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

I’ve always hated crying.

I’ve always hated the feeling of being weak and vulnerable, and I’ve put those walls up for a reason. But since I’ve met Miles, it’s like he’s been slowly hammering away at my walls and trying to get me to open up to him.

I don’t think he’s doing it intentionally, but he’s got this annoyingly calm presence about him that makes me want to spill secrets to him and have him give me another hug. It’s stupid and the most pathetic thing I’ve indulged in, but it feels good, and I haven’t felt that in a while.

We end up in a secluded diner not far from the one we went to for our date. According to the very short menu, they only sell fries or fries (exploded). We sat across from each other in a back booth after ordering our fries and drinks.

I take a long sip of my Coke, drawing out the inevitable. “Hey, I’m sorry about what happened earlier. I know it’s not a big deal or whatever, but it kind of is to me. I hate freaking out like that on other people, and I should have warned you or something. I don’t know. I’m just embarrassed that you had to see me like that.”

He stares at me for a minute, and I wonder why I didn’t just keep my mouth shut. “You’ve got nothing to apologize for. Things happen. I’m just glad you didn’t leave me shouting outside the bathroom door the whole night.” I snort. “I meant what I said the other night, Wren. I want you to know that you can be real with me, and I like knowing that you’re okay.”

“Why?” I find myself asking.

“Why wouldn’t I want to know that you’re okay? When you’re with me, and even when you’re not, I just like knowing that you’re okay. Especially when I’m not there. So, you running off from me earlier? Yeah, that doesn’t really work for me.”

The seriousness in his tone catches me off guard. No one has ever seemed so like they care much about what I feel or what I have to say. No one checks in on me as much as Miles does and I haven’t known him for that long. It’s all so weird to get used to.

“Okay,” I whisper. He raises his eyebrow and I smile and say, “Okay.”

“Do you find it hard to talk about?” Miles asks. His words are soft, but he has this intense way of looking at me. It isn’t like he’s judging me or thinking of ways to make fun of me. It’s like he’s trying to understand me, and it baffles me why he would want to do that.

I shrug. “Not really. I think I’ve always been anxious since I started skating at a competitive level. When I was a kid, I didn’t really know what it was. I’d just start to feel really sick before competitions, and no matter how many times I’d tell my coach or my mom that I felt like that, they just said it was normal. It stopped feeling ‘normal’ when I was around eight and every time I felt like that, I couldn’t breathe. It just felt like I was constantly drowning, and the more I thought about it, the more I’d panic and the worse I’d feel. When it’s really bad, I throw up, which is what I thought was going to happen back there. Usually, the nausea is a tell-tale sign that I’m going to have a panic attack, but sometimes it just happens, and I can’t control it.”

Miles nods. “Do you ever talk to anyone about it?”

I shake my head. “The girls know, and I’ve mentioned it to my doctor. She diagnosed me with anxiety and depression a few months ago, so I’ve been taking medication to deal with it, but it doesn’t mean it just stopped existing. It’s hard to adjust to, but I always knew there was something wrong and I just needed to draw some real attention to it.”

“Was it because of the fall? With Augustus?” he asks, his voice low and quiet like he’s too afraid to ask me.

I nod, biting my lip. “I didn’t think it was going to effect me as bad as it did, but it really took a toll on my mental health. I thought I could move past it since it was coming to the end of the semester and summer was around the corner, but it all just crushed me. I couldn’t eat. I didn’t leave my room, and the girls had to do all the basic things for me because I couldn’t do anything on my own even though I desperately wanted to be left alone.” I take in a deep breath. “There are still days when I think about it or I get overwhelmed with everything, but it’s definitely not as bad as it was before. I think I’m getting better, but it’s not something that just goes away, and I just have to be okay with it.”

“You know you’re not alone, right?” Miles says, and it feels like a punch to the gut.

I nod, swallowing. “I know. I’ve got my girls.”

“And you’ve got me,” he says.

I smile, wishing it could just erase the last few hours from our memories. “Yeah, I do.”

There’s a comfortability about Miles that puts me on edge. He lets me talk about things without an ounce of judgment, even the hard stuff. I always found that the second I tell people how it feels to be inside my head, they freak out or act differently toward me. My mom pretends that it doesn’t exist even though she was with me when I first started taking anxiety medication when I was sixteen. It’s become such a regular part of my routine that I don’t think about it anymore. That’s until I have moments like today or even when I look in my mom’s face and she can tell that I’m not her perfect little girl anymore. She tries to ignore it because it’s easier for her to conjure up a version of me she prefers in her head. I’ve never felt so much shame for just existing when she looks at me like that. But when I look up to find Miles’s eyes on me, I have a weird feeling like he actually cares. Like he values me more than just my talent.

Our fries arrive, and sure enough, his exploded ones look disgusting. It’s even worse that he has the biggest grin on his face while I grimace at them. They’re covered in melted cheese, bacon bits, mustard, and hash brown bites. If I wasn’t so hungry to eat my own food, I would have thrown up by now.

I cover my fries in ketchup, and when some drips down my finger, I lick it off, making the stupid mistake of looking up at Miles while I do so. He smirks, and I grab a napkin, cleaning up the mess in a more appropriate way.

“I take it you don’t get to do this much,” Miles says, nodding at our meal.

“My mom would have a heart attack if she found out I was eating food this greasy.”

“Does she monitor what you eat or something?” he asks.

I shake my head. “Not really. We both know how important it is for me to stay healthy, so I’ve kinda adapted what I eat around that. It was worse when I was younger, but since I got so used to it, I don’t really think about it that much,” I say, shrugging and poking around at my fries.

He nods in understanding, not pushing it any further. He eats more of his fries before pulling out his phone from his back pocket. “Question time,” he announces.

“My absolute favorite time of the day.”

Honestly, it’s not the worst idea he’s come up with. They’ve helped ease a lot of the tension between us and are fun to talk about when we take breaks at the gym.

He breaks out into a smile. “Do you have a flaw that you think I might not be okay with? Any kinks I should know or weird fetishes would also be appreciated.”

I narrow my eyes. “Does it actually say that?”

“Just the first part,” he mumbles. “Wait. It’d be harder to point out your own flaws. How about you tell me what my flaws are?”

I nod. “It’s just something I’ve noticed,” I start, waiting for a reaction before I continue. He just blinks at me, still eating his fries. “You get very attached to things.” He doesn’t move, and I’m guessing this isn’t the first time he’s heard this. “I mean, you had a meltdown when we changed gyms.”

“It was a very nice gym.”

“My point still stands.”

He throws his head back and groans. I get a good look at his throat, and it makes mine go dry. What is so hot about a man’s throat? I would love to know why it drives me fucking crazy.

“What was it that you said? That I was hyper-fixating on you to avoid fixing my problems?” I nod. He shrugs, leaning his forearms on the table. “I guess you were right. It’s just something I do. But if it wasn’t for that, we wouldn’t be here right now. So it’s really a win.”

“It’s definitely something,” I mumble. “Okay, my turn. Tell me something horrible about me.”

“Whoa, it’s nothing horrible. The only horrible thing about you is that I can’t spend every minute by your side.” I don’t think I’m ever going to get used to how smooth he is. How easy it is for him to say these things and expect me to act normal about it. He leans forward and I do, too, and he finally whispers, “You’re a very stubborn person, Wren Hackerly.”

I roll my eyes, but I still stay close to him. “Tell me something I don’t know, genius.”

“See, you refuse to be nice to me. You were putting up a fight about doing this until you realized how irresistible I am, and now look at us.”

“And how well is this working out for us so far?”

He frowns, clearly not finding my joke funny. “Wrenny baby, we had one setback and⁠—”

“Stop calling me that.”

“And we’ve been out one time. It’s going to take a while for us to get used to being around each other like that. Especially if you’re so committed to not liking me.”

“I know,” I say with a sigh, “I just really want this to work.”

“And it will,” he says, and he has the audacity to wink at me before leaning back in his seat, crossing his arms against his chest. “Just trust me.”

We continue asking each other more questions on the drive home, and I find out that his favorite quality about me is that I’m not easy to win over like the girls he’s been with in the past. I thought that was stupid because I’m actively trying not to let myself get caught up in him. It’s like he’s put some pathetic spell on me that makes me itch to be with him. I tell him about the upcoming showcase and how I can’t wait to get my leotard back from my designer that Scarlett hooked me up with.

As he drives me back, he points out where his house is, and I’m only just realizing how close it is to my apartment. It’s almost like he’s been hiding in plain sight this whole time.

When we park, he insists on walking me to my door, and he talks the entire time.

“Should I buy you a muzzle for Christmas? You really need to learn how to shut up,” I mutter when we step out of the elevator.

“I’m sure we could have a lot more fun with that than you think,” he murmurs, bumping his arm into mine.

“Okay, I have a question for you, loverboy.” We get to my apartment door, and I lean against it. Miles raises his eyebrows for me to continue. “What’s your love language?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“Okay,” I whistle, “So, physical touch. Got it.”

He smiles. “What about you?”

“Physical touch and words of affirmation,” I say, and my body tingles for no other reason than I haven’t had sex in eight months. Or maybe it was the feel of Miles’s hand on my stomach at the party. He studies me for a second, and my cheeks flush. “What? Do you think I’m lying?”

He steps closer to me, dipping his head toward the side of my face, his mouth close to my ear. His hot breath tickles my throat. His thumb traces small ovals from the sensitive part of my collarbone to the side of my neck, where I’m sure he can hear my pulse hammering. I take in a shaky breath, my legs suddenly ready to give out beneath me.

“No, I’m not surprised. I heard the noise you made when I touched you earlier,” he murmurs, each syllable reverberating through my body.

“And what noise was that?” I ask.

“You moaned like you haven’t been fucked in years, baby,” he whispers, and I hate how right he is. I hate how sensitive my skin is and how in tune it was with his body. I close my eyes before placing my hands on his chest, gently pushing some space between us.

“You just called me ‘baby.’ Non-ironically, might I add?”

Miles grins. “Sure did, baby.”

I shudder and pretend to gag. “I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.” He laughs, shaking his head. “If you call me baby, I’m going to call you Milesy.”

“Call me whatever you want, baby. ‘Daddy’ is also acceptable,” he replies, smirking. I laugh at him and shove him in the arm, and he laughs too. There’s something so carefree about laughing with him, and a huge part of me wishes I had this earlier when I really needed it.

When we calm down, I say, “I had a good time today. Shitty food and all.”

“Me too, but I don’t think the food was that bad.”

“This is why we changed your diet,” I say, patting him on the chest. I push the door from behind me, keeping it open with my foot. “Good night, Milesy.”

“Good night, baby,” he whispers before turning on his heels.

When I slip into bed later that night, I feel lighter.

I’m trying to convince myself that these sorts of panicking feelings just happen. They aren’t going to determine my life and this fake relationship. I tried to get rid of all those feelings in the shower, but my hands still shake a little when I reach for my phone.

When I unlock it, it’s flooded with followers and tags. I knew Miles was popular, but I didn’t know the extent of it until now.

Fucking hell.

Is he secretly a prince or something?

I’ve got follows on Instagram from people who I’ve never spoken to before and likes from the people who shunned me after regionals. A strange sensation runs through my body when I click on Miles’s profile, and there it is.

The most recent post in his grid is a picture of me in the diner we went to: a candid of me nudging around my fries as I look down at them, my hair almost covering my face, but you can tell it’s me. I don’t know how I missed him taking the photo. I look over it again, taking note of what I can see before my eyes wander down to the caption.

My heart bottoms out.

Jesus Christ.

My girl?

Why do those two words make my heart stop? They shouldn’t. He doesn’t mean it, obviously, but I don’t hate the feeling of pretending he did. I wander down to the comments, which are a mixture of You guys are so cute, When did this happen? and Who is she? From this picture alone, I’ve gained a shit ton of followers.

Despite the setback today, things might be finally looking up for me.

When sleep pulls me under, I have the biggest and most ridiculous smile on my face.