Free Reason and Romance (River Valley Book 1) by Jenn Young Page A

want to take the party somewhere more private?”
    “Oh, I don’t think you can handle me tonight. Let’s go, Travis.”
    Quentin caught her arm. “Don’t leave yet. Come with me.”
    “Travis goes where I go. We’re friends.”
    “Yep,” Travis said. “We’re a package deal, Maxwell.”
    Quentin raised an eyebrow. “If that’s the way it is.”
    Even so, his amused disdain was clear enough that she bristled. Yeah, Travis was a stoner, but so far he had been true to his word. He’d picked her up at the house, so they could drive to the party together. He hadn’t tried to paw at her, not once.
    Quentin herded them over to Alex and his group, and this time she didn’t fight the inevitable. Maybe if she seized the advantage, she could just get it over with.
    Adrian sauntered toward Alex until only a few centimeters separated them. “Looking good there, brother dear,” she drawled. She slapped his ass, which she had never, ever done to a guy before. “I’d give you a twenty.”
    Dead silence.
    Had she wished for a better reaction, she couldn’t have gotten one. Jaws dropped and eyes bulged. People gasped and blushed. In the end, there was really only one reaction that mattered, and everyone glanced his way.
    Alex’s eyes narrowed and Adrian saw his daredevil smile. “I think I merit more than a twenty, but I’d rather have a kiss instead. You up to it, sister dear?”
    She smiled at him. If he thought he could psych her out, he was so sadly mistaken. “Oh, I am. Are you up to it?”
    Hatred blazed from Mandy Fitzpatrick like a raw, living thing. “That’s Alex you’re talking to! Leave him alone.”
    “I feel like being a bitch tonight.”
    They were all standing in a loose circle, but from the corner of her eye, Adrian could spot a crowd of people unsubtly drifting closer, so they could eavesdrop. Justin and Bri were now working their way through the crowd, Bri with a sour expression.
    Mandy ignored what Adrian had just said. “Leave him alone,” she repeated, her chest heaving with every word. “If you don’t, I’ll make your life at school way more fucking miserable more than it is!”
    Adrian’s eyes never left Alex’s. “Insecurity is so unbecoming, Mandy.”
    “You can’t have him!”
    Alex shook his head and smiled. “Your boyfriend’s pretty insecure from what I recall. What would he say if he knew what you’re doing now?”
    It had finally dawned on Mandy that no one was paying her any attention. “Just fuck off!” She grabbed a cup of beer from someone.
    There was a screech.
    Everyone stared at the liquid dripping down her face. And then everyone stared at the empty cup in Travis’s hand.
    “You’re supposed to melt,” he said winsomely, “like that Wicked Witch.”
    Screaming curses, Mandy launched herself at Travis. He danced out of her reach with a surprising nimbleness that Adrian wouldn’t have thought he was capable of. He darted behind Quentin and beckoned at her.
    “Let’s book it!” he said.
    Deprived of him, Mandy turned onto Adrian. “It’s your fault!”
    Justin jumped between them. He grabbed Mandy’s arms and spun her around, locking her wrists, so she couldn’t flail anymore. “Calm down!” he shouted. Above her head, he shot Quentin an exasperated glance. “Stop laughing!”
    Mandy was Alex’s hookup or girlfriend, or whatever the hell she was, so by all rights, he should be the one comforting her. Or alternately, rushing to beat Travis up for his insolence. And yet he was still looking at Adrian, a smile toying with his lips.
    Heat pooled in her stomach at the intensity in his gaze. As she held his eyes, hers roamed over his face. Like that online picture she’d seen, he wasn’t wearing anything special, but as strikingly attractive as he had been in that one, it was just an image. This was real life, and if he wasn’t her future stepbrother—
    “Alex!” Mandy cried out.
    And he was with Mandy tonight. That fact was one that not even