“I asked her to smoke outside.”
“We all live here.”
“Yes. And I’m asking for one basic rule.”
His chair scraped backward.
The sound cut through the kitchen.
Kendra smiled faintly as Daniel crossed the room. I expected him to lower his voice and ask me to calm down. That was his usual method—making the person objecting to his behavior responsible for the tension it caused.
Instead, he reached me, gripped my shoulder, and pushed me back.
My hip struck the edge of the table.
It was not enough to send me to the floor. It was enough to force me to catch myself with both hands and enough to make the soup spoon rattle against its ceramic rest.
For several seconds, none of us moved.
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