Sweet Fall

I instantly felt drawn to the sound. After all, pain attracts pain.

Before I even had a chance to realize it, my feet were carrying me toward the Tide players’ locker room… toward the person seeming more broken than myself. Toward someone who might just understand.

The closer I got to the door, the more the crashes increased, until silence ensued and a pained shout ripped from someone’s throat, ricocheting off the metal of the lockers. As I reached the door, I wondered if I should take any more steps. The person might want to be alone. I was probably intruding. But I couldn’t seem to turn away.

I stared at the closed locker room door.

It was three more steps.

Three more steps until I pressed on the handle and crossed the doorway to see who was in pain.

Three more steps until I could maybe, perhaps, be of help.

Clutching my gym bag closer to my chest like a shield, I took the final step through the door and immediately froze at what was before me.

Carillo.

Austin Carillo on the floor, his packed and muscled torso free of a shirt, boasting an intricate collage of both dark and colorful tattoos. He was leaning his back against the cold door of a locker, head in his hands, breathing hard.

I watched silently as I fought with what to do. Carillo was clearly in pain, but it was me. He hated me, had threatened me. I was probably the last person he’d ever want to see.

Resolved to just quietly leave him to his grief, I lifted my foot to turn when Carillo’s head snapped up and I found myself frozen in shock.

Austin’s dark eyes were bloodshot with stress, his dark stubbled cheeks red from where he had obviously rubbed aggressively at the skin. But his sadness ebbed when he saw me, and his jaw clenched in annoyance.

Oh shit. I’d made a mistake.

A really big mistake.

Austin’s hands hit the tiled floor and he abruptly pushed himself off the ground. His six-foot-four height seemed to loom over me, even from his place across the room. Our gazes were locked, and my hands and legs began to shake.

He was angry…

And I feared him.

He was a gangbanger, a Heighter. He’d been arrested multiple times. His brother had served time. And I was now alone with him. Alone with him and he was seething. His anger seemed directed toward me. There was no one there to help me.

Carillo began to move forward but stopped a few steps away. He radiated danger and darkness like the sun radiated heat. It was a force field around him, an aura, and it only served to scare me even more.

Almost black-brown eyes narrowed as Austin studied my face, and I gripped my gym bag harder. But something in his expression changed as his eyebrows rose, and I frowned.

What’s he seeing that’s so shocking?

And then I remembered. I hadn’t reapplied my makeup. I’d been so shaken by how easily the voice had gotten through to me I’d just wanted to flee home.

I felt embarrassment, an intense embarrassment that he was seeing me so raw and imperfect. I couldn’t understand why it bothered me so much. He hated me, and I feared him. But I did care. I cared so deeply that he’d seen the real me.

The girl who didn’t measure up.

The girl with too many flaws.

“What the hell’re you doing in here?” Carillo said coldly, shattering my thoughts, his emotionless expression again firmly on his face.

“I-I-I—”

Austin stepped farther forward. From his nearness, I could smell his scent, a deep woodsy musk, the smell of a hard-played game. It just added to his darkness.

“I-I-I what?” He laughed, unfeeling. “Why d’you always turn up where you’re not wanted? When you’re not wanted? In places you ain’t supposed to be?”

I swallowed back nerves and tried to back away, but he thrust out his hand, gripped my arm, and jerked me forward.

I let out a small yelp. His touch wasn’t painful. In fact, he was barely touching me at all, but he’d surprised me, and I reluctantly looked into his eyes.

“Did you tell that guy cheerleader anything today?” he hissed quietly.

Unable to find my voice, I just frantically shook my head ‘no’.

Austin’s fingers tightened on my arm. I instinctively tried to pull away.

“Answer me! He was staring at me in fear the whole f**kin’ game!”

Inhaling deep, I managed to squeak out, “I didn’t tell him anything.”

Austin’s narrowing eyes told me he didn’t believe me.

“I promise, I didn’t. I swear it. I told the dean nothing when he spoke to me. And Lyle… Lyle caught you staring at me a few times and warned me about it. That’s all.” Wrenching back my arm, I rubbed at the tender skin.