back of the car. "The one with the blue sticker on is the front door."
"Typical," he answered, and then lifted his box with a grunt. "I'd probably have kept jiggling it for five minutes before I tried the other one. Good thing I got you with me. See if you can find the kitchen, so I can fix some drinks."
That brought Tegan a little smile, even if she knew the flattery was half joking. He didn't need her here, and she was sure that at least a part of him would have been happier if it were just him and Logan. But she was here now, and she was grateful that her dad wanted her to be comfortable. The kitchen wasn't hard to find. The front door opened into a tiny hallway with two doors and a staircase along one side, and a single door on the other. The rooms she could see into at first glance all had slightly-weathered beige carpet, in a variety of shades that were just different enough to not be a matching set, with the exception of a checkerboard of lime and avocado tiles straight ahead. She walked to the other end of the hallway, glancing into bare rooms as she passed. The room with the tile floor was, as she expected, the kitchen. There was a long counter along one side, with a microwave and coffee machine set up at one end, and a stovetop at the other end. It was a long, narrow room, but it looked like there would be plenty of space for cooking. She didn't investigate the other doors yet, but walked over to the coffee machine, which was still warm to the touch.
"Tegan?" a warm voice almost made her jump out of her skin. She spun around, backing against the counter, and desperately tried to recover the confidence that she'd been building up for the whole journey. She needed to show that she wasn't scared of anything if she was to have any hope of earning her new brother's fear or respect. Maybe it wasn't so urgent right now, because this guy didn't look so much like a stepbrother. He was too old, for one thing. His hair was swept back and slightly grey around the temples, and her first thought was that he looked like a younger Sean Connery. Probably a lot younger now, since all the movies she had seen that guy in were from the last century. She'd never expected that she would be able to imagine a young Connery with a fussy handlebar moustache, but somehow the combination seemed to suit the man in front of her.
"Uhh..." she stammered, still not quite managing to find her voice.
"Sorry to startle you," he said, and then leaned forward slightly, extending a hand to shake. "I've heard so much about you, it's good to finally meet. Logan. I mean, I guess you know that. I mean, you can call me Mr Milankovic if you prefer, but I'd prefer to be less formal. We're family now. I mean..." He paused for a second there, maybe unsure what kind of response his words would get. "I guess technically I'm your stepfather, or will be when we can organise a wedding, and I hear a lot of stepfathers expect to be called Dad. I figured that wouldn't really make much sense while your actual dad is still around, but if you want to it's up to you."
"Thanks," she said with a smile. "Logan is fine. It's the name I know you by anyway, when dad's talked about you. I thought you weren't here yet, we didn't see your car. Surprised me a bit, not your fault. So... you got a son, right? Is he here too?"
"Yeah. Ness is... Well, he wanted to unpack some of his stuff. We haven't sorted out who gets which room properly, but if there's a conflict between you two I'm sure we can find a compromise. You want to go introduce yourself, or get settled first?"
Tegan didn't answer, just stood there like a spare wheel while Logan worked the coffee machine and produced two steaming mugs. She didn't really know what she was supposed to say. She might have thought she was pretty good at meeting people, but this was a situation that she didn't know the conventions for. A second later her dad was putting a hand on her shoulder to reassure her, and she turned her head to see the box he had been carrying on the counter. She could see the corner of a toaster protruding from the top, and she guessed that it contained all the kitchen essentials, so that they could have snacks and drinks for the rest of the unpacking.
She sipped her coffee, and was slightly surprised to taste the welcome bitterness of a rich mochaccino. Dad must have told Logan what she liked, and that made it a little easier to look forward to living here. It made her feel like the adults, at least, were making an effort to make her feel comfortable. Her father accepted his own drink with one hand, but put it straight back on the counter so he could hug Logan. It was like watching two old friends who hadn't seen each other for years, even though they'd squeezed in a day or a weekend together whenever it was possible over the last year. Tegan started to feel awkward, and wondered if she should bite the bullet and deal with the threat of her stepbrother, giving the two men a little privacy. But before she could move they stepped apart again, and each picked up a mug.
"You guys want to catch up?" Logan asked, gesturing towards the doorway with his drink. "It's a little spartan at present, but there's enough that we can spend some time together as a family if you'd like." Tegan hesitated, but her dad's hand on her shoulder was enough to settle her moment of indecision. She wanted to know her new family, and somehow it felt a little safer to know how attentive the men of the house would be, and where the limits lay, before she had to deal with a new brother.
Spartan was an understatement. The room was a long rectangle with a chunk bitten out of one corner to accommodate the kitchen. There were windows at both ends, opening onto the front and back yards, and four folding chairs set up near the back. Aside from a couple of boxes in the corner, that was everything.
"If you see the archway in the middle," Logan said, gesturing with his drink again as they sat down. "I was thinking we get some doors in there, so we can have two rooms or open it up when we have guests. Lounge at the front, dining room back here. What do you think?"
"I think it'll be a while before we can afford that," Tegan's dad answered with a chuckle. "But yeah. I think this place really has potential. You got all your boxes in, then?"
"Just about. The truck wouldn't go in the garage with all the stuff on the back. What about yours? I don't think you can fit everything in that car, can you? You said you'd be bringing, well..."
"Just the moving-in essentials," Tegan answered, not wanting to be left out of the conversation. And somehow, Logan was a lot less intimidating than she ever would have expected. "We've got a friend of a friend of the family bringing everything else up tomorrow. He was headed this way anyway, and his truck's big enough for everything. Couch, bookcases, TV, everything."
"And a drumkit," her dad added with a little laugh. "I mean, Kirk knew there'd be a bunch of furniture to load, but when he saw that I wondered if it was going to be the straw that broke the camel's back."
"Oh, drums?" Logan asked. "I heard you were a musician, Tegan, but I don't think Drew ever mentioned what you play."
"Not the drums," Tegan answered, feeling her control of the situation slipping away just when she had started to feel comfortable. That was one thing she didn't want to talk about now, didn't even want to think about. But as soon as her mind went back there, she couldn't form a thought about anything else. This was going to be a tough day after all.