Free STEPBROTHER: Bad Boy Blues (Taboo Romance) by Ora Wilde Page A

were on.  The doors were open as well, and outside were people... lots of people, both familiar and unfamiliar... Maggie, Chelsea Summers, Emerson, Colton, Cassandra, and Melinda among others... looking at us with shocked, pale white faces.  One of them had her mobile phone drawn out. 
     
    The same mobile phone that produced the clicking sound.
     
    She took a picture of us kissing.
     
    “Oh my God!” Maggie screamed.  “The shit just hit the fan!”

S ometimes, people don’t have to say anything to express what’s on their mind.
     
    As I walked the hallway towards my classroom that Monday after the disastrous party, I saw how they stared at me.  People I knew.  People I didn’t know.  They were looking at me differently.  Some would cover their mouths to hide their giggles.  Some would have that addled look on their faces.  Some were more direct as they gave me gazes of abhorrence and distaste, a little short of mouthing why?  Why did you do it Betty?  Why did you kiss your own stepbrother?
     
    I never got to know the name of the girl who took our picture.  I never had the strength to find out.  Maggie brought me home that Saturday evening as Darwin decided to waste the night drinking, alone, outside Emerson’s house by the marbled fountain fronting a stretched out garden that seemed to go on forever... much like my misery, and I suppose, his as well.
     
    As soon as I got home, I locked myself up in my room.  My phone kept beeping, signaling some new Facebook notifications from friends and tweets from the people I follow. 
     
    Facebook was kinder. OMG, that party was wild, go ask Betty Smith , was by far the worst post I’ve read in my timeline.
     
    But Twitter... Twitter was a lot more unforgiving.  Every person in my network and every person in the network of the people in my network were reposting the same photo - which featured our lips and bodies locked in an incriminating embrace with his hand at the side of my breast and my hand almost touching his rear - coupled with an enmeshing hash tag...
     
    #KissingSiblings
     
    Darwin didn’t come home that night, which made me feel even worse.  I wanted to talk to him, to know how he was feeling, to hope that his words and his ways would make the pain and the shame go away.  Instead, I had to deal with the one thing that made the ordeal even more miserable... loneliness.
     
    Darwin got home Sunday evening.  Uncle Charlie was furious when his son suddenly barged in after dinner.  Uncle Charlie scolded him and reminded him that even though he was nineteen, he was still under his father’s care and he shouldn’t be spending the night elsewhere without at least informing them.  Darwin didn’t reply to him, not a single word.  His face was as stoic as stone.  He just went straight to his room and I haven’t seen him since then.
     
    As I entered our classroom, the other students continued to give me strange glances.  I wanted to look back at them and ask what their problem was.  But I didn’t.  I couldn’t.  I was never that brash... especially when I knew, exactly, why they were gaping at me with ridicule and scorn and condemnation.
     
    I sat on my chair and opened a book.  I tried my best to block everything out and just focus on what I was supposed to be reading.  It was very hard. 
     
    Then someone stood in front of the seat next to mine... Darwin’s seat.
     
    Hope rushed into my heart as I looked up, ready to smile, ready to be braver, ready to stand up - with him - and quell the scandal that threatened to ruin us.  With excitement and faith, I looked up...
     
    But it wasn’t him.
     
    It was Chelsea Summers.
     
    She smiled at me and sat down.
     
    “Hey,” the bitch greeted me.
     
    “Hey,” I returned, almost mumbling as I went back to my book.
     
    “Fantastic weekend huh?” she said.
     
    “Yep,” I succinctly answered.
     
    “You know, Betty, don’t let them bother you...”
     
    What?   Chelsea