The Hardest Fall by Ella Maise

Chapter Seventeen

Dylan

As the weeks passed in a blur, it was getting harder and harder to keep my hands and eyes off of Zoe. With everything going on with JP and his recovery, other than Chris, she was the only person I was interested in spending time with. As much as being friends with her had been a joke to me from that first day she’d jumped on me, very much naked after her towel failed her, she’d actually somehow ended up being exactly that.

My buddy.

My very own buddy…who I wanted to fuck senseless.

Every time her arm accidentally brushed mine as we passed each other in the hallway or in the kitchen, every time she looked up at me and smiled, all those nights we’d sat on opposite ends of the couch and watched a movie on her laptop…every time she came out of her room with sleepy eyes, smooth legs, and that fucking perfect ass I always got an eyeful of when she reached up to grab a bowl from one of the cupboards and pretended not to watch me while I did my morning workout routine right in front of her as she had her breakfast…every time we bumped into each other while heading to the bathroom to brush our teeth, eyes sleepy, voices husky…every time she opened the cupboard that held her precious M&Ms and spent a few seconds staring at them for God knows what reason…every time I caught her tiptoeing into the apartment so Ms. Hilda wouldn’t catch her…every time she held my gaze for more than a few seconds…you get where I’m going with this?

It seemed like every time she took a breath, I got hard just watching her chest rise and fall, my hands itching to touch her skin, her lips, her neck, her chin, her hands, her legs, her delectable ass. She was slowly killing me, and from everything I knew about her, she didn’t have a single clue what she was doing.

Every time I saw her, I had more and more trouble remembering why I couldn’t be with her. While I was going crazy for her, day after day, she was still seeing him. I told myself it wasn’t possible, that I was blowing things out of proportion, but all the little clues were there. Just because I hoped I was wrong, hoped it would end any day now, that didn’t change the outcome or the facts. She had something going on with Coach, and it was fucking with my head like nothing else ever had in my entire life. I didn’t believe their families were friends. I didn’t know what to believe, but I didn’t believe that. I couldn’t imagine Zoe being with him; she wasn’t that kind of girl, yet…

On top of everything, I barely had time to do anything. I was either working on a paper or in the weight room, getting my ass kicked by our trainers. It didn’t help that I was keeping a secret from Chris, maybe several. Oh, he knew his dad was seeing someone again—he’d told me that just a week before—but they always knew when his dad was having an affair. The thing he didn’t know was that the apartment I was staying in was actually his father’s, and he didn’t know that Zoe was also staying in his father’s apartment. He had no idea what it all meant.

Weeks had passed since Zoe had photographed our away game, since I’d seen her with another guy and came close to losing it in front of everyone. We still hadn’t sat down and had our talk. Some days I thought she was avoiding me on purpose, some days we just didn’t have the time, and some days I wanted to do nothing but sit down next to her on the floor in front of the couch and just have dinner while talking about nothing in particular. Halloween had passed, we had lost and won more away games and home games, and this crazy thing I was starting to feel for her wasn’t going anywhere, despite the circumstances.

I no longer gave a damn about how wrong it was to mess with someone else’s girl because I couldn’t accept the fact that she either really was someone else’s girl—if she was, I was the world’s biggest fucking idiot for starting to fall for my friend—or she was in a really fucked-up, weird situation with my coach. If that was the case, I was ready to fix it.

The only upside of feeling frustrated to no end when living with the girl I thought should be with me and not some other bastard was that I worked harder than I ever had in my life. All my trainers were impressed. Chris and I were perfectly in sync out on the field, and I was giving it my all. The dream I’d had since I couldn’t even remember when was going to become a reality. I was going to make my family proud.

After a heavy workout session with one of the trainers who was helping me get ready for the combine coming up at the end of February, I headed home, hoping I’d get to see Zoe. I knew her schedule by heart, and if she hadn’t booked a photography job at the last minute, I knew she’d get home a little after me. Ever since the away game, she tried her best not to be alone with me for too long if she could help it, but we lived in the same damn apartment. She slept literally steps away from me, so there was only so much running away she could manage—not that I actually believed she was trying her best at it.

I considered stopping at her favorite pizza place to surprise her but changed my mind and decided to wait for her to come home then convince her to go out for pizza. In my mind, it sounded like a much better plan.

Only it wasn’t.

I realized that once I made it to our floor and found Vicky waiting for me in front of our apartment door.

Standing frozen at the top of the stairs, I thought I’d kill JP if he was the one who’d told her where to find me. Vicky’s head snapped up from her phone when she heard my footsteps and she pushed off of the wall.

“Dylan, I—”

“What the hell are you doing here?”

She pushed her phone into her back pocket, took a step toward me, and then stopped.

“I want to talk to you, just this once. Please, Dylan.”

I got unstuck and walked past her to unlock the door.

“We have nothing to talk about. You shouldn’t have come here, Victoria.”

I looked over my shoulder and caught her subtle flinch at my use of her full name.

She raised her hands then dropped them to her sides. “Well, too bad. You’re not answering my texts or calls so I’m not moving an inch until you talk to me.”

As her voice started to rise steadily, my head flew toward Ms. Hilda’s door. Normally, the grumpy woman would’ve been out that door the second she caught someone coming up the stairs, without fail, but there was no sign of her at the moment, and I wondered if she was watching us through the peephole.

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.

Bending down, I took my phone from my bag and dialed Zoe’s number.

It rang and rang, but there was no answer. She had it on her, I was sure. Sending her a quick text, I didn’t wait for her to get back to me. There was a good chance she had misinterpreted Victoria’s presence and was ignoring any calls and texts coming from me.

I kicked my bag and it slid toward the living room.

“Goddammit!”

Rubbing my palm on my head, I called Jimmy.

He answered on the second ring. “Jimmy here. Talk to me.”

“Jimmy, I know my shift starts in two hours, but I’m not gonna be able to make it tonight. It’s…football stuff.”

“You realize it’s Saturday, right? I need you here, man.”

“I know, and I’m sorry, but it came up pretty last minute. I can’t skip this. I promise I’ll make it up to you. I wasn’t scheduled for tomorrow, but I’ll come to help. I’ll come in midweek too.”

He released a long sigh that blended in with the music in the background. “Fine, fine—but you can’t skip out on me tomorrow.”

“I won’t. I’ll be there. Thank you, Jimmy.”

My next call was to Chris.

“What’s up?”

“Do you have a phone number for the fullback who played our first and second year? You know, the one who got transferred?

“You mean Tony?”

“Yes, that’s the one. Do you have it?”

“Let me check. What’s going on?”

“I need to ask him something.”

“Oh, thanks, that explains a lot. Hold on…okay, I have it.”

“Good. Text it to me.”

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

“Later. Text me.”

I headed out before he could text me the number. If I had taken Zoe’s friend’s number two years ago myself, it would’ve been easier to find out where she’d gone, but I hadn’t. Even if it was a long shot, Tony might have held on to the number of the girl he had dated for almost a year before he transferred, and I was pretty sure that girl would have Kayla’s number. It was my only shot. Sure, I could’ve waited for her to come back to the apartment, but that could take hours, and she’d spend those hours thinking something I didn’t want her to think. It wasn’t a choice I even considered more than a second.

My phone pinged with a new text at the same time I stepped out of the apartment building.

* * *

It was my lucky day.After talking to Tony, I got the phone number of the girl, whose name was apparently Erica. Then I called Erica and asked for Kayla’s number.

The voice on the other end of the line answered timidly. “Hello?”

“Kayla?” I asked, not sure if it was the right number or not.

“Umm, yes? Who is this?”

“It’s Dylan, Zoe’s…” What the hell was I for her? “Zoe’s friend—her roommate. I’m sorry for bothering you, but I’m trying to find Zoe and she isn’t answering my calls. Do you have any idea where she is?”

“Give me a sec,” she whispered.

There was some rustling, a door opening and closing, and then she was on the line again, her voice stronger than it had been before.

“She texted me a few minutes ago. Why do you want to know where she is? Is something going on?”

“No. I just need to see her.”

I waited through the silence.

“Okay. I don’t know what’s going on, but I hope you won’t make me regret this.”

“Please,” I forced out.

“I’m heading to a party at my boyfriend’s frat house. She texted me to ask if we could meet so I told her I’d meet her there in an hour so. I don’t know where she’ll go if she’s not home.”

“Where is the party?”