The Hardest Fall Read online

  “You’re doing wonders for my ego. Keep going.”

  “Okay, I’m thinking that really wasn’t the best way to go about this. Let me start over and see how that goes. My roommate, Lindsay, kind of dragged-slash-forced me to come here tonight, to the party I mean. She thinks I’m not living the ‘college experience’ to the fullest. We came, met her friends—it’s my first year, and I’m meeting new people, so that’s good, right?” Without waiting for me to give an answer, she took a deep breath and kept going. “Nope, not good. Her friends realized I’m not adventurous at all because I don’t tend to talk very much when I’m in a big group and prefer to just stay back. I like to take things in at first, observe, you know? I don’t like to have too many eyeballs on me. Anyway, you don’t care about that, so blah blah blah, more talk, more cringing on my part.”

  She shut her eyes and shook her head. I just stood there, watching her, listening to her, waiting for her to finish her story. I couldn’t really have moved even if I wanted to; she was…it was all too…captivating—that’s the word I was looking for. She was all over the place and yet she was captivating as hell, a fresh breath of air, for some reason.

  “Then they bet—kind of dared me that I couldn’t kiss a random guy. I said sure I could just so they’d stop talking about me, because what are they gonna do? Expect me to follow through on that? Are we in kindergarten? Pffttt. And, okay, fine, I was a little offended, but they were kind of right. I’m not adventurous or spontaneous. Not into kissing random guys, either. I’ve never done it, but I figured it’s easy enough. Anyway, they said I wouldn’t have the balls to kiss the guy they wanted me to kiss, because apparently that’s also a thing in college—daring, betting, kissing random people…”

  “Wow,” I said before she could go on, and she lifted her eyes to me. It was my lame attempt to make sure she took a breath before she passed out. “There seem to be a lot of things about college I didn’t know about, and I’m not even a freshman anymore. I’ve never kissed a random girl before either—didn’t even know it was a requirement.” I actually had, but she didn’t need to know that. I got kissed by random girls sometimes, especially after a good game when everyone’s adrenaline was running high, but I never had the urge to go kiss a random girl just because. Maybe I just hadn’t seen the right random girl because at that moment I could see the appeal.

  “See!” she exclaimed, her body relaxing a bit more. “That’s what I said. Anyway, we’re coming to the painful part, so I’ll just push forward. My roommate, Lindsay, grabbed this poor guy who was walking past with his buddies and told me to kiss him, so I did, just a quick peck—that’s nothing, right? I didn’t even touch the guy, just leaned up and pressed my lips against his. It was pretty anticlimactic, actually, and since I’ve had a little bit of beer…” She lifted three fingers, presumably indicating the number of beers she’d had, then tucked her hair behind her right ear. I studied her lips—all this talk about kissing, and she had those beautiful shiny pink lips… “I didn’t even feel a thing,” she continued. “No butterflies. No nothing. The guy didn’t look all that upset about it since he tried for a second, longer kiss.”

  I bet he didn’t, I thought. I bet the lucky bastard wasn’t upset about it at all.

  She started talking even faster, making it almost impossible to follow her thoughts.

  “But then Lindsay’s friend, Molly, randomly pointed at you. You were talking to some guys across the room, and she dared me to kiss you. What’s so special about you, I have no idea.” I opened my mouth, but she held up her hand and continued without a pause. “So, I had to say I could because I’m not good with dares and bets. I get a tad bit competitive. Since I got away with just a peck with the last guy, they dared me to go full out with you. Again, I don’t know if you’re some kind of hotshot or something, but I guess there is something about you that makes you special enough for them to insist that much. Maybe you’re their type, I don’t have a freaking clue. I asked them to give me a few minutes and followed you here so I could ask your permission before I attacked you in front of everyone or at least attempted to attack you in front of everyone to basically suck your face. Now, after what I’ve seen…just to make sure…you’re not gay, are you? Because if that’s why they insisted so much…that’s cruel.”

  When she kept looking at me expectantly, I straightened up and rubbed the back of my neck.

  “This is probably gonna sound like a lie to you, but…” How to say this? “As much as I’d love to help you out with your dare, I have a girlfriend.” We’d only been out once, but still... “She’s late getting here, but she’s probably out there now, and I think I should—”

  “Ah. Oh. Oh, of course. Okay.”

  I watched her eyes bounce all over the place, her gaze touching me only once or twice, and even then, only for a second. Then she blindly reached for the handle, opened the door, and stepped out.

  “I’m really sorry, you know,” she started, her voice slightly louder in an effort to be heard over the ruckus going on outside. Her eyes dropped down to my pants then came back up to my eyes. “About that…and everything else. This whole night has been weird…weird and stupid. I’m just gonna leave, and…” Another step away. “Yeah. Sorry,” she repeated, her eyes focused on my shoulder instead of my eyes as she kept backing away.

  That’s when I realized her eyes were watering. Having a sister teaches you a thing or two about these things, and I knew this girl was seconds away from crying.

  “Wait. Hey, wait!” I yelled, quickly walking after her before she could disappear.

  She glanced back at me over her shoulder without stopping.

  “What’s your name?” I yelled louder.

  She gave me a small smile, something between sad and horrified, just as I watched that first tear slide down. Then she was gone, disappearing into the crowd before I could reach her.

  Why I wanted to know her name, why my eyes looked for her every now and then the entire night…back then, I didn’t know.

  Chapter Two

  Zoe

  One year later

  The second time Dylan Reed saw me, I was trying to disappear into thin air. If we didn’t make eye contact, if I couldn’t see him, he couldn’t see me either, right?

  Well…apparently, that’s not how it works.

  A year before, when I’d made a complete fool out of myself, I hadn’t even known the guy’s name, and that had made it easier to just forget about the whole thing. If he had been just a nameless guy I’d randomly come across at a college party—admittedly, a very very sexy one—it would’ve been fine, but no, it wasn’t. Of course not—things were never that easy for me. The guy the mean girls from freshman year chose for me to kiss was one of the hotshots from the football team, the star wide receiver who was apparently one of the few players expected to make it into the NFL, and that made him pretty popular around campus. Sure, it’s a big campus, but not big enough for me to avoid him forever.

  After a long day filled with classes, I was on my way to the apartment when I saw him—well, more like them. He had three of his friends with him, and I knew at least one of them was a teammate: the quarterback, Christopher Wilson. Who the other two were, I had no idea. Christopher Wilson, though…he was the big man on campus, as most quarterbacks always seem to be. I knew that much, and maybe a little more about him. It wasn’t as much as I’d have liked to know, but I knew a few bits. Even so, at that moment, seeing Chris didn’t even register in my mind. The person walking next to him had all my attention.

  Dylan Reed, all six feet three inches of him.

  Laughing at something his friends were saying, he was maybe forty, forty-five feet away, coming straight toward me.

  I stopped walking, just froze to watch him. Some girl bumped into me, apologized, and I couldn’t even respond. Standing paralyzed in the middle of campus, my stomach dropped, and I felt the blood drain from my face.

  No.

  I didn’t want him to see me just then.
I had no makeup on, and I was running on three hours of sleep. My hair was in a very, very messy braid that didn’t even really count as a braid anymore because it looked more like I’d been in a fight with an angry crow and lost, and my clothes…I couldn’t even remember what the hell I was wearing and couldn’t find it in me to look down and see. More than likely, I wasn’t wearing anything spectacular, anyway. Hell, I really didn’t want him to see me again, period.

  Thirty feet.

  Staring at him, I lost precious seconds I could’ve used to get away—I knew that because I’d managed to do it successfully before. That day, however, I was too dumbstruck to do anything but watch him come closer. Maybe it was the lack of sleep that had me stuck in my place, or maybe it was the way he walked, the way his shoulders moved and—

  Snap out of it!

  He still hadn’t seen me, his face tipped down, listening to his friends.

  Twenty-five feet.

  I thought maybe if I just stood where I was, closed my eyes and made no quick movements, he’d walk around me and it would be over in a few seconds—yet one more of my brilliant ideas.

  Or better yet, maybe he wouldn’t recognize me at all. To be honest, that was a pretty strong possibility. After all, who knew how many girls threw themselves at his feet on a daily basis? Most likely, he had forgotten about that awkward girl from the bathroom at the house party—AKA me—the very next day.

  Twenty feet.

  He was wearing a long-sleeved gray Henley that showed how great his arms were, and I mean great—that was one of the things I specifically remembered from that night, which might have had something to do with the fact that I was a sucker for good, strong arms, but that’s not the point. Those same arms were connected to some even greater shoulders. He had brown, short-cropped hair, which didn’t work for everyone, but on Dylan Reed…on him, it worked wonders. He had strong, masculine features. I couldn’t see his eyes, but I knew they were blue—to be more specific, dark blue like the ocean. A year before, I had looked into them for several long seconds. His jawline was sharp, cheekbones strong, lips so full you couldn’t stop wondering how they would feel against your own.

  Fifteen feet.

  His nose must have been broken at some point, because I remembered thinking it was something that set him apart. You wouldn’t be able to tell from afar, but like I said, I’d stood closer to him before, had looked up into his eyes for just a second or two and then focused on anywhere but his eyes. That slightly crooked nose added even more character to his already pretty perfect appearance.

  I imagined it was fairly easy to get your nose broken as a football player, maybe even more than once. He wasn’t pretty; I wouldn’t have used that word specifically. You might not even call him traditionally handsome, but he was certainly striking. He had charisma, confidence. He looked strong and big and maybe a little rough, too, but more than anything, he looked solid. Yes, that was one way you could describe Dylan Reed. I’m not even talking about in a physical sense, though he was solid on that count too. He wasn’t a guy you could forget easily.

  He lifted his head and made eye contact with me. The big smile he was sporting slowly melted off his face.

  Dead.

  Just chock-full of brilliant ideas that day, I quietly gasped, spun around, and kinda started speed-walking while cursing myself—not my best moment, as you can imagine. My eyes were glued to the ground, and my stomach dropped for the second time.

  Calm down, you drama queen.

  “Hey! You! Wait a second! Hey!”

  No. Nope. Not doing that.

  Just in case he was yelling at me—and I was pretty sure he was—I closed my eyes as hard as I could—as if that would help make me invisible—and quickened my steps, which was how I walked smack into…people. People, as in multiple. Of course I did. What did you expect with my luck?

  I didn’t fall on my ass, and that was my only saving grace. When the group I’d…ummm…run into looked at me with bulging eyes, I swallowed my hasty apology.

  “What have you done?” one of them whispered before looking at the ground.

  Thinking maybe they were exaggerating a bit with the whole the world just ended act, I followed his gaze and discovered that not only were my books scattered all over the place, there was also an architectural model lying on its side in the middle of the mess my stuff had made. It was not some simple cardboard thingy either—oh no. It looked like it was made of wood, and it was huge…huge enough that there was no way one person could carry it on their own…hence the four-person group.

  Completely forgetting why I was in this mess in the first place, I dropped to my knees and reached for the scaled structure.

  “I’m so sorry. Really, can I do—”

  “Don’t touch it!” yelled the same guy who had spoken a second before as he slapped my hand away—actually slapped it. Surprised, I cradled it against my chest. He hadn’t hurt me or anything, but, I couldn’t even remember the last time my mom had slapped my hand away for trying to steal food from the table.

  As the other guys crouched down to help their friend—while grumbling, might I add—I quickly glanced around to see that we had an audience. How nice. Just perfect; I’d always thought a red face did wonders for my complexion. The silver lining was that Dylan Reed was nowhere to be seen, and I couldn’t help but feel cold relief wash over me.

  “Goddammit! You broke the door.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I repeated, a little lower in volume this time, but the guys kept giving me angry looks. From what I could see, there was no real damage—other than said door, of course. When they chose to ignore me, I tried to focus on my own scattered notes and books on the ground. Thankfully, I had left my camera at the lab that day, otherwise I wasn’t sure it’d have been as lucky as the model building.

  “I really hope it didn’t…” I noticed the guys straightening from their crouch, holding the building oh so gently between the four of them. I didn’t get to finish my sentence as I received one last death glare before they walked around me to hurry away.

  Still on my knees, I sighed. What a great end to my already crappy day.

  “Here, don’t forget this one,” said someone to my right. I froze again, my heart picking up speed.

  My eyes slowly followed the big hand that was holding one of my art history books upside down, and then they kept following the long arm up to those spectacular shoulders, finally making it up to Dylan Reed’s amused gaze.

  All the chitter-chatter of the passing students dulled. I closed my eyes in defeat and hung my head. So much for trying to run away.

  “Hi,” he said, so simple, easy, smooth.

  While my heart was doing a weird stuttering thing in my chest, I tried to get up from the ground, only to lose my balance. Dylan caught my elbow and righted me before I could topple over.

  “Thank you,” I murmured, looking away from his face as he let go of my arm and took a much-appreciated step back. I cleared my throat, as if that would make any difference. “Hi.”

  God, I was so ashamed. Not only had I asked him if I could kiss him like a middle schooler when he had a girlfriend waiting for him outside just because I couldn’t back out of a dare, I’d also seen his penis…although seeing a penis wasn’t such a bad thing. Quite the opposite, really. I liked looking at a good penis; what girl doesn’t? But, on top of all that, now he’d seen me bulldoze some architecture majors.

  How many times was I gonna make a fool out of myself in front of this guy?

  “Hi,” he repeated, holding out my book again. I mumbled my thanks, grabbed it, and finally lifted my head up to see an infectious smile on his lips. It completely transformed his face. Those strong, sharp lines softened, and if he’d looked amazing before, when he smiled like that…it made me wanna be the reason for it, which only made him more irresistible. My own lips twitched in response, and I could feel my cheeks warm up under his piercing gaze.

  “Uh, hey.”

  “You didn’t tell me you
r name,” he said, smile still going strong.

  I forced my gaze away from his curious one. “Oh?” Slowly turning away, I decided it was best to act like I didn’t know what he was talking about and simply started walking again.

  “You remember me, right?”

  I felt this was a good time to start on that power walk, burn some calories, get away from people. My escape wouldn’t be that easy though—he followed me, walking backward, keeping pace, studying me.

  “Last year? At the end of first semester, some Greek party, don’t remember which one.” I sent him a quick, panicked look then looked away just as quickly when I realized he was studying me intently. “You know, I was in the bathroom, then you came in and asked me if—”

  “Ahhh, now I remember.” You little liar. “Yeah. Yes, of course. Hi.” My voice came out in a croak. I laughed, a little awkwardly. “So many parties that year, couldn’t remember at first.” Mentally, I rolled my eyes at myself. I’d been to three parties, maybe—and that was a big maybe. “How have you been?”

  “I’m good—great actually, now that I finally saw you again.”

  Is he making fun of me? I quickened my pace. He was right there with me.

  “I’m Dylan,” he said when he caught on to the fact that I wasn’t gonna say anything more. “That night, I tried to catch up to you, but you disappeared on me. You were right there, and then you weren’t.”

  I sent him another look. I would’ve quickened my pace yet again, but I thought it would be even more embarrassing and just plain weird if I just started actually jogging, and it’s not like he couldn’t catch up to me without even breaking a sweat anyway.

  I made a hybrid laughing-choking sound. “That’s me,” I said with mock cheerfulness. “I’m there and then I’m not. I exist, but I really don’t.”

  Awkward. Awkward. Awkward.

  “And, I know your name—everyone knows your name.” I stopped speaking so I could breathe for just a second. “I was a little embarrassed, as you can imagine—a lot embarrassed, actually.” If I didn’t throw up on him in the next few minutes, I knew I’d be safe.