Garrison Girl by Rachel Aaron

Author:Rachel Aaron
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Quirk Books
Published: 2018-08-07T00:00:00+00:00

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It was the best Longest Night party Jax could remember. There was dancing, tables full of food, a band that could actually stay in tune, everything he’d complained was missing from last year’s celebration, and he was already sick of it.

He’d tried to skip, but Brigitte dragged him down from the gate personally and ordered him to enjoy himself. Since that was impossible, Jax stuck to the bare minimum: sitting on a bench at the edge of the yard and drinking until he didn’t care anymore, which wasn’t working nearly as well as he’d hoped.

“You’re doing this to yourself, you know,” said Cooper, plopping down beside him to catch his breath. “There’s lots of town girls here who don’t know your reputation. If you didn’t stare at everyone like you were planning how to stab them, you’d be up to your neck in offers.”

“Don’t want to dance,” Jax said, glaring into his mug of ale, which had stopped tasting good two refills ago.

“I bet you would if certain squad members were here,” Cooper replied in a singsong voice.

Jax’s fingers tightened on the wooden mug. “Shut up.”

“Certain blonde ones,” his friend went on. “Who selflessly devote their off hours tutoring the less fortunate.”

“I said shut up.”

Cooper rolled his eyes. “I don’t see why you’re so uptight about this. So what if you like Rosalie? Everyone likes Rosalie. She’s nice and, more importantly, she’s rich. If you didn’t avoid the mess hall like the plague, you’d know that the entire male population of the base, and no small part of the female, has been scheming to get her attention all month. The only reason none of them have succeeded is because she spends all of her time with you.”

“She’s not hanging around me because she likes to,” Jax said defensively. “We made a deal. I teach her to be better at fighting titans, she helps me with my reading. That’s all it is.”

“Right,” Cooper said. “So you’re sitting here drinking alone in the dark because you’re pining for reading lessons.”

“Are you trying to get me killed?” Jax demanded. “She’s a noble lady, and she’s my subordinate. Taking liberties with either leads straight to a hanging. Anyway, weren’t you the one telling me to get rid of her?”

“That was before I realized you two had a thing,” Cooper replied, pressing his hands over his heart. “What can I say? I’m a romantic.”

“You’re obnoxious is what you are,” Jax snapped. He was about to change the subject by suggesting a trip to the cake table, Cooper’s ultimate weakness, when he heard the unmistakable sound of a horse-and-carriage coming in fast.

Jax’s first thought was that something had gone wrong. A holiday that revolved around public bonfires and drinking tended to go south pretty fast, but it wasn’t the fire cart approaching. It was a hired coach, and the moment it rolled to something like a stop in front of the base gate, Rosalie burst out of it.

Jax rubbed his eyes. Surely he hadn’t had that much to drink.

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