The Hardest Fall

My brows furrowed and I looked over my shoulder.

“What’s going on here?” Chris asked, looking between Zoe and me.

JP slung his arm over Chris’s shoulder and made a show of introducing Zoe.

“This young thing over here has been—”

I interrupted him by getting to my feet. “Just finish that sentence, man. Please do it.”

Zoe cleared her throat and all eyes turned to her. Her cheeks were flushed, eyes sparkling. For some reason, that image of her didn’t sit well with me. Was she getting all worked up over Chris? She certainly hadn’t reacted that way to JP. It also looked like she had no trouble meeting Chris’s eyes whatsoever.

I furrowed my brows and watched her wipe her hands on her dress. “Hi. I, uh…I’m Zoe. Uh, Zoe Clarke.” She threw a quick glance at me, but I didn’t think she actually saw me. “I’m Dylan’s roommate.”

And just like that, I was demoted from friend to roommate.

“Nice to meet you,” Chris said, sounding a little unsure.

After a long moment of silence where no one said anything, I sighed and gestured to my left. “Since you two don’t look like you’re planning to leave any time soon, you might as well sit your asses down.”

Chris walked past by me to take me up on my offer, but JP headed toward the kitchen. “Is there anything to eat in this place—other than your girl’s precious pizza, that is. I’m starving.”

Zoe chose that moment to pick up the pizza box and offer it to Chris. “Would you like to have some pizza?”

JP said exactly what was on my mind: “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Chapter Eleven

Zoe

I knocked on the door and walked in as soon as I heard a muted, “Come in.” When his eyes lifted up and he saw who was in his office, he sighed. “This is not the best time, Zoe. I’ll call you later.”

Ignoring his words, I took a deep breath, clicked the door shut, and squared my shoulders. “I want to tell him.”

I was in Mark’s private office, standing as far away from him as possible. Anyone could’ve told me he didn’t want me in there just from his body language and I didn’t want to be there either, but I’d sucked it up and made my way over to the athletic administration building as soon as I left the apartment that morning anyway. He was just going to have to deal with me.

“No.” Mark looked at me with hard, unyielding eyes. Was he ever planning on telling him? At that moment, it didn’t look like he was, but we had a plan and he was going to tell him. He had to. I just couldn’t wait any longer.

“I need to tell him,” I repeated, my voice coming out stronger this time—at least it sounded stronger to my ears.

He leaned back in his seat and the chair gave a small groan. I barely managed to hold back my flinch.

“Is this because I couldn’t make it last night? I’ll make it up to you some other time. You know how busy it gets during the season.”

He wanted to talk about that? Sure, why not?

“You were the one who invited me out in the first place. You didn’t have to make me wait two hours in that restaurant halfway across town if you had no intention of coming, but this isn’t about last night. It’s not the first time it’s happened, and I’m guessing it won’t be the last, either. I get that you’re busy. It’s fine either way.”

“You need to remember who you’re talking to.”

I needed to remember? I wanted to forget all about him.

Mark tapped the pink end of the yellow pencil he had in his hand on one of the papers that were strewn all over his desk and looked down at them, dismissing me.

“I give up. I don’t want to do this anymore,” I confessed, and his gaze came back to me. Was that relief I was seeing in his eyes? I let out a deep breath and swallowed my disappointment. “If you don’t want to see me, if you don’t care about getting to know me, that’s okay. You don’t have to. But, you should know, Chris was at the apartment last night. That’s why—”

As soon as the words left my mouth, Mark was up on his feet. He threw the pencil on his desk in a calm manner, just a flick of his wrist, which was not what his body language said at all. Instead of meeting his eyes, I watched the pencil roll off and hit the ground with a small thump. When it stopped moving, I finally found the courage to look up at his face. I straightened my spine and tried my best to look like I wasn’t afraid of him or the radiating anger coming off him in waves. Though I had to say, it was the angriest I’d seen him in the last three years. His face was flushed and he bent to put his fists on the table, eyes on me the entire time.