Soul Kiss Read Online Free Page A

right?" he asked. "We read Macbeth last year in my Shakespeare class in my last school."
    "Daniel. Laptops?"
    He blushed. "Oh, yeah. Right." He turned and headed toward the laptop display.
    "He's very nice," my father said as we followed. "Is he a friend of yours?"
    "God, no. He's just in my class."
    My father didn't say anything, just nodded in that kind of father knows best way. I wanted to argue some more but something told me that wasn't the right way to go.
    I had to give Daniel props. He really knew his shit. He took us right to a great laptop with a huge display, like seventeen inches, and pointed out all the stuff my dad could do with it. He was totally sold. "And it's on sale today," Daniel finished. "All the laptops and netbooks by this manufacturer." He looked at me. "A netbook would be great for Melissa," he said. "Lightweight, easy to carry around."
    I could have kissed Daniel for that. Or not.
    "Would you want a new computer?" my father asked me. "We could give your laptop to Robbie. He's always borrowing your mom's and I know she hates that."
    Like, duh. Was I going to say no? "Sure. I want to maximize hard disk space, though. Screen size doesn't matter to me."
    "I know just the one." Daniel led us over an aisle and pointed at a display.
    "Pink!" I said. "No way. Do I look like the kind of girl who would carry around a pink computer?"
    My father laughed. "You don't know my daughter well, do you?"
    "Not yet," Daniel said.
    I must have turned as red as a Christmas decoration. Daniel said, "It comes in midnight blue too."
    At that point I wanted to just run out of the store, but my computer lust trumped embarrassment. "I could go with blue."
    "What kind of software do these machines come with?" my father asked.
    He and Daniel got into a discussion and I zoned out, daydreaming about my new computer. When I tuned back in, my father was saying, "That would be terrific, Daniel. Why don't you plan to stay for dinner?"
    Huh? What was going on? When my dad gave him our address I realized Daniel had volunteered to come over to the house and set up the new computers for us. Shit.
    "Your friend seems like a very nice boy," my father said, as we drove back home.
    "He's not my friend." I slumped in the corner of the front seat, as close to the door as I could get. My life was a disaster movie. Daniel Florez was coming to MY HOUSE. He would meet my crazy mom and the Big Mistake. And everybody would start to think he was my boyfriend. I could just die.
    We got home as Mom was pulling in with the SUV loaded with groceries, and dad said, "Help your mother. We don't have to unpack the computers until Daniel gets here."
    I groaned. As he told my mother all about my new friend , I grabbed a couple of bags of groceries and trudged toward the kitchen.
    After everything was unpacked and put away, I was itching to get my hands on my new netbook, but my dad had put everything in his study to wait for Daniel. I texted Brie for a while, sitting in my room looking out the window, and then I saw Daniel walking up the street toward the house.
    Gt 2 go , I texted. Geek alert .
    I walked outside and met Daniel at the curb. "Where's your car?"
    "Don't have one. One of the guys I work with dropped me off down on Main Street and I walked up here."
    "But that's like two miles."
    He shrugged. "I like to walk. So where are the computers?"
    I led him into the house, which was chaotic as usual. The Big Mistake was sprawled on the sofa playing a video game, and my mom was at the dining room table making these miniature straw scarecrows she found a pattern for in one of her thousands of home magazines. I mumbled my introductions and dragged Daniel toward the study.
    We had bought all kinds of software, and between unpacking and installing everything, Daniel and I were busy for a while. It was fun working with him, I have to admit. He knew a lot about computers, and I learned about setting up partitions and installing anti-virus software. It got dark