The Hardest Fall

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.