Protect her | e.d

s i x

Alexa's POV

As if I would ever be friends with Ethan Dolan. I couldn't believe he was convinced that easily that I had been nice to him because I wanted him to be my friend. He obviously was charmed by me and my plan worked better than I had expected!

"Hey, Lex, did you take care of him?" asked Lizzie. We were in a bundle of blankets and cushions on my sofa, watching Netflix on my tv in our pj's.

"Yeah," I grinned at her slyly, "He fell for it head over heels and he's going to do every slide of the presentation! The only thing I have to do is pretend to be his friend until the project is over!"

"Good job!" she chuckled cheekily to me, "I didn't expect him to be so dumb, but you never know..." She paused for a moment before adding, "Hey, you and Hunter are okay now?"

"Yeah, yeah..." For some reason, the words didn't sound convincing enough, but I let the matter drop. "Hey, I'm tired, can we go to sleep?"

"What?" she protested, "Alexa Summers is tired at a slumber party? It's only 10:30!"

"But I'm tired," I continued, getting up from the sofa and walking over to my bed, pulling open the covers.

"Alright, fine." Lizzie grumbled as she got into the pull out bed. I took a deep breathe and turned off the lights, finding a comfortable position to sleep in.

As I closed my eyes, I tried to get rid of the strange feeling that had started to blossom in my stomach.

***

Ethan had tried to actually sit with me at lunch the next day, but I rejected him harshly. He looked confused, but I had to set my expectations clear for him.

And I was quite mean to him for the next days, because of the strange feeling I got at my slumber party and how it hadn't disappeared.

"Hey babe, you excited for tonight?" Hunter whispered cheekily in my ear.

"Yeah," I replied, giggling, "Oh, but first, I have to quickly rehearse with Ethan for the presentation."

I sat silently, waiting for a grumble or nothing at all, but surprisingly, after a few seconds, he replied nonchalantly: "Oh, sure, that's fine."

"It's only going to be about 5-10 minutes and then I can go get ready?" I reassured him. I took a sip out of the milk carton on my food tray and kissed his cheek.

"I'll pick you up at 8:00pm, okay babe?" Hunter looked at me, waiting for me to agree.

"Yeah, yeah," I nodded and got up to empty the excess food into the bin, "Look, I have to go to Maths, so I'll see you later."

I waved him goodbye and headed out of the cafeteria, sliding my phone out of my pocket.

Checking my messages from my friends, I went to my locker, opened it and applied a bit more lipgloss while looking in the small compact mirror which was attached to the inside door.

"Alexa?"

I was startled by Ethan tapping on my shoulder and blushing, scratching the back of his neck shyly.