Free Spy Thriller: The Fourteenth Protocol: A Story of Espionage and Counter-terrorism (The Special Agent Jana Baker Book Series 1) by Nathan Goodman Page B

even knocked his drink over or anything. It was like she was just one of the guys. Not that she looked like a guy. No, she was pretty, and Cade knew it. But still, something about the way she carried herself. It made him feel like he’d known her for years.
    The two talked and talked. The conversation went from Cade’s time in college with Kyle to Alyssa talking about all the places she had been on this trip, the things she’d seen, the people she’d met.
    “Okay,” she said, “tell me the funniest story about you and Kyle in college.” She nearly burst a blood vessel laughing at him, knowing she was putting him on the spot.
    Cade laughed at her and thought about it for a second. He closed his eyes and then started laughing himself.
    “Well, okay. I had this roommate that loved to play practical jokes on me. He was pretty good at it, I have to admit. So anyway, he’d brought these old inversion boots to school.” Her head cocked to the side in confusion.
    “Oh, you know, those kind of boots that lock around your ankle, and you use them to hang upside down from a bar or something,” said Cade. “People use them to do hard-core sit-ups or to help stretch out their back and stuff like that.”
    Alyssa’s giggle was infectious.
    “Anyway,” he smirked back at her, “so he brings these inversion boots to school so he could do sit-ups. See, the closets in the dorm just had a curtain across them, and the curtain rods were these heavy steel bars. So Jim, my roommate, hung upside down from his closet curtain rod bar thing and did all these sit-ups. So then, he convinces me to do a few sets.” Cade paused, trying not to laugh as he told the story. “Anyway, I’m hanging there like an idiot doing these sit-ups. And the whole time, Jim is yelling, ‘Come on, man, you can do it. Oh come on, is that all you got, you can do better than that!’ and I’m doing all these sit-ups and it’s starting to get impossible to do any more and I’m starting to laugh because Jim is yelling at me to keep going, and I can’t even lift my own body weight up to reach the bar anymore.”
    Alyssa wiped tears from her eyes as she laughed.
    “I mean, I can’t even lift myself to get my feet off of the bar at this point. So Jim starts yelling, ‘Is that it? Is that all you got? Come on, you can’t even get yourself off of there?’” Cade stopped for a second. “So I’m laughing, I can’t raise myself up, and Jim just walks out of the room.”
    “He walked out and left you there? Hanging upside down,” she said, fingers to her eyes and laughing.
    “Yeah, so then, a minute later, the door swings open and in walks Kyle with this straight face. He walks over to me and leans down and says, ‘Ah, what seems to be the problem?’ and I’m hanging there upside down and laughing and I can’t get myself up. So then, from behind his back, Kyle pulls out this can of shaving cream. And sure enough, he starts hosing me down with the thing. By the time it was over, Kyle had emptied the shaving cream can all over me and was walking up and down the halls getting guys to come out and take a look.”
    Alyssa’s deep laughter rocked her body, but not a sound escaped. “Oh my God. Guys are so mean to each other,” she said. The two sat for a minute and let the laughter subside.
    “And that was Kyle,” Cade said, shaking his head back and forth.
    Alyssa felt for the first time in her life that she was her own person. The two were confiding in each other like old friends, yet they were nearly total strangers. An hour later, Cade noticed that the sun was dropping on the horizon. “Oh man, what time is it?” he said, still laughing.
    “Why, you have an important date?” she jabbed.
    “No. Not exactly. Not with a girl anyway. I’ve got to go over and meet Kyle. Um, I was thinking . . .” Cade’s confidence faded for a millisecond, then he got up the nerve and said, “Can I call you? I mean, I was thinking we could go do