The Hardest Fall

by Ella Maise

  “So that’s it? That’s all of it?”

  “What else do you want me to say?”

  My friend gave me a cold stare. “How about an apology for making me worry about your stupid ass like a mother hen?”

  “You being serious?”

  “Yeah. Let’s hear it. I had better things to do than follow you around to find out what the hell you were up to, not to mention I didn’t know which apartment you disappeared into and had to knock on a shit ton of doors before I found it.”

  I laughed. “Fine. Sorry. We good?”

  “Yeah. It’ll do for now.”

  I pushed off the wall and we did a one-armed hug, thumping each other’s back.

  “Awww, you guys love each other. Either my eyes are watering or there’s a dust storm happening where I’m sitting. I would’ve never guessed that football players would be this emotional,” Zoe said as she popped the last bit of a crust into her mouth, her fingers immediately reaching for another slice.

  Amused, I shook my head and sighed. “JP, this is Zoe, my roommate and my new buddy. Zoe, this is JP, my surprisingly emotional teammate.”

  “Fuck off.” After elbowing me in the stomach, JP made his way toward her.

  Giving my friend a shy smile, Zoe wiggled her fingers at him. “Hi.”

  “Do I know you from somewhere?”

  Zoe’s eyes slid to me then back to JP. “I don’t know how you would.”

  I walked around the couch to sit down. There went my plan of watching a movie with my so-called buddy and spending a quiet night in.

  “Do we have a class together or something?”

  “Nope.”

  He turned to me. “Do I know her from somewhere?”

  “No, you don’t,” Zoe repeated, answering for me. I wasn’t planning on embarrassing her in front of JP, especially if he didn’t remember meeting her two years back, so I didn’t correct her.

  “Where did you find her, again?”

  Zoe narrowed her green eyes at JP’s back.

  “I told you, I found her online. She was looking for a roommate. Be nice.”

  JP’s eyebrows rose up toward his hairline, but other than giving me a shrug, he didn’t say anything. I’d hear about it later; he’d say whatever was on his mind when we were alone.

  “Apparently, I need to be nice to you,” he said. Leaning down, he lifted the top of the cardboard box, which was still on Zoe’s lap. “And it works both ways. I be nice to you, you be nice to me.” Zoe looked at JP then back at the four slices of pizza left. How the fuck had she eaten half of it that fast?

  Before my friend could lift one of the remaining slices, she slapped the box closed and held it away from him.

  “What the fuck?”

  Zoe leaned to her left to look around JP and met my eyes—another one of those rare occasions where she forgot she was too shy and avoided them. “I’m sorry, Dylan, I know he is your friend and all, but I really don’t want to share. I’m not at all a good sharer.”

  I laughed. “It’s okay, I got it for you. He can buy his own pizza if he’s hungry.”

  She tilted her head back to look up at JP, who was almost as tall as me. “Look, I haven’t had anything to eat since noon and I had a shitty night. Even though I’d be willing to give you one slice, I’ve seen how Dylan eats, and I can guess you’re no different. One slice won’t be enough for you, and I’m not willing to give you the rest…though, to be fair, if I only had one slice, it probably wouldn’t do anything for me either. So, why bother having a slice if it’s not gonna do anything for you? If I don’t have that one extra slice it’ll mean I’ll go to bed hungry, which would mean two people going to bed hungry. But, if I get all of these slices, at least one of us will be full.”

  “You’ll go to bed hungry,” JP repeated, not as a question, but more like a statement. Zoe hugged the pizza box closer. “What’s going on with this one?” he asked, looking at me in confusion.

  I smiled, relaxing into my seat for the first time since JP started banging on the door. “Nothing. She just loves pizza, maybe a little more than you and I do.”

  “You can have his,” Zoe added when JP continued to stand over her. I didn’t think JP had ever been refused food by any girl.

  He opened my nearly empty pizza box, which was still on the coffee table, and frowned down at it. “There’s only one slice here.”

  “See!” Zoe told him. “I said the same thing when I saw it, and just like I told you, one slice means nothing.”

  Again, JP met my eyes, waiting for an explanation. “What did you say was wrong with her again?”

  “Nothing is wrong with her.” I had trouble looking away from Zoe as I spoke, and JP obviously picked up on it because his next question made me wanna cause him serious injury, even risking his spot in the next game.

  “You’re definitely playing house here. Is that why Vicky is in such a tizzy? Does she know about her?”

  “If you mention Vicky one more time, I’m gonna kick you out.”

  Sitting down on the arm of the couch, he started to look around.

  “Are you his sugar mama or something?” he asked Zoe when he was done taking in his surroundings. “I’m not judging, girl. To each their own, but how did you afford this place again, D? Even half the rent must cost an arm and a leg.”

  Zoe’s eyes jumped from JP to me. Before I had to come up with a bullshit answer, there was another knock on the door.

  JP jumped up. “You kids stay put. I’ll get it.”

  I scrambled up after him. “JP, no.” If Coach was at the door, I was screwed.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Zoe doing the same, finally putting the pizza box down. Was she thinking the same thing I was?

  JP opened the door, and thank God it was only Chris who walked in. “Come in, come in. Look who I found here.” JP gestured toward me.

  I groaned and dropped back on the couch, this time taking the seat closer to Zoe instead of going back to the other end. “For your sake, man, I hope he’s the only one you told.” I tried to meet Zoe’s eyes to assure her that they would leave soon—if not, I would kick them out—but she only had eyes for our quarterback.

  My brows furrowed and I looked over my shoulder.

  “What’s going on here?” Chris asked, looking between Zoe and me.

  JP slung his arm over Chris’s shoulder and made a show of introducing Zoe.

  “This young thing over here has been—”

  I interrupted him by getting to my feet. “Just finish that sentence, man. Please do it.”

  Zoe cleared her throat and all eyes turned to her. Her cheeks were flushed, eyes sparkling. For some reason, that image of her didn’t sit well with me. Was she getting all worked up over Chris? She certainly hadn’t reacted that way to JP. It also looked like she had no trouble meeting Chris’s eyes whatsoever.

  I furrowed my brows and watched her wipe her hands on her dress. “Hi. I, uh…I’m Zoe. Uh, Zoe Clarke.” She threw a quick glance at me, but I didn’t think she actually saw me. “I’m Dylan’s roommate.”

  And just like that, I was demoted from friend to roommate.

  “Nice to meet you,” Chris said, sounding a little unsure.

  After a long moment of silence where no one said anything, I sighed and gestured to my left. “Since you two don’t look like you’re planning to leave any time soon, you might as well sit your asses down.”

  Chris walked past by me to take me up on my offer, but JP headed toward the kitchen. “Is there anything to eat in this place—other than your girl’s precious pizza, that is. I’m starving.”

  Zoe chose that moment to pick up the pizza box and offer it to Chris. “Would you like to have some pizza?”

  JP said exactly what was on my mind: “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  Chapter Eleven

  Zoe

  I knocked on the door and walked in as soon as I heard a muted, “Come in.” When his eyes lifted up and he saw who was in his office, he sigh
ed. “This is not the best time, Zoe. I’ll call you later.”

  Ignoring his words, I took a deep breath, clicked the door shut, and squared my shoulders. “I want to tell him.”

  I was in Mark’s private office, standing as far away from him as possible. Anyone could’ve told me he didn’t want me in there just from his body language and I didn’t want to be there either, but I’d sucked it up and made my way over to the athletic administration building as soon as I left the apartment that morning anyway. He was just going to have to deal with me.

  “No.” Mark looked at me with hard, unyielding eyes. Was he ever planning on telling him? At that moment, it didn’t look like he was, but we had a plan and he was going to tell him. He had to. I just couldn’t wait any longer.

  “I need to tell him,” I repeated, my voice coming out stronger this time—at least it sounded stronger to my ears.

  He leaned back in his seat and the chair gave a small groan. I barely managed to hold back my flinch.

  “Is this because I couldn’t make it last night? I’ll make it up to you some other time. You know how busy it gets during the season.”

  He wanted to talk about that? Sure, why not?

  “You were the one who invited me out in the first place. You didn’t have to make me wait two hours in that restaurant halfway across town if you had no intention of coming, but this isn’t about last night. It’s not the first time it’s happened, and I’m guessing it won’t be the last, either. I get that you’re busy. It’s fine either way.”

  “You need to remember who you’re talking to.”

  I needed to remember? I wanted to forget all about him.

  Mark tapped the pink end of the yellow pencil he had in his hand on one of the papers that were strewn all over his desk and looked down at them, dismissing me.

  “I give up. I don’t want to do this anymore,” I confessed, and his gaze came back to me. Was that relief I was seeing in his eyes? I let out a deep breath and swallowed my disappointment. “If you don’t want to see me, if you don’t care about getting to know me, that’s okay. You don’t have to. But, you should know, Chris was at the apartment last night. That’s why—”

  As soon as the words left my mouth, Mark was up on his feet. He threw the pencil on his desk in a calm manner, just a flick of his wrist, which was not what his body language said at all. Instead of meeting his eyes, I watched the pencil roll off and hit the ground with a small thump. When it stopped moving, I finally found the courage to look up at his face. I straightened my spine and tried my best to look like I wasn’t afraid of him or the radiating anger coming off him in waves. Though I had to say, it was the angriest I’d seen him in the last three years. His face was flushed and he bent to put his fists on the table, eyes on me the entire time.

  “What did you just say?”

  “Chris…he was at the apartment last night, with one of Dylan’s friends, JP. I think they were worried about him.”

  “What did you tell him, Zoe?”

  When I’d first come in, Mark hadn’t invited me to sit down, so I was still standing in the same spot. My hand tightened on the strap of my bag and the edge of the leather bit into my palm. It felt like the bag was my only protection against him, though in reality, it meant absolutely nothing. I didn’t think he’d actually hurt me, but he’d never looked at me like he wanted to end me right then and there either.

  Hadn’t my dad warned me on multiple occasions to be careful around him?

  “What the fuck did you tell him!” thundered Mark when I didn’t reply fast enough, and this time, I visibly flinched.

  I hated the fact that he had the ability to hurt me. He shouldn’t have, I knew that, and the fact that my voice was small when I answered him bothered me even more.

  “Nothing,” I forced out. “They didn’t stay for long.”

  “Sit down and tell me everything.”

  Maybe I had made a mistake in mentioning it to him. “I didn’t come—”

  His palm hit the desk with a sharp crack. “I said sit your ass down and tell me everything!”

  My heart hammering, I forced myself to walk with stiff legs and sat on the edge of the chair farthest away from him. A result of the anger I felt toward him, my fingertips bit into my palms the entire time. When I was finished telling him about the night before, making sure to keep the parts about me and Dylan out, he started pacing—angry steps, angry eyes, sharp, angry words.

  “He doesn’t know about your mom. How many times do—”

  “Our mom, you mean,” I muttered.

  His eyes narrowed at me. “Danielle has never been his mom. We adopted him. His mom is Emily.”

  It was right on the tip of my tongue to say something, but I decided to let it go. When it came to Mark, I knew it was better to pick my battles. I wanted to reason with him. Technically he was my father and I wished I could manage to call him by that title one day, but every time I thought about doing exactly that, I felt like gagging. This was one of those times.

  “Mom called you before she passed away and told you about me. I wasn’t the one to call you. You said you wanted to meet me, you said you wanted to get to know me. You were the one who invited me to come here, so I came. I came because I wanted to get to know you too, not just Chris. My freshman year, you said it should be just us for a while, said we should have the time to get to know each other, and I agreed because I was already nervous about how and why—”

  “What are you getting at Zoe? I don’t have time to go over the last three years.”

  “Don’t put all this on my mom. She was your wife’s friend and you both cheated behind her back. She didn’t get pregnant on her own, and twice at that. I have no idea how you talked your wife into adopting Chris—I guess maybe she was really desperate to have a kid and forgave you for cheating on her—but I know the lies you told my mom to convince her to give him up.”

  He just stared at me, anger burning in his eyes. I rose from my seat and forced my hands to relax at my sides.

  “At first, I thought you liked me,” I said in a controlled voice. “I might have been a surprise that came, what, eighteen, nineteen years later, but you acted like you cared about it, cared about learning more about me. I thought we were getting closer. I never assumed I’d be like a daughter to you, but I thought we would have some kind of relationship.” I gripped my bag tighter. Why did I think he’d interrupt me to say something to ease my hurt? Surely he could see it with his own eyes, but he said nothing. “Never mind. I already have a dad, right? I couldn’t ask for a better one. You don’t have to like me, I don’t mind that at all”—that was something I no longer cared about—“but I want to get to know Chris. That’s what I said from the very beginning. Other than my dad, I have no family. No one. He is my brother, not half-brother. He is my brother, and I want the chance to get to know him.”

  Something must have made it through because his eyes softened, the angry lines on his forehead slowly decreasing, at least I thought so. “We can’t tell him about your mother.” He sighed. “And Emily doesn’t know about you. She won’t handle it well if she learns that Chris knows she’s not his mother.”

  My mom had been sleeping with Mark behind his wife’s back when she got pregnant with Chris. Just two months before she passed away, she sat me down and told me all about their toxic relationship. She hadn’t thought of it as toxic, but that was exactly what it had been. Initially, Mark wanted her to get an abortion, but when my mom refused to do so, Mark came up with a better idea. Since his wife couldn’t have a baby because of her health issues, why not adopt the one Danielle was going to have and kill two birds with one stone? My mom didn’t know what he had told his wife, but to her, he’d promised to leave the wife when the time was right. Only problem was, the right time never came. A scandal would affect his football career. His coach at the time was his wife’s father, and surely he’d have done everything he could to get Mark fired if he learned that he was cheating on his daughter. If she didn’
t let them adopt the baby, he’d never acknowledge it, never see her again. However, if she did, they’d keep seeing each other behind the wife’s back, and when he left her, they’d raise Chris together. I’m not sure if my mom was so naive because of her young age or because of love, but she went along with his plan.

  “What do you mean we can’t tell him about his mother?”

  “I’ll only agree to tell him you’re his half-sister, and you’ll wait for me to tell him, Zoe. You’re not going to say one word to him without my knowing. That’s the best you’ll get from me.”

  Jesus. Was he actually negotiating with me about this?

  “This is his last season, and I’m going to wait till it’s over. I can’t afford for him to lose his focus and screw up his future over this. If you care about him, you’ll wait till the season ends.”

  I wanted to ask so many questions, but I simply nodded. I’d waited three years to meet him after all; a few more months was nothing.

  When he didn’t move his eyes off me, I gave him a tight nod and turned around to leave. The air inside the room was becoming stifling.

  “One more thing, Zoe.”

  I stopped with my fingers on the handle.

  “I don’t want you to be friends with Dylan Reed.”

  My brows drew together in confusion and I faced him. “What? Why?”

  “When I told him he could stay at the apartment, I thought you’d already moved out to live with your friend…what was her name…Kelly.”

  “Kayla.”

  He sighed. “Yes, her. Dylan is busy enough so I know he won’t be around you, but I still want you to keep your distance since he is one of Chris’s friends. I assume you’ll be moving out soon anyway. I’m going to talk to Dylan about it, but if Chris or any of my players come around to the apartment again, I want you to stay away. Get out if necessary.”