Blended Hearts #2 (An Interracial Stepbrother Romance Book) (4 page)

When the pizza was
served, we ate with appetite. It was everything I expected one of my Mom’s
pizzas to be – plenty of toppings, tomato sauce, cheese and a golden crust.
Delicious!

Daniel and I thoroughly
enjoyed it. We hardly touched the wine except for the glass he had poured
originally.

When it was all done and
no crumbs remained, we went to have a look at what was on TV. Friday night was
not the best, but we found a movie that we both liked. Again, I sat at one end
of the sofa and Daniel at the other. Closeness was truly dangerous for us and
we knew it. At least I did. I was well aware of my feelings for him. They were
strictly sexual and I hated myself for letting them get the better of me. I
wanted to nestle into his arms and have his hand caress me…
Good God! Stop it, Madison. You’re being a
total nymphet now.
I grabbed a cushion from the back of me and cuddled it
instead of him.

I kept looking at
Daniel’s profile when a commercial came on. For his part, he had his eyes
riveted on the screen most of the time. It was almost as if he was forcing
himself not to look at me. Come to think of it, he probably was doing exactly
that.

In the middle of the
movie, I had enough of the incessant battle against my feelings. I got to my
feet, and said, “I think I’ve had enough for one night.” I walked to the stairs
and added from over my shoulder, “Good night then.”

“Good night, Madison.
Sleep tight.”

That reply was not
without meaning, or I thought so at the time. Then Gaby’s voice came to mind:
Can’t you just accept a good thing for what
it is?

I had a shower – a long
one to take all the fatigue away – and returned to my room to lie down. It
wasn’t long before I heard a knock at my door.

“Come in, if you’re
decent,” I replied, sitting up.

“Sorry to bug you,
Madison, but we need to talk.”

“Talk about what?”

“About what’s happening
to us, or have you chucked it all to experience by now?”

“No, Daniel, I am not
ignoring anything. I’m not setting anything aside. But this – whatever you
think “this” is – is not going to happen.”

“And what do you think
this is?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I really
don’t. I want to call it friendship, but since neither of us can change the
past, we simply have to accept that it was all wrong and move on.”

I was making sense, but
my insides were screaming to jump out of that bed, grab him and kiss him until
he begged me to stop. I wanted to fix whatever had been broken between us; I
really wanted to have a relationship with him, especially since he had stood up
for me the way he had.

But all of my wishes and
hope or even dreams wouldn’t come true if he continued to push for having sex
with me again.

He sat down beside me.
“I’m sorry Madison, but I can’t move on,” he declared firmly. “I can’t just
forget how I feel about you.”

“What do you want me to
say to that, Daniel?”

“Just tell me that we
have a chance together.”

“I truly don’t know if we
do. It’s not like we can turn the clock back and erase everything that
happened, but we’ve got to face it anything else than friendship between us is
not going to work – because it’s wrong.”

He shook his head. “You
keep on saying
it’s
wrong, but I can’t believe it is.
And I’m not talking about having free-sex because we feel like it or whenever
we feel the urge, I’m talking about a serious relationship here. I’m talking
about “making love”, not just “having sex”. It’s not the same thing, is it?”

“No, it is not the same –
far from it. But I don’t even know if I’m ready for all of what “making love”
implies. And I don’t know that you are either.”

“I just can’t accept that
we are deemed to remain this thorn apart for the rest of our lives, Madison. I
need to make you feel good; I need to feel you; I need to keep you safe…”

“Don’t say another word,
Daniel,” I whispered. “We’re sliding down a dangerous slope here.”

“Why on earth do you
think we’re in danger? Where’s the fire?” He looked around him.

“Oh, don’t be such an
ass!” My nerves were ready to burst. I knew it. It had to happen. Even Gaby had
said it:
You’ll put your foot in it up to
your knee….
“Oh God, Daniel, I’m so sorry…”

“Right, and I’m sorry too
Madison,” he said, getting to his feet. He strode to the door of my room,
opened it, walked out and slammed it behind him.

I had done it, hadn’t I?
Instead of finding a solution that we could both accept, I had to get on my
high horse and insult him.
Well done,
Madison! You’re really a piece of work, aren’t you?
Daniel had said it and
I was.

CHAPTER
6

It was barely ten minutes
later when I heard another knock at my door. I truly couldn’t believe it at
first.
How could he be so obstinate?
Obstinacy
seemed to run in this fucked up family.

“What do you want?” I
hollered through the door.

“To talk, Madison. Just
to talk. Please,” he replied softly.

Oh,
what the hell. Let’s not be childish about this.
“Okay
then, come in and let’s talk.”

He opened the door slowly
as if he were expecting to be fired upon as soon as he put a foot forward. I
smiled.

Seeing my smile, he
grinned. He walked to the bed and sat down.

“What do you think we
should do?” he asked.

“First, let me say I’m
sorry about what I said. You were right, there’s no real danger, no fire, but
we can’t ignore that us having sex is not a usual way to behave between
brothers and sisters and it might shock a few people…”

“Are you talking about
Dad and Janice?”

“They are our prime
concern, of course, aren’t they?”

“Sure, but it’s not our
fault that they got married, is it?”

“It sure isn’t, nevertheless,
they are parents of two adult children now…”

“Two adult children who
want to have a relationship, right?”

There was no use denying
it any more. I nodded.

“Yes, that’s what I’d
like to see happen between us, but I really don’t know how it can happen.
That’s the problem.”

“I have to agree with you
on that one. I don’t know what my dad would do if Janice would tell him that
we’re in a relationship…”

“Why would you think that
my mom would blab about us, if she knew?” Did Daniel think I was talking to Mom
behind his back?

“Doesn’t she know?”

“Of course not Daniel. I
know you haven’t had the privilege of knowing your mother before she died, but
mothers and daughters share a few things, but not their sex lives. That’s like
a private subject, even if you are very close with your mom. And I must tell
you, since Mom got married; we haven’t had that many mother-daughter talks.”

“Okay, but the question
is the same,” Daniel said, “What do you think my dad would do if he learned
that we had sex?”

“I don’t know. You tell
me.”

“Probably pack my bags
for me and send me to Alaska to cool my heels and other more sensitive parts of
my body.”

I smiled at the thought
of seeing Daniel dressed like an Inuit, with his bags standing beside him, in
the middle of a raging blizzard. “So, you agree with me that there are some
dangers associated with what we’re doing?” I asked.

“To an extent, yes. But
all joking aside, I think what we need to be afraid of – more than of our
parents – is the social media. Whether it’s Facebook, Twitter,
Instagram
or even texting each other, if someone was to
detect a hint of us having a relationship, it will be the end of us – or at
least it would spell disaster for your mom and my dad.”

I had to agree with that
one.

“But what do you propose
we do?”

“Let’s behave like we
have been doing but,” I suggested, “let’s try being friends – just friends.”

“Here we go again! We’re
going in circles, Madison. Just let’s be honest with each other, shall we?” I
nodded. “It’s not as simple as that, is it? We have feelings for each other. We
have emotions that run deep and we can’t just stop everything for the sake of
our social status, now can we?”

“No, we can’t – not for
preserving our social status – but for the sake of our parents.”

“No, Madison. We have to
be honest with ourselves, with our parents and with each other. We want this to
work – and I’m not just talking about friendship either.” He lay down beside
me. I couldn’t move. I was numb. I had fought for so long and so hard against
my own sense of right and wrong that I was surrendering to what felt good.

I peered into his eyes.
“Maybe we should
pretend
to be
friends or behave like we are for the outside world, but for the two of us, and
for the time being, we don’t pretend anything. Do you think that would work?”

He was about to say
something when, as if the sound came from the outer-world, I heard my phone
ring. I was up like a shot. I unplugged it and looked at Daniel sprawled on my
bed. Before I put the phone to my ear, I said, “Do you mind getting out of here…?”

He hopped off the bed,
chuckled and walked out. I shook my head.

“Hello, Gaby?”

“Yeah, are you up?” She
sounded a little out of breath.

“Yeah, why? Are you
okay?”

“Do you mind if I come in
for a few minutes?”

That was the strangest
request I had ever heard from Gaby. At this time of night, on Friday, she was
generally in bed or watching some TV or even online with me, but not asking me
to come for a visit.

“Yeah, yeah, of
course…I’ll just get dressed…”

“Whatever you’re wearing,
it’s fine Madison. I’m not coming to check your wardrobe. Just come down so I
don’t have to ring the doorbell, okay?”

“Okay, okay. I’ll be down
and get you in a minute. Just hold on.”

I grabbed my robe from
the closet and slipped it on.

When I opened my bedroom
door, Daniel was waiting for me by the railing.

“What’s going on?” he
asked. “Is everything okay?”

“I don’t know,” I
replied. “It’s Gaby. She’s coming over and she sounded upset. She’s never done
that before.”

Daniel followed me down
the stairs.

I could see Gaby’s silhouette
through the front door’s opaque glass.

“Let me,” Daniel said,
brushing past me. “You don’t know who’s with her.”

I didn’t have time to
object, he was already opening the door.

“Oh, hi Daniel…,” Gaby
said, sounding very surprised to see him standing there. “May I come in?”

“Isn’t Gill with you?” he
asked, opening the door wide for Gaby.

“No, I’ve just come from
the gym. I don’t know where he is tonight.” She stepped toward me.

I took her in my arms and
whispered, “What’s going on?”

Daniel shoved his hands
in his pockets and watched the two of us. Same as I did, he probably noticed
the fact that Gaby was shivering.

“Let’s go to the living
room. Our parents are out for the evening,” I suggested, taking her by the arm
and leading my friend to the couch.

Daniel took a seat across
from us while I sat beside my dearest friend – concerned.

“So what’s going on,
Gaby? Why are you here? Has something happened at the gym?”

She took her jacket,
toque and gloves off. Her hair was still wet. I didn’t doubt that she had gone
for a swim. She tousled her hair and then wrung her hands, before she said,
“I’m sorry to get you both out of bed so late, but I didn’t want to go home
before I talked to you Madison.” She threw a pointed glance in Daniel’s
direction.

He took the hint, got up,
and said, “I’ll be upstairs. Just holler if you need me okay?”

I nodded and returned my
attention to Gaby. She had her eyes riveted down to her lap.

“So, what happened that
you’re afraid to go home…?” I reclined to the back of the sofa and waited.

Finally she turned to me.
“You were right,” she mumbled.

“Right about what?”

“I usually don’t go
swimming on Friday, as you know. But tonight I felt restless and I thought it
would give me something to do.” She paused and leaned back beside me. She then
turned to me. “About Elise, Sylvia and Simone…” I rolled my eyes up to the
ceiling. “I know. I know you don’t want me to talk about them. But I’m sure
you’d want to know that they’re doing drugs!”

“Say what?” I said, much
louder than I wanted. “Are you sure? Did you see them smoking a joint or
something?”

Gaby shook her head
vigorously. “No, nothing like that, Madison. It’s different. It was a girl …
someone I’d never seen before … not at school anyway … and she was talking to
Elise and the other two when I went into the café to have a hot chocolate
before going home.”