The Hardest Fall

Ignoring Victoria, I opened the door and threw my bag inside before facing her again.

“I have no reason to return your calls, Victoria. It’s been months. There is nothing to say.”

Having said everything I would say on the subject, I went to close the door in her face, but she was faster and slapped her palm against the surface to stop me. The sound echoed off the walls, and if Ms. Hilda, for some unknown reason, hadn’t been aware of what was going on right in front of her doorstep, she definitely would’ve heard that noise and would soon come out to investigate.

“I have things to say,” she announced with a lift of her chin as she met my gaze.

“Victoria…leave,” I gritted out through clenched teeth, and she was smart enough to notice how close I was to losing it on her. She dropped her angry stance and took a step back, going back to the innocent act.

“I’ll leave. I promise, I will. I just want to talk, Dylan, just this once, and then if you don’t want to, you’ll never see me again. I only want to apologize.”

A key rattled, signaling that it was too late to get rid of Victoria without an incident that would take even longer to resolve. Ms. Hilda would be out as soon as she unlocked her door, demanding to know what was going on, and I had no time for that woman.

Out of options, I jerked my head. “Get inside.”

Victoria walked in. Just as I clicked the door shut behind her, Ms. Hilda’s door groaned open.

Walking past my ex-girlfriend, I headed straight toward the kitchen area. “You have until I hear the next-door neighbor close her door.” Pressing my palms on the breakfast bar, I felt it necessary to repeat myself. “I don’t need your apology. I will listen, only because you forced me to, but I have nothing to say to you. I thought I’d already made that clear when I caught you getting fucked by my teammates.”

“You’re still angry—don’t you see what that means?” she asked, walking toward me.

“What the fuck do you think it means?” I shot back.

“If you’re angry, it means you still care. I know I hurt you, Dylan. Trust me, you finding me that night, seeing me like that…it hurt me more than it hurt you and—”

“Are you fucking kidding me right now?”

“I’m really sorry you had to see that—you have no idea how much—but it was just a one-time thing. I don’t even know how it happened. One minute I was waiting for you upstairs and the next I found mys—”

When she rounded the corner to get to my side, I straightened up and walked away.

“You’re done.”

“Wait, Dylan.” She caught up to me and grabbed my arm. “I just wanted to see you to apologize, okay? You didn’t even let me do that.”

I glanced down at her hand, which was still attached to my arm, and pointedly met her gaze. She let go of me and took a step back.

“You were so busy. First, it was summer classes then it was… We hadn’t had sex in two weeks and you were—”

“I was going through fall camp, Victoria. I was barely dragging myself back home at the end of the day.”

Her hand landed on my forearm once again and she stepped closer. “I know. I know, and I should’ve been more understanding. I know that now, but it wasn’t like I had planned to—”

We heard a key in the lock, and Victoria leaned to my right to see past me.

“Did you know that a seahorse—the male, by the way, in case you didn’t know—gives birth to up to two thousand tiny baby seahorses? Can you imagine? That’s two thousand. I just watched an Instagram video and it—”

I looked over my shoulder and saw Zoe frozen just inside the open door.

Her eyes jumped between Victoria and me as she cleared her throat. “Hi. I’m sorry, I hope I’m not interrupting.”

Like I had started doing every time she walked into the room, I took her in. Her hair look mussed up and I knew she had just taken it down from a messy bun at the nape of her neck; she wanted it out of her face when she was taking photos. She had on those sexy brown boots that made my dick twitch for some goddamned reason, skin-tight black jeans that did more things to my dick than just make it twitch whenever I got an eyeful of her ass in them, and as always, a simple white t-shirt that had something written on it on the front under the wine-colored cardigan she couldn’t seem to part ways with lately.

Zoe turned her back to us to take her key from the lock, and my eyes dropped to the curve of her ass. Before I could take my eyes off of that, they both spoke up.

“Do you want me to leave, Dylan? Maybe we can talk later,” Victoria whispered next to me.

“I didn’t know you had someone over. Maybe I should leave and…” Zoe said over Victoria.

“Yes, leave,” I rushed out in a flat voice. With a frown on my face, I watched Zoe’s eyes widen as her face crumpled.

“I’m just going to leave this here,” she mumbled in a small voice, and by the time I turned around fully to see what the hell she was talking about, she had already dropped her camera bag next to the door and was closing it. The only thing was…she was on the wrong side of the door.

“I think she didn’t realize you were talking to me.”

Ignoring Victoria’s presence, I rushed to the door, but there was no sight of Zoe when I yanked it open, only the sound of her running footsteps.

I closed the door with barely controlled anger and turned to Victoria.

“Get out.”

“I didn’t know you were seeing someone, Dylan. I’m sorry, I really didn’t mean to—”

I glared at her. “Victoria, get out. Please.”

“I asked the boys and they told me you weren’t seeing anyone. I’m sorry. I know you won’t believe me, but I didn’t come here to cause trouble. I just wanted—”

“What the hell did you want, Victoria? You said you came to apologize, and you did. Now that you did, you can leave. I don’t need to hear you say you’re talking to the boys.”

She shook her head and lifted her hands up. “Oh, no, I didn’t mean it like that. I meant your teammates, not Max and Kyle. I talked to your…other teammates.”

It was like she wasn’t hearing a word of what I was saying, and I needed her to get the hell out like yesterday.

“I can talk to your girlfriend, explain.”

“She is not…” Mine, I thought. She wasn’t mine yet, but that was going to change. I was done waiting. “She is my friend, and you’re not going to say a single word to her.”

Either she finally saw how angry and tense I was or she heard it in my voice, because she took a few steps back and looked up at me with sad eyes.

“You’re so angry.”

“Victoria,” I growled, my hand practically shaking the door handle with fury. I needed to go after Zoe, not stand around and indulge my ex.

“I think I should leave.”

“You think?” I asked in disbelief.

Closing my eyes, I rolled my shoulders to relax. It didn’t help.

Opening the door, I waited for her to walk through. Instead of leaving right away, she stepped out and faced me.

“I just needed you to know I’m sorry, and…I miss you, Dylan. It’s college and I made a mistake and—”

“Now I know,” I interrupted and closed the door in her face.