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

I run my sweaty palms down the front of my jeans for what must be the tenth time as I stand awkwardly outside the door of her apartment.

I thought taking the stairs would help me work off the nervous energy that is working its way through my veins, but it didn’t. If anything, it just intensified the fact that I have no clue what I’m doing. The liquid courage at the party no longer exists, and now I have to somehow charm her with my dazzling personality. “Dazzling” is not how anyone would describe it, but it’s something.

I doubt Wren even wants to spend any extra time with me after the countless times I’ve texted her, but she gives me something else to focus on. If I’m not staring into the abyss and wondering how I’m going to get back on the team, I’m texting her. It’s been months since I’ve had to try to convince a girl to give me the time of day, and I’m a competitive motherfucker. She might not realize it now, but I can tell she’ll warm up to me at some point.

I knock twice before the door swings open. I barely get to look at Wren’s face before she ushers me in and rushes around her huge apartment. “Sorry. I just got back from the gym, and I’m still getting my life together. I’ll be two minutes,” she shouts, walking down a corridor.

“Okay,” I say even though I don’t feel it. I step into her kitchen. “I’ll just stand awkwardly in your kitchen and pretend this isn’t the first time I’ve been here.”

“So, you’re not just a pretty face? I knew you’d get the hang of it,” she shouts back.

“All I heard was that you think I’m pretty,” I say, and I hear her snort.

I do exactly that and stand awkwardly in her kitchen. She’s mentioned that she lives with her two best friends, but I don’t see or hear them anywhere. The kitchen is as clean as I would expect. The granite countertops are glistening like they’ve never been used before. Some of the cupboards are made with glass doors, and funky-looking body-part-shaped glasses stand on the shelves.

The fridge is full of pictures of Wren and her friends, most of them in different countries. I trace my finger over one of them that catches my attention. Wren’s face is red as she hangs over the toilet seat, her curly-haired friend Kennedy sitting next to her with her hand on her back and Scarlett holding the camera up to take the photo with the three of them in it.

“That was in Barcelona,” Wren says, standing on the opposite side of the island. My breath catches in my throat when I take her in. She’s wearing a thin cami top, a cardigan, and low-rise jeans. Her blonde hair is tied back into a loose ponytail, and her bangs curl in front of her face. “It was last summer. I think that was the last time I drank alcohol.”

“You were drinking water at the party,” I point out. She nods. “Is there a story behind this that has led to your sobriety?”

“Is there a story behind your mild alcoholism?” she challenges, crossing her arms against her chest.

“Touché,” I say, holding a hand to my heart as if her words hurt. She rolls her eyes, trying to avoid my gaze as we both just look at each other. I haven’t seen her in person since the party, and though texting has been fun, I’ve been dying to see her again. “You look good.”

Her smile widens. “Thanks. So do you.” I’m wearing baggy jeans and a shirt. It’s really nothing special. But with the way she’s clearly eye fucking me, I feel like a million bucks. “Now, can we get on with this date and never see each other again?”

I tut as she walks around to meet me by the door. “I really don’t think that’s going to happen, princess. You’ll be dying to see me again.”

“If you keep calling me that, I don’t think we’ll make it out this door,” she mumbles, but she’s taking smaller and smaller steps toward me and the door.

“I’m taking you on your dream date and giving you free food. You can at least pretend to be happy about it,” I argue, opening her door. She looks around her apartment for the last time, double-checking her bag before she gives me a cheesy grin. More like she’s baring all of her teeth to me like I’m her dentist and I’m deciding which ones I should pull out.

“You see this?” She points at her face. “This is me pretending to be happy about it.”

“Jesus. What are you doing with your face?”

She frowns. “Smiling.”

“Maybe try it with less teeth. That was terrifying. You look like a Cheshire cat.”

“You sure know how to compliment a girl, don’t you, Miles?”

“If you wanted me to compliment you, I would have told you how fucking hot you look, but that didn’t seem appropriate. So you know what I said instead?”

She rolls her eyes as I stare at her, waiting for her to play my little game. “You said I looked good.”

“Exactly, because that’s the polite thing to say. Now, come here,” I say, tugging on her bag that’s slung over her shoulder to pull her into me. I press two fingers on each side of her mouth, trying to pretend the skin-to-skin contact isn’t driving me insane. She looks up at me a little wide-eyed, but I fix the frown on her face into something less terrifying. “There you go! That’s a real smile.”

She keeps her lips pressed in the weird shape I put them in as she mumbles, “This is really uncomfortable.”

“You’re right. Go back to scowling at me. I like that better,” I say, nodding. She laughs, pushing me in the shoulder. And then she does it. She really smiles at me. And a fucking dimple pops out. A dimple. Kill me now.

She shakes her head. “You’re ridiculous.”

“You’re gorgeous.” I don’t even have time to register the surprise on her face, and I usher us out of her apartment before she can say anything. “The library awaits, princess. Let’s get going.”

From the way Wren gawked at me when I said we were going to the library, I thought she was going to scratch my eyes out. I don’t know if this is the best place to take a girl for a date, but considering what she studies in college and the complete lack of bookstores in our town, I thought this would be a good idea. Drake’s Library is the biggest one we have, and I’m sure it’s every bookworm’s dream.

I don’t think I’ve seen Wren look happier. Or I think she’s happy. Every time she passes a book she’s read, she makes a weird angry grumbling sound like she hates it before she picks it up, shows it to me, and then tells me the entire plot from start to finish. She doesn’t leave a single detail out, and I couldn’t find anything more attractive.

“Sorry, I feel like I’m being really annoying, and this isn’t exactly what a date is supposed to be like,” she sighs, walking beside me after placing another book down. We’ve been in the romance section since we got here, and I doubt anywhere else in this place would interest her.

“Don’t worry about it. I like hearing you talk,” I say, bumping my shoulder into hers. She just scoffs. “So, do you come here often?”

She laughs quietly, her whole body shaking with laughter. “To the library?”

I give her a sidelong glance. “Yeah. Why is that funny?”

“I’m an English and Creative Writing major, that’s all. I thought you knew that,” she explains. I swear my brain stopped working the second I met her.

“Right. Yeah. Sorry. I did know that. I’m just⁠—”

“Nervous?” she finishes, raising her eyebrows at me. I swallow, nodding. “You don’t have to be. I don’t bite.” I’m so fucking captivated by her that I don’t even make a joke. She continues talking, and her voice is like literal music to my ears. “But yeah, I do come here quite often. My dad used to take my sister and me here every weekend after our parents got divorced. I think my dad was just unsure what to do with us, so we spent most of our days together just walking around here, and we’d take out books that we liked. We’d come straight after school sometimes just for story time. We would have just preferred hanging out with him, but it was more fun than going to dance classes or going to the rink with our mom.”

“Are you guys close?” I ask.

I watch the way her whole face lights up when she says, “I’d say so. He’s a real goof sometimes, but it’s a nice balance with how strict my mom can be.” I hum in response. “What about you? Are you close with your parents?”

I try my best not to seem uncomfortable with her question. My shirt suddenly feels like it’s suffocating me, but I just shrug it off. “Not as much as we used to be, but it’s cool.”

Recently finding out that my mom has been cheating on my dad for years is anything but cool. The fact that they’re still together, pretending to be in love with each other, is even less cool. They’ve even convinced my sister and me that it’s totally okay and that we don’t have to worry about them getting a divorce anytime soon, but I’d honestly rather them just get it over with. It’s hard to watch. I’ve been avoiding them for months and I really don’t know when I’ll be able to face them again. Not only did I lose my best friend in March, but I lost my parents too.

“I’m sorry,” Wren says. “That must suck.”

I sniffle. “It’s fine, honestly. We’ve never really been some big, let’s all talk about our feelings, kind of family anyway. It’s cool this way.”

“I get that,” she says. It’s like refreshing. She doesn’t immediately go into fixing mode and try to figure out what’s wrong with me. She just lets it go because I said I didn’t want to talk about it. “How about this? I pick you a book, and you can pick me one. Whoever finishes it first gets a prize.”

“I never knew you could win prizes for finishing first,” I tease.

“Are you projecting because your last girlfriend didn’t give you a medal and congratulate you for jizzing in your pants while she was still dry?”

“I—” I stop myself because I was not expecting her to catch up with my humor so quickly. I just smile. “I accept your challenge. But I’m not getting you a romance novel. You can read a good book.”

“You mean a hockey player’s autobiography?” she asks.

“Yes, Wren, a hockey player’s autobiography is what I consider to be a good book.”

Her head quirks. “See, it sounds sarcastic, but I really don’t think you’re joking.”

I frown. “I-I’m not joking. The McDavid Effect changed my life.”

“Of course it did.”

“Just let me buy you your books, princess, and stop arguing with me.”

I hook my arm around her shoulder, leading us out of the romance section, but she’s still got a ton of books in her basket, which she’s probably going to force me to read. “Miles?” she asks, turning to look up at me.

“Mm-hmm?”

“You do know that all books at libraries are free, right?”

My eyes widen. “Are you kidding me? I was going to brag to all my friends about how I treated you to books and food.”

She snorts, the most unladylike sound I’ve ever heard. God, I could get drunk on it. “Next time, you can take me to an actual bookstore. Then I can spend all of your money.”

I smirk. “Sounds like a date if I’ve ever heard one, Wrenny.”