Page 74 of His to Protect

As Derrick grabbed the food, he turned in our direction and immediately spied all of us staring at him and his dad. He looked back at Aidan and said something before turning back to us. “Hey, Miss Dwyer! Hi, Trina!”

I lifted my hand and smiled as Aidan himself pushed away from the bar. His eyes scanned the table and he dipped his chin to acknowledge us.

I might have been crazy, but I swore his eyes lingered a little bit longer on Chelsea.

“Hello, Derrick,” she replied, and waved to Aidan. “Mr. Devereaux.”

“Miss Dwyer.” He glanced around the table again. “Trina. Ladies. Have a good evening.” He flashed us a soft smile and patted Derrick on the shoulder, silently telling him to grab their food, I figured by the way Derrick moved.

He picked it up and turned back to us. “See you at school tomorrow, Miss Dwyer!”

He turned his back and all of us watched the men leave. When they were gone, Chelsea glanced at me. “You know Aidan and Derrick?”

I took my chance, based on the awe in her voice, the blush on her cheeks, and replied. “You have a crush on Aidan?”

Paige choked on her margarita.

Suzanne snorted.

Camden threw her head back and laughed. “Yeah, she does. She has for years, but for some crazy reason refuses to do anything about it.”

“Derrick is a student at my school. It wouldn’t be right.”

“But he’s notyourstudent,” Paige said. “He’s just a student, and you’re the librarian.”

Chelsea shook her head in an exasperated way. I assumed they’d had this conversation many times before. “It still wouldn’t look good.” Her head came up and she smiled. “How do you know them?”

I figured telling her that Aidan dropped Derrick off at Declan’s a couple weeks ago for an overnight visit wouldn’t go over well. I went with the easiest half-truth. “They stopped by Declan’s one night, and I met him then. They seem really great.”

“They are.”

“Enough about Aidan and Chelsea being too sissy to do anything about her unending crush,” Suzanne said, cutting in and grinning at me like she just ate a canary. “Tell me more about Declan and what he’s like in bed.”

This time I choked on my drink.

Paige giggled.

And all the women’s eyes landed on me, as they waited with bated breath.


“Thanks for getting them home safe.”

Declan muttered this to Tyson in a deep voice as he walked into Tyson’s house, where Blue and I were hanging out on the couch.

I should have passed out hours ago, but I wanted to wait for Declan to come and pick me up after the restaurant was closed.

Tyson had showed up hours ago and brought Blue and me to his house.

Since then, Blue and I switched to drinking water and spent the last few hours sobering up a bit.

It appeared that in some ways we had a lot in common. A family who didn’t exactly care for us, choosing their own selfish desires over what was best for their daughters. I learned the entire last ten years of Blue’s story, including time she’d spent on a goat farm in Colorado with her hippie aunt.

Envisioning someone as beautiful and calm and collected as Blue slopping around in the muck was still making me chuckle, which brought Declan’s eyes to mine.

The dark-brown eyes flickered with humor and he smiled. “You ready to head to bed?”

It was an innocent question.