Free Blue Violet by Abigail Owen Page A

said with a
wry twist to her lips. “But I’m in, too.”
    Adelaide
shrugged her shoulders in resignation. “I go where Nate goes,” she agreed, snuggling
in to him.
    “What about
you, Ellie?” Adelaide asked.
    Since Ellie
happened to enjoy that genre of movie, she grinned. “I’ve already told Brian
that I’d go,” she confirmed. “I hope that it’s going to be as good as the first
two.”
    Both boys gave
her a dumbfounded look. “No way,” Nate teased. “A girl who likes action
movies?  I don’t believe it.”
    “Hey! Lots of
girls like action movies,” Ellie defended.
    “Not the girls
in my life,” Nate declared, winking at Adelaide.
    Ellie tapped
her pen on her notebook. “I like almost all types of movies, but action and
fantasy happen to be my favorites. Best movie ever, hands down… Star Wars .”
    “Wait,” Brian
narrowed his eyes at her. “Which one?”
    “Duh…” Ellie rolled
her eyes dramatically. “Episode four.”
    “I beg to
differ,” Nate scoffed. “ Empire is clearly the best of the Star Wars movies.”
    Ellie shook
her head. “ The Empire Strikes Back is too dark for me.”
    “Sorry to
interrupt your geek-out moment,” Lila started. “But after listening to
basketball talk for twenty minutes, I’m afraid that sci-fi talk would send me
over the edge.”
    Ellie just laughed
and bent her head back to her studies. About the time Brian left, Ellie moved
on to her English assignment, writing her term research paper. This happened to
be one of Ellie’s favorite assignments at this school so far. She was researching
Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility , one of her favorite novels, rich in
both characters and in satire. The internet provided the opportunity to do the
majority of her research from the comfort of her home, but Mrs. Cavender had
insisted that her students include citations from real books. What better place
to do that research than in the library? With that in mind, Ellie hopped up and
went to the computer terminal and started to look up material that might help
her with the assignment.
    She was
standing amidst the aisles leafing through one of the titles when a voice
murmured in her ear, “That must be fascinating reading.”
    She was so
startled that she dropped her book and jumped back. She managed to remain
cognizant of the library rules, and restrained herself to a little squeak of
surprise, rather than a loud yelp. Alex was leaning against the shelf, arms
crossed over his broad chest, one foot casually crossed over the other, and
watching her with a highly amused expression.
    “Jeez, Alex. You
scared me,” she accused in a half-whisper.
    “Sorry.” He
gave her an unapologetic grin. “You know you’ve been standing there reading
that book for a good fifteen minutes?  I’m amazed at your powers of
concentration.”
    Ellie hid her
chagrin that, unbeknownst to her, Alex had been watching her that long. She
felt flattered and unnerved all at the same time. She bent to retrieve her
dropped book, but Alex beat her to it. “Jane Austen fan?” he asked as he
glanced at the title.
    “What girl
isn’t?” she quipped. She made sure their fingers didn’t touch as she accepted it.
    Alex stood
back and re-crossed his arms over his muscled chest. The look he gave her
indicated he was waiting for a real answer. Ellie knew that expression from
their morning runs. She was being too vague for him again.
    She gave an
exaggerated huff, pretending to be annoyed. “This is for an English paper. But,
yes, I do like Jane Austen. As a rule I prefer British classical authors over
American. Although there are a few exceptions.”
    “See? That
wasn’t so hard to share, now was it?” he teased.
    She just
looked at him with a bland expression, but he still caught the slight twitch to
her lips and his smile widened. Ellie tried her darndest to ignore what that
grin did to her equilibrium.
    “Ready for
pizza? They sent me to get you.”
    The change in
topic came so