Reason and Romance (River Valley Book 1) by Jenn Young Read Free Book Online

was implicitly understood that she would do her best.
    No, he wasn’t going to hear a word about this. Not if she could help it. Like it or not, Alex’s mother actually made him happy. For the first time in years Adrian could remember, he’d lost that careworn expression.
    She wouldn’t ruin that for him. Someone had to be happy around here.
    She slipped her hand into her backpack for her cell phone. Still no messages from Jason. She’d texted him three times and emailed him twice. They’d had only one hurried conversation before he’d said he had to leave for practice. She knew he hadn’t been lying since she’d clearly heard his coach shouting in the background, but he could have called her back.
    He hadn’t.
    There was a good explanation—only she didn’t have one yet, and it frightened her. He was one of the few people who knew her.
    If she lost him …
    “Talked back to your teacher again?” Travis said.
    She lifted her eyes from her phone. It sounded as if Travis was attempting a decent conversation, but that had to be wrong. Hadn’t he refused to talk to her yesterday, just because he’d found out who she was?
    “Yes. You do remember who I am?”
    “Well, yeah.” His smile was guileless. “But nobody’s here so … and I heard how you took that witch down.”
    “Which one? There are so many of them.”
    “Mandy Fitzpatrick. She always looks down at me and other kids.”
    She took another look at Travis. Back at home, she wouldn’t have talked to him, simply because they would have moved in different social circles, but her choices were limited here. Besides, it was nice talking to someone.
    “Is there anyone who doesn’t worship Alex?” she said.
    Even she could hear the bite to her voice. It wasn’t fair that Alex was the popular one here while she was the shunned one. She didn’t want to be the most popular girl here, but was it so much to ask for one or two girlfriends? So far, she’d seen only Bri Latimer and Mandy Fitzpatrick and a lot of other girls who seemed to be halfway in love with Alex.
    He was good-looking, she’d give him that. She’d heard something about how rare green eyes were, and that certainly helped him. And yeah, it helped that he had the body of an Adonis, something you just didn’t see too often in high school.
    But …
    “He clashed with Mr. Melbourne last year,” Travis said. “That’s why that prick hates you. Melbourne. That’s your English teacher, right?”
    She’d already suspected the teacher hated her because of Alex, but if Travis knew this piece of information, everyone else probably knew. Great. Just great. Now she had a permanent target painted on her back.
    “Does Alex have any other enemies I should know about?” she asked.
    Travis glanced around before answering. Even though they were the only ones in the vicinity, he lowered his voice as if they were engaged in espionage.
    “Oh yeah, some kids hate him. But they all want to be him.”
    It made Adrian want to roll her eyes. People seriously wanted to be like her future stepbrother? However, Travis was right. She’d certainly seen longing and envy in too many faces for her to dismiss what he’d just said.
    “You don’t like him, do you?” Travis said.
    “Excuse me?”
    “Montgomery.” He made a vague gesture. The arabesque occupied his attention for a few seconds, then his blue eyes fixed on her again. “Why don’t you like him?”
    “You want to know why I don’t like Alex? Oh, where do I even start?”
    “At the beginning?”
    Her lips curved before she could stop herself. “I guess that’s the right way to do it. He’s so arrogant.”
    That was the crux. She could have said any number of things, and they all would have been true, but nothing topped Alex’s so-called speech at his mother’s party. He’d acted as if he had her social status in the palm of his hand. What utter bullshit.
    Her lips firmed at the memory. He’d so blatantly checked her out at the airport