Read STEPBROTHER: Bad Boy Blues (Taboo Romance) for Free Online Page B

the previous day.  I was hoping he’d just look at me, even for a few seconds, even just to say hi.  But he didn’t, and I was left to wonder if what he saw in the bathroom has created a wall of awkwardness between us.
     
    Chelsea Summers, on the other hand, who was sitting two rows behind Darwin, was able to win his attention a few times.  Once, when she borrowed his pen.  Of course, Darwin isn’t the type who’d carry one... even in school.  He just smiled at her and said sorry.  Another, when she excused herself to go to the restroom and she passed by Darwin’s seat, brushing her pelvis on his arm.  That made him look at her, and she returned his gaze with a knowing grin.
     
    “Betty!” Maggie screamed from the other end of the hallway during the second period break.  She quickly ran towards me and greeted me with a tight hug.
     
    “What’s up, Maggie?” I asked.
     
    “I heard about what happened yesterday,” she said.  “Your teacher got mad at you?  That’s a first!”
     
    “It was nothing,” I explained.  “She just caught me laughing.”
     
    “Why were you laughing?” she questioned suspiciously.
     
    “Uhm... just a passing thought that I found funny,” I reasoned out.  “Besides, her attention turned to Darwin and she totally forgot about me.”
     
    “Darwin?  Why?  What did he do?”
     
    “He, uhm... he acted weird.  Effects of his medication.  He kinda disrespected Ms. Tesmacher.  She asked me to accompany him to the clinic until the effects wore off.”
     
    “Medication?” Maggie asked as she pondered.  “He’s not into drugs or anything, right?”
     
    “No, no, nothing of that sort,” I quickly replied.
     
    “You know, maybe he just acted like that to save your butt,” she continued.
     
    She was right, of course, but I didn’t want to verify her idea because, knowing her, she’d just start this nasty rumor about me and my stepbrother.
     
    “Nah... it was really the meds,” I uttered, feigning nonchalance.
     
    Maggie just shrugged and changed the topic.
     
    “You know, I bumped into Emerson earlier,” she started.  “He was asking about you.”
     
    “What about me?”
     
    “He was asking if you’d go to his party.”
     
    “Yeah, I will.”
     
    “Really?  You managed to convince your mom to allow you to go?”
     
    “Yup!”
     
    “I find that hard to believe.  What’s the catch?”
     
    “Darwin should come with me.”
     
    “Aha!  So you took Emerson ’s advice... just to go to Emerson ’s party!  I see a pattern here...”
     
    “Oh, shut up Maggie!  Emerson’s super nice and fairly good looking.  I’m sure a lot of girls are going gaga over him, and he has a lot to choose from.  He wouldn’t even give a spectacle-wearing Plain Jane a second look.”
     
    “Uhm... Betty?  You do realize that with the way you’re talking, you’re basically admitting that you like Emerson and you want him to actually see you as a potential girlfriend, right?”
     
    Normally, I would’ve been infuriated by such an insinuation.  But my mind was still reeling from the shame and the guilt from the night before as well as the humiliation I suffered this morning... and from a strange sense of fear... fear that someone might find out about my conflicted feelings for Darwin.
     
    So I pinched Maggie’s arm and pretended to giggle.  I acted as though I was blushing, even if I was not.  She just snickered with me and placed her finger on her lip, a silent promise that it would be kept a secret between us.
     
    I went back to my classroom.  Darwin was already there, and so was Chelsea Summers.  As Mr. Nathanielz discussed the practical usage of Calculus, my eyes wandered - surreptitiously - towards my stepbrother.  He was restless.  He was shaking his legs as if he wanted to be somewhere else, doing something that actually interested him. 
     
    Then Chelsea Summers passed him a note, and a smile formed on his face.
     
    She