Protected (Book 1 in the Ariya Adams trilogy) (5 page)

“I like him a lot
, Care. He seems really, really great. I’m glad to have him here whenever. Are you all in need of some alone time or would you like my help as a tour guide?” I nudged her arm.

She wrinkled her nose
, and then retorted, “we had plenty of alone time last night. Jealous?”

I was really going to miss this when we graduated. I didn’t want to think about not
being able to spend so much time with my friends. Friends and family had always been important in my life. I had a tight-knit family. My dad and mom, and my grandfather, too, when he had been alive, did everything together. They were all at every sporting event, every volunteer activity. Each holiday was an event, and family was just important overall. When I wasn’t with them, I tried to get as much time in with my friends as possible.

I enjoyed alone time
, but I cherished being around people more. Since college, Caroline had become my best friend and an extension of my family. I had a pretty easy time with people in general. I liked listening when someone needed me and I loved helping people with their problems. My mom told me not too many people cared enough to help others with their problems and that it was something I should hold on to.

Caroline let out an exclamation that brought me back to our conversation, “Oh! How about we throw a BBQ? We can play tour guides on campus
, then stop by the store for supplies, and then everyone can come over here?”

“That sounds perfect!”
I beamed back at her.

The first week of college is always the greatest. When you come back and classes haven’t started
, and everyone has nothing to do other than spend time with each other all day, it’s hard to imagine anything better. It’s one of the greatest feelings to just be carefree and surrounded by people you love.

“A
ll right loser,” she said, “go shower – you’re disgusting. We’ll head out after campus to the store to buy some things. I’ll let everyone know.”

“Ew, no need to be mean.
You just wanna go keep Nick company in there.” I threw my napkin at her and ran back to my room.

Forty-five minutes later, we were headed out the door towards campus. We toured around with Nick, taking our time and enjoying the weather.  Our college campus was beautiful, so it was easy to take it slow on the tour, even if it was smaller school. It felt so old. It was almost like you were stepping back in time.

There were stone buildings everywhere that gave it an elegant feel. The flowers were replanted every two weeks
, so things always looked fresh. The Library was the newest building on campus. I thought about some of the other colleges I had visited during high school. They usually had huge, state of the art buildings and all the latest technology in every classroom. That’s how they would market each of their campuses.  It made Kingsbrook look a bit behind the times. The computers had all been upgraded last year, and I think that helped a bit when students came to tour.

Even with the old bu
ildings and lack of technology, it still was a great place to be. It was unique, and you didn’t feel like another face in the crowd. It felt like home to me here. We showed Nick some of our classrooms, the Quad, which was the main area where people hung out during nicer weather days, the different dining halls (there were only three), and that pretty much completed the tour.

We ended up at t
he edge of the campus where the woods began. Woods surrounded the little town on three different sides. The only place that wasn’t wooded was the entrance into town. It was almost as if the entrance funneled everyone in to the circle-shaped area. The trees looked as if they crept towards the buildings and might swallow us up one day. At night, it could be eerie, but once you got used to it, it wasn’t as scary.

When we concluded
our Kingsbrook PR session, Nick gave us a round of applause. “I’m impressed. You guys sure know how to give a good campus tour.”

“Well
, there are only a handful of things you have to remember. The rest is based on experience. Plus, we do it every year for orientation. It’s kind of our thing.” I wanted him to know Caroline was a social butterfly and well liked. He smiled at us.

“I can see why they want you to come back each
year. Now, I think that’s enough of the official tour guide routine. You girls can really sell this school, so I think I have all the information I need.” He paused, waiting for our reactions. “I’m in!” Caroline hollered and gave him a big kiss, and I clapped my hands. He didn’t waste any time refocusing on us. “Now, how about we get on with this BBQ?”

I was taken aback for a minute that Nick had made
his decision so quickly, especially since the year was about to start. Would he have time to register and get into any of the classes he would need to graduate this late in the game? Then I saw the way he was looking at Caroline. He must be serious about this thing with her. Plus, if he didn’t like the school he was at currently as much, I guess transferring really wasn’t that big of a deal to him.

Caroline and I gave another cheer to his response
as we headed over to the grocery store to get everything we would need. Caroline and I put together a game plan as we drove to the store. Once there, we headed to the meat department first. I leaned over the choices, having no idea which package to grab and was debating on whether or not I should just close my eyes and grab one. Wasn’t all meat basically the same? I went to pick up the package closest to me when a voice startled me, and made me drop the item in my hand.

“Step away from the meat,
Ariya!” I turned to see Riley making his way towards us. I narrowed my eyes at him, trying to figure out what he was doing here. “I’m going to be picking up the goods for today. You girls can’t be left in charge of another BBQ or we’ll starve,” he finished.

Riley was referring to an incident
the previous year when Caroline and I’d had everyone over and realized we had gotten some vegetarian burger patties that all the boys hated, and then we ran out of buns. We were distracted by the Derrick drama at the time and were gossiping the whole shopping trip. It wasn’t our fault we didn’t grab the ‘right’ burgers or enough buns.

“
My knight in shining armor!” I pretended to faint and fell into him. “How did you know we were going to be here?”

“Guilty,” Nick raised his hand. Apparently he and Rile
y had exchanged numbers last night. “When you girls sent out the text that we were having a BBQ, Riley asked me to let him know when we were going to the store. He filled me in on how you girls are great planners and decorators, but not so great when it comes to grilling. I had to promise to keep him in the loop as far as our time frame.”

“Nicholas! You have such little
faith in me,” Caroline teased.

I
t was then that I saw James walking over from where Riley had come a moment before. My heart sped up a bit. Caroline looked over at me with a grin on her face.

“Hey James!
It’s good to see you again. You’ll come to the BBQ, too, right?” He smiled that gorgeous side smile of his and said Riley had roped him into it.

“I’ve been instructed to do whatever it ta
kes to keep the BBQ out of yours and Ariya’s hands.” He glanced at me and I felt my stomach drop. I needed to get a grip. Man, he was dangerously handsome. No guy is that great, and I’m sure he had some huge flaw and wasn’t interested anyway. I needed to chill out and stop acting so ridiculous.

“James, good to see you again.
How was Pilates?” I couldn’t keep the grin from my face as I spoke.

“Oh,
yeah, about that. I looked at the schedule wrong. Must have
tripped up.”

He
emphasis of the words
tripped up
made me grimace at him. He just winked in response. I hadn’t realized it was possible for him to get sexier, damn him. We got what groceries we needed and Nick volunteered to get the drinks with Caroline.

“Ariya
, why don’t you head back with Riley and James to unload the food?” Caroline suggested.

I smiled on the inside at h
ow Caroline was trying to play Little Miss Matchmaker. I shook my head and smirked at her. Everyone agreed on that plan and we headed to Riley’s truck.

Hopping
up into the truck as I had done hundreds of times before should have been easy. For some reason, though, my body couldn’t function properly when James was around. My foot slipped from the grip on the side of the truck. I fumbled forward and my hands landed on the cushioned seat.

I jerked my head up to see if either of the boys had noticed. James’ face betrayed him and I saw him smiling as he rearranged the groceries in the truck bed.
Of course he’d witnessed an awkward moment, again.
You’ve got to be kidding me.

Rolling my eyes,
I scooted to the middle while the boys finished loading everything into the back. James climbed in next to me and I started playing with the radio to distract myself. Doing that allowed me to shift my focus off of him the whole ride and stay semi-cool. At least I hoped I had.

We got to my apartment and
as I went to climb out of the truck, James put his hand up. “You better take this,” he smiled, confirming he had definitely seen me miss the ledge of the truck earlier.

My face turned beet red. I couldn't think of a single witty remark to make back at him. Instead, I grabbe
d his hand and let him help me.

“Thanks,” I said
, barely able to make eye contact. Just once, I would like to at least appear graceful in front of this man.

The guys unloaded everything while I got
them a drink. When they were done, we flopped down on the couch to wait for Nick and Caroline to come back. Riley snatched the remote out of my hand, claiming it was necessary. He didn’t even get the TV on before Nick and Caroline walked in, though.

We
’d told the rest of the group to come over a bit later. While we were waiting, we decided we were going to play some games on our own. Beer Pong was up first because Caroline had some crazy ability to have perfect aim and loved winning. We had an uneven number, which meant I had a 50-50 chance of getting stuck with James and not being able to breathe, or Riley and have him mock me at how horrible my aim was the whole time.

Riley
got up and offered to grill the food, making James my only option for a partner.
Great, I’m going to make a fool of myself
, I thought.

“Ever played before?” I asked James. He looked at me in the strangest way. I chided myself
, remembering that he was in some city before coming here, not on another planet.

“Of course.
Isn’t this a staple at college parties?” he said. I grinned sheepishly, realizing the question had been silly.

“Sorry, I just thought it’d be better to ask than assume.” He studied me for a minute before chuckling.

“Thanks.” He turned his attention to the game before saying, “Ready?” I nodded.

We started playing and it seemed to me the more I drank, the better I was. It was down to the last cup for each team and it was my turn. Squinting seemed to help when it came to focusing my vision towards the cups on Caroline’s end of the table more clearly. My arm went up,
arced the ball back and to my utter amazement, it went right in! I started cheering and James reached over and gave me a … high five. Ugh, lame
.

Mid-celebration, the door burst open and the rest of the party
people waltzed in. They were right on time because Riley had just finished up with the food and walked it into the kitchen.

“Food’s up!” h
e announced.

The last people through the door were Ashley and Devon. He smiled over at me immediately. What was it with all the attention from him? A small part of me had
that tingling chill again, like when I’d first met him. I tried shaking it off, telling myself I had been overly sensitive lately. It was true. I had been experiencing quite the range of emotions. I must really be up and down about senior year, because I’d never had such a roller-coaster ride of feelings before in such a short amount of time.

Things were always pretty steady in my life. The only time I got overly emotional was when reading a book or watching sappy movies. Sometimes those cute Christmas commercials got
to me, too, but I thought that was pretty typical for a girl. Lately, though, I felt like I was an emotional blur and that I was all over the place. I chalked it up to the lack of sleep, and that was due to my falling sensations. However, it was getting a bit ridiculous.

The tingling sensations that occasionally shot through me from Dev
on, the completely idiotic love-struck feelings for James when I knew nothing about him, and even the falling dream itself were a bit strange. My anxiety levels must be crazy with graduation only a year away. Maybe every senior goes through an emotional time. I decided I would just avoid Ashley and Devon as much as possible, even if I were just being sensitive.

James came up next to me and asked if I wanted a drink. I hadn’t
noticed him standing there, so I was startled. “Um, sure, I could use one.” We headed over to the kitchen and he handed me a cup.