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

I would pay very good money to be able to get last week’s events erased from my memory.

I used to think that I could keep pushing forward, that I could ignore every weird feeling that passes through me, but after allowing myself to break down in Miles’s arms, something shifted. I didn’t feel the need to run to the gym or find some way to get rid of my thoughts without actually dealing with them. I just felt them, and that’s been the most emotionally exhausting thing I’ve ever done.

Well, that and trying to run around my apartment now to find a decent sports bra to wear to the gym with Miles.

Turns out that going to the gym twice a day for an entire week means you run out of clothes to wear. I didn’t realize how badly I needed to work off my problems until I found myself trying to run away from them on a treadmill. I’ve burned through more workout clothes this week than usual, courtesy of my mom’s constant check-ins, and I haven’t been on top of the laundry.

Working out has always been therapeutic to me. I’ve been dancing and skating since I was a kid, and staying in shape has always been important and has improved my mental health without even realizing it. Time passes by in a haze when I’m in the gym, and the relief I feel afterward is so rewarding. I’m hoping to encourage him to see the benefits that I do, but he was reluctant when I texted him last night to make sure he was ready for it.

I finally find a black Nike sports bra that I haven’t worn since high school. And not to my benefit now, my boobs have grown a ton since then.

“Did you shave?” Scarlett asks through a mouthful of toast when I make my way into the kitchen. She’s sitting at the island, eating her breakfast while balancing her phone on the back of her water bottle as a very intense study video plays.

“No, Scar, I didn’t. We’re going to the gym. I’m not trying to sleep with him,” I argue. She just shrugs and goes back to watching her video. Since I came back from Miles’s house and the rules were set, Scar and Kennedy have been pushing me to break them already. I have no interest in sleeping with him any time soon, and these rules were made for a reason.

“Can’t you do both?” Kennedy asks, walking into the kitchen as she rubs sleep out of her eyes. If she didn’t have classes to go to, I’m convinced she would spend all of her time in bed. She sits beside Scarlett, stealing a piece of her toast. “He might just trip and fall right between your legs.”

“Do you both have to be on my case right now?” I groan.

“It’s pretty much our job,” Kennedy says.

“Yeah, who else would encourage you to make good decisions?” Scarlett adds, grinning.

“Bad decisions,” I correct, “You encourage me to make very bad decisions.” I point at the picture on the fridge, and they both shake their heads. “Barcelona.”

“Yes, yes, we know. But that wasn’t our fault. That guy we followed into the bar sounded very legit and we”—Kennedy gestures toward Scarlett—“didn’t get any sick, so maybe you just got a bad egg.”

I rub at my temples. “Can you hear yourself right now?”

They both laugh, and the rapid knock on the door cuts it short. “Is that your loverboy?”

“Yes, so be nice,” I say, turning away from them to walk toward the door. They blow raspberries at me, and I shake my head at their immaturity.

Scarlett snickers. “It’s you that needs to be nice to him. I’ve never seen a guy more smitten, and you’ve never looked more… annoyed? Turned on? It’s hard to tell.”

“Annoyed,” I say to her before I open the door.

Miles is sporting gray shorts and a worn white tee, his NU duffel bag slung across his shoulder. He looks good. Annoyingly so. It makes sense why girls are doing everything they can to get him to notice them and why he’s such a hot commodity. It’s frustrating that he’s just that good at being the charming funny guy without even trying. He steps into the apartment and raises a hand in greeting to the girls, who are trying to stifle their laughs.

“Hey, princess,” he says, his voice extra sweet and silky. He dips his head to my tiny sports bra and shorts. “You look hot.”

“You don’t have to pretend to like me. They already know we’re pretending,” I say, walking away from him to grab my bag from the couch.

“I know.” I turn to find him smirking, and it takes everything that I am not to roll my eyes. The girls flash me a glance, but I ignore it, grabbing water from the fridge and stuffing it into my bag.

I look up at Miles, and he’s already got his eyes on me. “You ready to go?”

He nods, and we exchange goodbyes with my friends and head out the door. When we get to the parking lot, he walks straight past my car and continues walking down toward the main road. I call after him, “Where are you going?”

He turns, looking around him before taking the steps to close the distance he put between us. “To the gym. Where are you going? It’s, like, a five-minute walk.”

I tut, shaking my head. “Oh, you sweet, innocent child. Get in.” I open my car door, and he goes to the other side, sliding into the passenger seat. He looks so out of place in my car. His larger-than-life shoulders barely fit in the seat, and he has to adjust his chair multiple times to give his legs more room.

We barely make it out of the drive before he starts quizzing me.

“Where are we going? There’s not another gym for at least a few miles. Are you going to murder me? I know you said you would’ve done it already, but maybe you’re just in it for the long haul.” I glance over at him, and his eyes are wide and panicked. “Is this a kidnapping? Are you going to kidnap me?”

I laugh. “If I wanted to kidnap you, why would I ask you to come to my apartment?”

“I don’t know! It’s still a possibility,” he argues. “If you are going to kill me, can we make out at least once before I die? I want to die a happy man, Wren.”

“Can you chill the fuck out? I said we’re going to do real training,” I say, focusing back on the road. His face is getting more and more comical to look at the wider his eyes get. “If there’s one perk to my dad owning hotels, it’s that I get access to all the private, quiet gyms.”

“That’s insane,” he mutters.

I shrug. “I’m just being practical. Why would we waste our time in a gym where the equipment is mediocre at best when we could go to a luxury one that has just been built?”

He doesn’t ask me any more questions while we drive, and thank fuck for that. It’s like I’ve got to convince our college that I’m dating a real adult and not a toddler. I don’t know what demon possessed me to let Miles have the AUX because he plays the most obnoxious music I’ve heard in my life. I almost crashed multiple times while he screeched every lyric to the Hamilton song Non-Stop.

His singing and talking is nonstop, that’s for sure.

“Remind me never to carpool with you again,” I say when we walk into the hotel.

“I’ve got the voice of an angel, Wren,” he whispers when we stand at the reception desk. His breath tickles my neck, but I ignore it, pushing away from him.

“Whoever told you that is a liar.”

“No one had to tell me that for it to be a fact,” he argues.

“The more you talk, the stupider you sound,” I mutter, rolling my eyes. “You could do yourself a favor and shut up.”

“You could do me a favor and make me.” His voice rumbles low in my belly, and I push off the desk when the receptionist finally hands over our day passes, not before flashing me a sympathetic look. I’m going to need all the help I can get to help this fool with his training.

Secluded gyms like these, that nobody knows about, are my favorite. It’s one of those weird things that make my heart insanely happy. They always smell fresh, and I’m usually one of the first people to use the equipment. It’s like opening the cap of a fresh orange juice carton.

Miles and I drop our bags in the corner of the room and start with a light warm-up.

I usually stretch at home, but I don’t know what kind of level he’s at with his training if he hasn’t been playing regularly. He might not be regularly working out, but he’s still built like a hockey player. He’s tall and broad, his thighs and calves are almost god-like, and he’s got the personality to match. I did some of my own research into what constitutes a good workout for someone of his age and build, so I’m hoping today can ease him into it.

We settle into a smooth rhythm of doing a couple miles on the treadmill and on the Step Master. We move over to the weights, and start with our legs, pulling back the weights with our feet on the machine. My thighs burn, but it feels fucking fantastic.

I usually work out with my headphones in and keep social interactions to a minimum, but it’s Miles. And he’d rather talk my ear off than listen to his outrageous music alone.

“How much can you bench?” I ask when we take a small break. I pull out my water from my bag, gulping it while he catches his breath.

“Isn’t that the same as asking a girl what their bra size is?”

“That’s not the same thing,” I say, “and you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. I was just wondering so I knew what you could handle, that’s all.”

I position myself on the bench press, and he stands behind me, ready to spot me.

“I don’t know. Maybe one-seventy,” he answers, looking slightly embarrassed. I let out a “huh” in recognition, and he raises his eyebrow. “What about you?”

“Around the same. I do up to one-ninety on a good day.” My cheeks turn red, and I don’t know why I even have the feeling of being embarrassed. I’m proud of that. I’ve worked like a maniac to build up my strength, and being able to press that much has been a personal goal of mine over the years.

“How the fuck can you do that? You’re, like, the size of a child,” he says, shaking his head at me. I just shrug. “Don’t get embarrassed, Wren. That’s a good thing.” He leans over and pokes me in the stomach, and I squirm.

“Hey, what was that for?”

“Just checking if those abs are real.”

“And?”

He smirks. “They are. Hot as fuck too.”

My cheeks heat, and I don’t think I can blame it on the workout. There’s something about the way Miles compliments me and my body. He never sounds sleazy or gross. He sounds like he admires me. Like he cares about me.

Augustus thought everything was a competition between us, which is why we never worked out together. He’d complain that I was trying to show off, or that I should go to a women’s-only gym so he could hog the spotlight. He made me believe that was the way things were supposed to go. And now I realize how wrong he was.

After alternating on the bench press, we move back into the floor space, changing between weighted squats and sit-ups. I’m trying to give him a feel of everything and what I typically do, and he meets every challenge with ease. I’m so used to working on my own, but the more time we spend together here, the more I realize it’s a lot nicer than I thought it would be.

I watch him through the mirror where he’s squatting, and I finally mutter, “You’re doing it wrong.”

I’ve been trying to let him do it on his own, not wanting to be annoying or controlling, but it’s starting to piss me off.

“I think I know how to do a squat, Wren.”

“Do you? Because you’ve been doing it wrong for the last ten minutes,” I say, making my way toward him. I stand in front of him. “Watch what I’m doing.”

He blinks at me, and I spread my legs into a decent position, making sure my back is set and I squat down low. I didn’t think about the proximity until I felt my ass brush against his shorts, and he sucked in a sharp breath. I grab his hands from behind me.

“What are you doing?”

“You clearly aren’t a visual learner,” I mutter. I place one of his hands onto my lower back and the other on my stomach. My senses tingle at the feeling, but I ignore it and push it down. It’s been way too long since a man’s hands have touched me, and my body does not need to be getting confused right now. I clear my throat. “Can you feel how my back isn’t leaning completely forward?”

He makes a noise in the back of his throat, nodding at me in the mirror. “You do see how this is a problem, right?”

“Why? Because you’re incapable of keeping your dick in your pants?” I can feel it pressing into me, but I’m smart enough to ignore it. He just rolls his eyes. “Just feel what my body is doing when I go down. You’re leaning too far forward, and your back isn’t set in the right position.”

I lower myself down, holding position for a few seconds before coming back up. I watch him watch me as I repeat the motion again before moving away. I watch him do it himself until he’s got the hang of it.

“Wasn’t so hard, was it, big guy?” I tease, dropping back onto the floor.

“It wasn’t the squat that was hard, Wren.”

I just shake my head and continue doing my sit-ups until he eventually joins me. We work out in silence, and I’ve never found anything more peaceful.

That is until he slides his phone over to me and I stare at it. “I found some questions on BuzzFeed,” he explains, “I think we should know the answers to these if we’re going to pretend to be a couple.”

I click his phone, and it opens immediately. “You should put a password on here, you know?”

He shrugs. “I’ve got nothing to hide. The questions are in my Notes app.”

I scroll and open the app. I skim through the first one that pops up. They’re all relationship-based or weird icebreakers to get to know another person.

“Did you spend the entire night typing up these questions? It says you made this at three in the morning,” I say, laughing.

“I couldn’t sleep, and I copied and pasted them.”

“You’re full of surprises, aren’t you?” I murmur, shaking my head until I land on a question. I smile, looking back at him. “What was the first thing you thought about me when we met?”

Miles runs a hand through his hair. “All I could think about was how hot you were.”

“You’ve got to take this seriously or you wasted your night doing this for no reason,” I argue, poking him with my foot.

“I am taking this seriously.” I poke him again. “Fine. I just wanted to keep you talking to me. Keep you interested. I could tell you didn’t really want to be there, so I had to think of things to say to keep you talking to me. I just wanted you to like me, and I knew it wasn’t going to be easy.”

His honesty catches me off guard.

I know I’m not the most fun to hang out with at parties, but there’s something about the fact that Miles went out of his way to make sure I had a good time and to talk to me that makes me feel… better.

I smile. “Well, thanks for being honest.”

He nudges his foot into mine. “What about you?”

“My first thought was: God, I really hope he doesn’t die right now because that would suck. And then I thought you were pretty annoying, and then you begged me to go on that date, but you’re more tolerable now.”

“Just tolerable, huh?” My lips roll between my teeth, and I try not to smile. He doesn’t need to know how much having him in my life has actually made me happy. I don’t give him an answer, and he pulls his phone out of my hand. “Did you have any phases growing up?”

I shove my face into my hands. “Way too many to count.”

“Tell me. I want to know what my little Wrenny girl was like.” He pulls at my hands, and I close my eyes, shaking my head with embarrassment.

“Well, my first phase was making everyone call me Wren instead of my first name,” I admit. A crease forms between his eyebrows.

“See, I knew something was off about you.”

“My first name is Amelia, and my middle name is Wren. Amelia Wren Hackerly. I hated the way Amelia sounded too formal, and it’s what my mom shouts at me when I’m on the ice. My mom didn’t take my dad’s last name when they got married, so Wren Hackerly always sounded better to me. When I started school, I just told everyone that my name was Wren, and it stuck.”

He blinks at me. “Okay, that’s a shocker.”

“It’s really not that big of a deal,” I say, flicking my hair out of my face. “I went through my One Direction phase, a lot later than I’d like to admit. I once went through a British phase, where I forced everyone in my house to speak with a British accent for a week. I forced my family to eat my terrible creations that I thought were gourmet meals after watching MasterChef, but they were really just random condiments that I found in the refrigerator. I was just a general nightmare. I thought that I didn’t have friends in middle school other than Scarlett, Kennedy, and Gigi because I was skating all the time, but it’s because I was a little weirdo.”

“I think I might be falling for you,” he blurts out.

“What?”

“How are you going to say all that and not expect me to fall for you, Wrenny? You’re perfect and I think it’s ruining my life,” he says. I laugh because that is the weirdest reaction I have ever gotten to someone hearing about my childhood stories. “Well, I was definitely a lot tamer than you. I don’t think I went through any real phases. The only thing I can really remember loving as a kid was hockey. Carter and I lived and breathed it. It was all we talked about. We could go weeks at a time talking about the same game over and over. I guess I’m still in that phase though.”

I see the way his eyes dim when he talks about Carter, and if I could do anything to help, I would. He might make me see red and annoy me on a day-to-day basis, but he’s hurting.

I don’t think about it, and I reach over and put my hand over his. It’s the least I can do after I sobbed in his arms the other day.

He flips over his hand, his palm facing upward. We both stare at our hands as if daring each other to make the first move. I slip mine into his and instantly regret not doing this before. It feels strange and unknown, but so welcoming at the same time.

“Sorry. That didn’t really answer the question,” he murmurs, still staring at our hands.

“That’s okay,” I whisper, stroking my thumb against his hand. “I can tell you miss him. We don’t have to talk about anything you’re not comfortable with. I’m not going to push you on that just for the sake of this fake relationship.”

“Thank you.” He swallows, nodding. His hand is warm, his touch gentle, and it sends a strange, comforting warmth through me. I’ve always hated feeling emotions so intensely, but right now, feeling connected to him, I don’t mind it as much. “Hey, Wren?”

“Yeah?”

“Am I dreaming right now or are you willingly holding my hand?”

I chuckle. “Just shut up and let me be nice to you.”

“Thank you.”

“You said that already.”

His gaze meets mine, and I swear I could get lost in those eyes. “I know.”

The rest of the workout goes smoothly, and I think I might have finally found a workout buddy. The journey home ends up being more chaotic than the one there. Miles sings horribly the entire time, and I’m too tired to even fight him on it. When we pull into the driveway of his house, he stops the music and looks at me.

I look back at the house.

Then back to him.

Back to the house.

And then back to him.

He’s still staring.

I narrow my eyes. “What?”

“How many guys have you slept with?”

His question startles me, but I don’t show it. “Is that one of the questions?”

“No.”

“Then why do you need to know that?”

He lifts one shoulder and then drops it. “I’m your boyfriend. I think I’m meant to know.”

“Fake boyfriend,” I correct, “And I’m not answering that.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s none of your business.” I laugh when he pouts.

“You’re my business, Wren.” I stare at him, and he doesn’t miss a beat, grabbing my hand out of my lap and pressing the stupidest, sloppiest, most ticklish kiss to my wrist. He blows a raspberry, and I laugh, the sound so ridiculous in the confines of my car that he just keeps on doing it until I’m writhing against my will. “Please, princess.”

I can’t help the giggles escaping me. “Stop doing that. It tickles.”

I try to pull away from him, but he’s even stronger than he looks, and he grips onto both of my wrists this time, torturing me even more. “I’m not stopping until you tell me,” he whispers around the kisses on my wrist. “Are you going to tell me, sweet girl?”

Sweet girl.

My stomach bottoms out at the nickname, and I stop fighting him. The kisses on my wrist stop being playful and become more deliberate. Slow. Sensual. And I’ve never found anything more attractive. He keeps his eyes locked with mine as he does it, and my lips part. He kisses one wrist until it’s covered in him, and it might be my new favorite perfume.

“Come on, Wren,” he taunts, “Just tell me.” If I could form coherent words, I would have said something by now, but I physically can’t. “You want me to stop, don’t you?”

Do I?

My mind is saying yes, but my body is saying no.

“Yes. I want you to stop,” I say, breathing out.

His voice lowers. “Then tell me.”

He blows a raspberry, and another laugh tumbles out of me, erasing the tension. “Two and a half,” I reply.

He pauses, dropping my hands from his mouth but still running his fingers against my wrists where he kissed me. “A half?”

I pull my bottom lip between my teeth and nod. “He couldn’t make me come.”

Miles’s throat works, and I lean over him. I inhale the annoyingly attractive smell of him until I bury my face in his neck. He groans, but I don’t give in. I open the passenger side door, and he almost falls right out of the car.

I lean back in my seat. “I’ll see you tomorrow, bright and early.”

He scrambles to his feet, pulling his bag out from the backseat. “You’re seriously leaving me like that?”

I glance down to see the very obvious erection in his shorts. “Seems like you’ve got business to take care of. I don’t want to intrude.” Before he can say anything else, I lean over the console and shut his door, backing out of the driveway.