Protected (Book 1 in the Ariya Adams trilogy) Read Free Page B

came to college with a serious girlfriend, who’d cheated on him midway through our first year. Caroline and I were the ones he opened up to. Well, I can’t say he really turned into a jerk. He was never mean. He just went through women relatively quickly.
    I hit his arm at his kissing comment, knowing it was harmless, and changed the subject to his summer. After catching up, he noticed more people had arrived so he bowed playfully and went to make his rounds. I headed to grab another beer and found Caroline was refilling her glass, also.
    “Where’s Nick?” I asked, looking around.
    “He ran upstairs for a minute to use the bathroom. Isn’t he a dreamy? I’m so glad he actually came. I was worried , now that the summer was over, it might be the end for us. He is talking about other things to do, though, like fall and winter-themed type things, so at least he is still interested!”
    For a minute , it almost seemed like Caroline was trying to be overly convincing about her relationship with Nick, but I shook off the feeing as soon as it came. What purpose would that serve? Plus he’s here, what would she be making up? It felt strange having even thought of something like that about her.
    “Of course he is still interested. Why wouldn’t he be? You’re perfect. Also, I think that’s the first time you’ve used the word dreamy in a non-mocking Ariya tone. Are you drunk?” She stuck her tongue out at me and stepped around to stand next to me.
    “Have you seen Ashley’s guy yet?”
    “No, but I’m sure we’ll be introduced the second he arrives. How does she meet all of these guys, seriously?” We started giggling and, as if on cue, Ashley walked up.
    “Hey gals! This here is Devon. He is new this year, just a babe sophomore. I thought it’d be fun to invite him over and show him around.”
    It took everything in me not to look at Caroline and burst out laughing at that moment , but I just shook the flavor-of-the-month’s hand and said, “Welcome to Kingsbrook.” He looked pleasant enough with his luscious lips, ruffled brown hair, and dark brown eyes. At first glance, he was fairly attractive. It seemed funny that he was only a sophomore. He looked much older than that.
    Something unsett ling passed over me when he smiled at me and I scolded myself for making any kind of judgment about him before we’d even spoken. Just because he hopped on the Ashley Train didn’t mean he was a bad guy. Flashing a quick smile back, I turned to see if Caroline had noticed anything off as well. She was acting as normal as ever. Well, as normal as she ever acted around Ashley. It must have been just be me.
    “How’d you all meet?” Curiosi ty was getting the better of me. We had only been back a couple hours and already we were being introduced to someone new.
    “Oh , well, I met Devon hiking a couple weeks ago.”
    “Hiking?” Caroline and I said in unison . I couldn’t help the eye contact on that one. Ashley didn’t normally do outdoorsy things like hike.
    “Yep.” She smiled sweetly at Devon, who was smirking at me with an intensity behind his eyes that was making me a bit uncomfortable. Ashley seemed to notice.
    “We hit it off right away , right babe?” Devon’s eyes flicked back to her and his smirk turned into more of a devilish grin. He didn’t answer her, though.
    She clearly wanted to parade him around as much as possible . We didn’t even finish the conversation before she was dragging him away. Or perhaps it was due to the fact that Devon kept staring at me. Maybe this outfit looked strange or something. Ashley excused them.
    “Well, on to more introductions. I’ m sure we’ll see ya’ll later.”
    “That was weird,” I whispered to Caroline wondering if she too had noticed the attention Devon had bee n giving me.
    “Huh? What was weird?” s he replied a bit too quickly, which didn’t fit the casual tone she’d used in the question. Apparently, she didn’t think anything was off at