Page 124 of The Blind Date

Cheers,

Alfie and Yasmin

"Cheers?" I laughed. "Clarke and Don? No sorry? Nothing about the competition tomorrow?"

"Let me see yours," Cedric muttered under his breath. His frown deepened as he read my note. "Fine," he sighed and scrunched his note up. "Yours is so much better. I'm just going to copy it."

Once the notes were done and attached to the boxes of chocolates, Cedric and I split up. The plan was simple. Cedric would show up at his parents' room and claim that he found the note and box of chocolates outside, and I would do the same with mine.

Simple, right?

* * *

"Didyou guys know there's a box of chocolate outside your door?" I asked absentmindedly as I walked into my parent’s room not even half an hour later. I waited ten minutes after Cedric walked into his parent’s room to be on the safe side.

"What box of chocolates?" Dad asked, peeking his head out the door to glance up and down the hallway.

"These chocolates," I laughed and pushed the box into his hands. "Can we please open them? Hazelnut pralines are my favourite.”

"Why was there a box of chocolate outside our room?" Mum asked from the bathroom, and I could hear the frown in her voice.

"I don't know, honey,” Dad replied. "Saff found it."

"They better be from the Barlowes. They were completely out of order today."

"Can we open them up, please?" I asked again, desperate for Dad to turn over the box and spot the note.

"Sure, honey,” he said, and I watched intently as he turned it over. His eyes immediately landed on the note. “There’s a note on the back,” he stated with a confused look on his face.

"A note?" I asked, acting surprised. "What does it say?”

"I don't know."

"You should open it."

"What note?" Mum asked as she walked back into the room. "Who is it from?"

"It's from Alfie and Yasmin." Dad's frown deepened as he put down the chocolates, his attention now solely on the envelope in his hands.

"What do they want?" Mum huffed, but Dad didn't reply. He was too busy reading the words on the paper.

I tried to hide my grin at how perfectly the plan was working out. They would finish reading the note, have a few chocolates, and then make up with the Barlowes just in time for the competition tomorrow.

Except, unfortunately, things didn’t really end up working out the way Cedric and I had planned.

"The nerve of these people,” Dad scoffed as he ripped up the note.

My jaw dropped as I watched him, and then it dropped a little further as Mum took the perfectly great box of chocolates and disposed of it in the bin.

"What are you doing?" I asked, my eyes wide in disbelief. "Why did you just rip up the note? And why did you throw away the chocolates?” They were far from cheap! “What did they ever do to you?”

“A cheap box of chocolates isn't enough to win us over,” Mum scoffed. "Alfie and Yasmin are despicable people, and we don't want anything to do with them."

"Not for all the chocolate in the world," Dad added, though he looked torn.

"Why are you guys even fighting? What happened?" I asked, my eyebrows furrowed together in confusion.

"Don't even get me started, Saff," Mum groaned and held her hand up, just as dramatic as usual.

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