Toxic (Ruin 2)

I reached for the door to the building and stumbled backward into something hard. “Whoa there,” an amused voice said from behind me bracing my shoulders. “You okay?”

I nodded and turned to face whoever saved me from a concussion. Of course, as luck would have it, Football God, also known as the great Wes Michels, was my savior.

Naturally, because life was just that cruel. And I clearly hadn’t had enough embarrassing moments in the past three days to last me a lifetime.

Unable to find my voice, I lifted my hands to my temples, faking the whole dizzy thing, buying me enough time to say in a voice that sounded like a three year old, “Thank you.”

“No problem.” He shrugged then opened the door for me. I walked past him, straight toward the elevator.

He followed.

I pressed up.

He stepped in with me.

I moved to the farthest corner of the tiny box and waited for the floor to ding. The minute the doors open, I nearly collided with another person getting in, but was able to sidestep the harried genderless student who was hidden behind an armload of textbooks and make my way down to Room 226.

Balancing my bag in one arm, I lifted my hand to knock when that same voice said from behind me.

“You a friend of Gabe’s?”

“Who?” I whipped around. “Is that who lives here?” With shaking hands I gripped the piece of paper with Lisa’s contact information. “I was actually looking for Lisa. We’re in the same business seminar class and we’re doing a project together, but I can be super forgetful, so I’ll just text her and see if I wrote down the wrong number and—”

“Whoa.” Weston held up his hands. “Totally wasn’t meaning to scare you shitless… Lisa lives here, and she probably won’t hear you knock on account that on Taco Tuesday she turns up Mexican music so loud the rest of the building complains.”

“Taco Tuesday?” I repeated.

“You’ll see.” He sighed and reached behind me, pushing the door open. “Lisa!”

He yelled like a football player. I winced as my ears started ringing.

“What!” Lisa yelled from somewhere in the apartment.

And he was right, the music was crazy loud. I couldn’t even hear myself think, thanks to both the mariachi notes and the fact that Weston had just yelled in my right ear.

“Someone’s here to see you!” he yelled back just as a girl walked out of one of the bedrooms. I recognized her immediately — Kiersten, Football God’s fiancée. You’d have to be living on a different planet not to know their story.

He fights cancer, she fights for him, they fight together, he proposes during football game and what do ya know? He’s miraculously healed! They were a living, walking, breathing Hallmark Movie.

“Oooo, are you a friend of Gabe’s?” Kiersten’s eyes widened with amusement as she stepped into Weston’s arms. He kissed her on the head, and started toying with a piece of her dark red hair.

“Who’s Gabe?” I said for a second time.

“Stupid dry spell!” Lisa yelled again from somewhere in the kitchen. At this point I still hadn’t seen her.

“Am I missing something?” I said as loud as my voice was capable of going, which wasn’t very loud.

“It’s a damn choice!” An even louder male voice said behind me. I could have sworn the hair on my arms stood on end as I slowly turned to face the owner of the voice, hoping, praying that I was wrong.

“You!” We shouted in unison. I dropped my bag to the floor and held my hands in the air like I’d just gotten mugged and was about to drop his ass, when really every meeting with him had gone far, far differently.

Gabe grabbed my wrists and grinned. “Back for more.”

The darkness was gone.

Who was this imposter? He seemed… happy. But every time I’d seen him he may as well be wearing a sign that read: Chip on shoulder, beware.

Confused, I shook my head. His smile grew as his fingers tapped playfully across my wrists.