Falling: A Fake Dating College Hockey Romance (North University Book 1)

“Sorry, could you repeat that?” I ask in a small voice, hoping that pretending I can’t hear them means that this isn’t happening. But the more I talk, and the more I think about the situation I’m in, the more my life starts to feel like a bad sitcom that I like to hate-watch with my friends.

When I was told to come in for a meeting with the head of the sports department and my figure skating coach, I thought I was getting an award. A well done for not losing your shit at your ex-boyfriend for fucking up your routine, and in turn, your entire life. In my mind, it was handed to me with an oversized trophy and a bouquet of flowers. Maybe even a certificate with my name scrawled across it to hang in my room.

But that’s just as far as my imagination can get me. Instead, I’m getting some really sucky news that I should have seen coming.

“That is the third time you’ve asked that today. Are you okay, Wren?” Coach Darcy asks in her thick French accent. I can see the sympathy etched into her features, her brown eyes flickering with worry. It’s the same look she’s given me all year.

I push my shoulders back, hoping that will give me some of the confidence I desperately need right now. “I’m okay. I’m just… adjusting.” I press my lips together at my poor choice of words. I mean, how else am I supposed to respond?

I look around the office, trying to find something to focus on so I don’t pathetically burst into tears. I’ve felt lost as it is for months after a public breakup, losing my regional title, and falling behind on college work. My first year at North University was terrible, and I’m not going to let my second year be as bad.

“You won’t need to adjust to anything if you work with us in finding a way around this. It’s just a misstep, that’s all,” Coach explains with a warm smile. It’s usually the kind of smile that would calm me down before stepping onto the ice, but now, it’s lost it’s usual sparkle.

I almost let out an incredulous laugh at the way she’s referring to the worst year of my life and the possible downfall of my career as a “misstep.” After our winter showcase in December, I might have to kiss figure skating here goodbye and find another way to finish college.

North University is known for its hockey team and figure skaters. We’re based in Salt Lake, but we’re well loved across the whole of North America. We enter the championships every year, but we also host seasonal events for the students and the wider community. It’s a good way to recruit high school students and get people excited for competition season. Over the last few years, figure skating has become less popular, and the hockey team has taken the spotlight.

Surprise, surprise.

After the catastrophe that was the regional championships, the same day that Augustus dropped me and broke up with me in the same breath, no one has batted an eye at us. Neither of them will say it, but I know they blame me. I know they think I should have carried on with my performance like nothing happened, but it didn’t go that way, and the decisions that were made that day are coming right back to bite me in the ass.

As much as my creative writing course fills the hole in my heart, I’m not strong enough to stop skating here completely and dive right into that. Dropping skating would mean admitting defeat to my mom, NU alum and previous figure skater, which is the very last thing I want to do.

“How exactly am I supposed to work around this misstep?” I ask, smoothing my sweaty palms on my leggings. They both flinch when they realize I’ve caught them right out. They could at least pretend to not blame me and have the whole team here to make it seem like we could all fix this together, but no. It’s just me, staring at my coach and the athletic director, who has had it out for me all year. If this was some sort of team-building, we’re-all-in-this-together bullshit, they’ve gone about it the wrong way.

Coach Darcy flicks her gaze to Miss Hackerly before sighing, her eyes landing back on mine. “We’re still trying to figure that out. We just wanted to make sure everyone knew what the consequences would be before anything else happens.”

I sit up straighter in my seat. “Before what happens?”

Darcy sighs again, tilting her head to the ceiling before facing me head-on. “Wren, do you know how many people applied to be a part of the program for next fall?”

I smile brightly. “A lot?”

Darcy groans, and I sense I must have given her the wrong answer, but it’s Miss Hackerly’s gaze that pierces through me, her steely-blue eyes boring into my own. “Less than a hundred people in the whole fifty states of America.” I let out a low whistle. I knew we were gradually losing support, but I didn’t realize it was that bad. She adjusts in her seat again, her tone strengthening. “Enrollment is low, and we’re at risk of getting budget cuts. We’re doing everything we can on our end, but you need to do the same. You’ll need to create a kind of buzz around the training we offer so people will start turning up to the performances again. Our flyers might do the trick to encourage people to enroll, but we actually need people there to encourage them. It should be easy if you really care about skating.”

Her words land like a punch to the stomach. Over the last few months, that desire and drive to do my absolute best for this team has slipped. Their faith in me disappeared after regionals, and maybe this was the wake-up call I needed to go back to how it used to be. It’s the kind of thought that I’ve banished into a box in my brain labeled DO NOT TOUCH. Thinking anything negative about skating makes me feel dirty, like I’ve done something wrong, even when I know deep down that I haven’t.

It’s been infused into my blood since my mom started skating way before I was born. My sister, Austin, didn’t get the same push toward skating that I did, and I’ll never know why. Ballet is her thing, and skating is mine.

My entire life has revolved around it, and I don’t know what it means to go without it. It’s been so ingrained in my brain, in my blood. Sometimes I think it’s the only thing that I’m actually good at. It’s been proven that I’m statistically one of the best college figure skaters in our country, and if I tried hard enough, worked myself even harder, I could probably make it to the Olympics.

Well, not probably.

I will make it to the Olympics.

My mom and coach both count on me. There might not be a lot of us on the skating team, but there’s enough to worry about other than me. I don’t like being in their spotlight, especially when there are a lot more talented skaters on our team that they can fuss over.

I put on my brightest smile and say, “I’m sure I’ll figure out some magical way to make everyone turn up to our performances.”

Coach knows I’m joking, but she claps her hands, a large grin on her face, and she beams at me. “I knew you’d figure it out,” she says, winking at me and matching my sarcasm.

My two best friends envelop me in their embrace the second I’m out the office door. You’d think I just got sentenced to ten years in prison with the way they’re hugging me. After explaining the situation to them, we walk back to our apartment off campus.

“They can’t do that, can they? Just cut the whole program?” Kennedy asks, her arms still tight around my shoulders, clinging to me as if she’s my emotional support animal. Scarlett hasn’t said much since I relayed what happened, but she doesn’t have to. I know how her business student brain works. She’s probably working over plans in her head.

“Well, apparently, they can,” I mumble, kicking the crunchy leaves beneath me. I was training this morning and went to the gym right after.

“So, what are you going to do? There must be some loophole,” Scarlett says. Her voice is a lot calmer and rational than Kennedy’s frantic one.

“I have no fucking clue,” I say, rubbing at my temples.

Our walk slows as we get closer to home, the chilly air urging us forward. I must have defeated them with this conversation alone because we all silently agreed to take the stairs to our apartment instead of waiting on the elevator.

“I might have to start a petition or something,” I suggest, waving my hand vaguely in the air when we reach our door. Ken hums in agreement, unlocking the door, and we slip into the warmth.

I turn back, and Scarlett is still in the doorway, arms planted by her side, her neat hair a mess from the September breeze. With her eyebrows furrowed and her jaw set, she pins me with a strange look.

“Scar,” I coax slowly, gesturing to the apartment.

“You cannot petition. I’m not letting you do that,” she says sternly, finally starting to walk inside. Ken and I exchange a worried glance before turning back to her as she toes off her shoes at the door. “Take it from the girl who wasted her whole final project last year on a petition that landed her a B. A fucking B for collecting over twenty thousand signatures.”

“A B isn’t bad, Scar,” Kennedy says, shrugging. I close my eyes. Trying to argue with Scarlett about grades is like trying to argue with a cat about the benefits of a bath—completely futile and likely to end in scratches.

Scarlett is a lot like a cat in many ways, always with her claws out. Unlike Kennedy and I, who each have only one sister, Scarlett is the youngest and the only daughter of four sons, so she’s constantly trying to prove that she is as good as them. You wouldn’t need to look at her twice to realize she’s smarter than all of them combined. I just wish she could get that in her head. And I wish Kennedy would stop prodding her with these questions.

“It’s bad for me,” she argues, shuddering as she walks into the open living room and kitchen. “A B is like asking for a grande latte and getting a tall black coffee—close, but not quite what you were hoping for.”

I just huff at her response, and Kennedy giggles after getting a rise out of her. I throw myself onto the couch, ready to make this my bed for the next few days. The girls walk around me, probably looking for food. “I need to think of something, like, yesterday. If I can’t skate, I have no options.”

“Why don’t you just stick with creative writing and get more benefits that the degree offers? You could get some real feedback instead of getting totally biased opinions from us fools,” Kennedy suggests, flopping on her beanbag across from me. She tucks her legs beneath her, a box of Cheerios in her hand.

The suggestion churns in my stomach. It always does whenever anyone brings up the idea of giving up skating to commit to a real degree. The prospect of throwing myself into that just feels like I’m setting myself up for failure. That’s the annoying thing about me—if I know I’m not perfect at it, I’m not going to try. I’ve never seen any point in it, and there’s no use starting now.

“I’d need to be a good writer to do that, and I’d have to admit defeat to my mother of all people,” I say with a shiver. The looks she gave me in the office were enough. I’ve dedicated my whole life to fulfilling the legacy she never got to start. I want to be a living, breathing reminder that her dreams didn’t die the day of the accident. I’ve committed too much time to it, too much effort, too many tears to give up now. And I truly don’t think she would look at me the same if I did.

I throw my head back onto the headrest, trying to organize all the thoughts whirling around my brain and tugging on my lungs. I’m going to need to find a way around this. They might be too afraid to say it, but I know this is my fault. I made my bed, so now I have to lie in it.

I don’t know how long I stay there, trying to breathe and think at the same time like it’s a sport, but when I open my eyes, Kennedy is wheeling in The Whiteboard, a staple in our household. After Scarlett was gifted two large whiteboards for Christmas, she dedicated one to her studies and the other to the number of crises we have per week. It’s come in handy for our pros and cons lists for dates, breakups, changing shampoos, or trying to find a place to eat that isn’t Nero’s Pizzeria. If we didn’t have The Whiteboard, our lives would have completely gone to shit by now.

“Scarlett, would you like the honor of being our scribe?” Kennedy announces, holding out the oversized whiteboard pen to her as if it’s the holy grail. Scarlett’s face lights up as she flashes me a toothy smile.

“I would love nothing more,” she replies, jumping up and retrieving the pen. She starts to scrawl words across the board, dictating them as she does. “Operation ‘save Wren from dropping out of skating even though she secretly hates it’ is underway.”

I throw her a sarcastic smile, lobbing a cushion at her.

“Maybe we should just paraphrase?” Kennedy suggests, unimpressed as she returns to her seat in the beanbag.

“That was me paraphrasing.” Scarlett continues writing out the name on the whiteboard regardless.

“Or, maybe, we could stop assuming how much I love skating altogether,” I counter. As if they planned it, they both turn around, frowning at me like bratty children.

I can tell this is going to be a long night, and it’s only four in the afternoon.