Blended Hearts #2 (An Interracial Stepbrother Romance Book) Read Free Page A

back to the
table, Mom had already put a sizeable portion on my plate. I had to smile. I knew
she had cooked it for me.
    Once again, we ate in
silence. There was nothing to say really. Mom and I had our little chat when I
came back from school, and whatever Daniel or Richard had to say wouldn’t
interest me in the least.
    When we finished eating,
Mom asked me to get the coffee tray from the kitchen and to bring it to the
living room. As for Daniel, Richard told him to help with clearing the table. It’s about time, I thought. I hadn’t
seen him lift a finger since we moved in, except when he lent a hand to the
movers.
    As he came into the
kitchen with a stack of dishes, he looked at me inquiringly. I just shrugged.
    “Where do you want
these?” he asked – as if you didn’t know?
    I shrugged again.
    He put them in the sink
and walked out. I shook my head. I hated men who had no clue in the kitchen.
Getting dishes in the dishwasher would not be too much to ask in my book, but I
wouldn’t open my mouth to tell him what to do. If he wants to play dumb, so will I .
    I took the tray to the
living room without a word, put it on the coffee table, smiled at my mother and
excused myself. As I went up the stairs, I heard Richard ask Daniel if he
intended to clear the rest of the plates and serving dish or if he wanted to
see them in the morning.
    I laughed inwardly.
    I spent the rest of the
evening working on my algebra and physics problems. After all, they weren’t as
bad as all that. As a matter of fact, other than a couple of jabs from Elise at
lunch time, all in all, it had been a rather good day. I was pleased when I thought
of Daniel doing the kitchen chores. We’ll
get you trained yet, Mr. Daniel Robson.

 
    However, my good humor
didn’t last but the first 24 hours of that week. The rest was a nightmare.
Avoiding Daniel proved to be a task all on its own. I had to calculate our
comings and goings so that we would NOT meet in the corridors, upstairs – in
the bathroom of course – and in most places at school. Since we were both in
grade 12 now with only months before we were done with high school, I figured
it would not be too difficult to adapt to the new “avoidance routine” and get
on with life.
    But I had a recurring
problem. I was feeling like a traitor. Worse than that, I felt as if I was
betraying my own emotions. I could not admit it, but I wanted to be with
Daniel. I soon started to observe him. Perhaps it was for that very same reason
that he was hovering around me whenever I pretended not to be looking.
    “You two should really
stop playing that silly game, you know,” Gaby said to me one morning as she was
eating another one of her muffins. “It’s getting really obvious.”
    “What on earth are you
talking about?” I asked as innocently as I could. “You’re the one who told me
to ignore him or be indifferent, and that’s what I’m doing, isn’t it?”
    Gaby shook her head. “Not
exactly,” she said, after she swallowed another spoonful of yogurt. “You’re
watching him to see if he’s looking at you. And when you’re not doing it, he’s
the one trying to see if you’re looking at him.” She wiped her mouth with her
napkin. “Truly, Madison, you’re acting like a twelve-year old right now.”
    “What else do you want me
to do? I can’t very well go up to him and slap his face for looking at me, now
can I?”
    “There you go again;
jumping into extreme action. You should really join one of these “ Xtreme Sports” teams – I’m sure you’ll do very well.”
    “Okay, okay, so what do
you suggest I do then?”
    “How about sitting down
with the guy? At home. With no one around and have it out. Whatever is bugging
you two needs to come out before it festers and kills you both.”
    I suppose it would have
been sound advice if it hadn’t been for the fact that we already “had it out”,
as Gaby proposed. We really had to mend what we had destroyed. We had destroyed
a