The Hardest Fall

I raised an eyebrow. “I specifically remember telling you I wasn’t rich.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t think you…I just didn’t think, apparently. You know me and my tendency to stereotype football players. Most people usually think they get everything handed to them, and apparently I’m one of those people, but…I like that you’re working.” She huffed. “You’re a really…” She scrunched up her nose then shook her head. “Never mind.”

I leaned closer and my forearm grazed hers again. We stayed skin to skin. She couldn’t keep her eyes away. I would’ve loved for her to finish her sentence, but there was something else I wanted to know more.

I turned my head a fraction, bringing my lips closer to her cheek area—the cheek her boyfriend’s fingers had brushed only minutes before. “So that’s your boyfriend, huh? I don’t think he likes that you’re over here talking to me.” The bastard was still watching, and it was starting to get on my nerves.

Her head snapped up and her eyebrows drew together. “What? Where?”

I pulled back. “Your boyfriend,” I repeated, motioning to the guy with my chin. At that moment, his arm was casually draped over the booth and he was chatting with the girl sitting across him instead of staring at us. “The one you’ve been dancing with since you walked in.” I turned my eyes on Zoe. “And I thought you were shy, Zoe—seemed like it since you can’t even manage to look into my eyes for more than a few seconds—but that girl dancing up there didn’t look all that shy.”

Slowly she turned back to me. My muscles were tensing up again. Why was I getting so worked up over her dancing with her fucking boyfriend? It wasn’t like I didn’t know she had someone, and I should’ve been happy that it was just a student. I straightened away from Zoe, deciding to actually do the job I was getting paid to do and help Lindy with the customers.

After I served a few, I checked to see if Zoe had left, but she was still sitting there waiting for me, her eyes tracking my movements.

I found myself back in front of her. I was being a dick without meaning to. “Can I get you and…your friends anything?” I asked a little loudly so I wouldn’t have to lean in again.

Her frown got deeper and she scooted forward in her seat. Her lips parted, but nothing came out. Then she nodded. “Yeah, I’ll have a pint of whatever you have on tap and a Corona, please.”

I returned her nod with a curt one and served my roommate. Plunking the pint in front of her, I reached down for a bottle of Corona. Her left hand closed around the handle of the pint and she reached for the bottle with the other.

“Can you carry them yourself or should I have—”

What she said was not what I was expecting to hear at all. “That’s not my boyfriend, Dylan. He is my friend, Jared, and just so you know, shy doesn’t mean I can’t function or dance with my friends or just be around people. I only get shy and awkward around certain people, and you happen to be one of them, that’s all.”

I have no idea if she chose to tell me all that in pretty much one breath with a lowered voice so I might not hear half of it or if she thought she’d be gone before I could piece it together, but thank fuck I got it the first time.

Since her hands were full, she didn’t manage to escape as quickly as she hoped. Before she could hop off the stool, I put my hand on her wrist and stopped her forward movement.

Stuck sitting sideways, she stilled and looked at me.

My hand was still around her wrist, and this time I didn’t hesitate to lean in closer and pull her to me at the same time. I paused when my lips were almost touching the shell of her ear. “Say that again?” I asked in a low, deep voice.

Oh, I had heard her perfectly fine the first time, but I still felt the need to hear her say it again.

She tilted her head enough so I could hear her. I stayed exactly where I was, breathing in her scent. “I’m shy around—” she started haltingly.

“Not that part. The one before that.”

“Oh, that’s Jared. He’s not my boyfriend, just Jared, my friend,” Zoe repeated. I closed my eyes in relief. When I opened them again, I noticed Zoe’s white-knuckle grip on the bottle of Corona. Because of the position we were in, she had no choice but to speak right into my ear where I could feel her warm breath on my skin. “He is my friend, and he also happens to be gay, not that it should matter.”