This Is Falling(19)

“Yeah,” he says, still looking down, his hand rubbing at his neck. “Made it kind of hard for me to sleep there. For the record, that couch in the lobby is miserable.”

My heart is thumping again, and I think it’s actually jumping up and down in my chest, it’s so excited by his answer. Which is bad, because it’s only going to make it harder for me to tame my heart into stopping at friends.

“Hey, Preeter! Ass back on the field, son!” one of the coaches yells. I don’t want him to get into trouble because of me, so I just nod him on.

“You’ll stick around? Yeah?” he asks, pushing his mask back over his head. I don’t believe in signs. If signs were real, then surely I would have gotten a few of them to stop my life from crumbling. But for whatever reason, my eyes center on the small scratched letters etched on the side of his metal mask—N.J.P. And Ty’s voice runs through my head.

“That depends,” I say, still looking at the letters on his mask.

“On what?” he asks, his feet starting to shuffle backward toward the field.

“What does N.J.P. stand for, and when’s your birthday?” I ask, my heart now in my stomach, begging and hoping for the right answer.

Nate’s lip pulls up on one side, and he tucks his lower lip under his teeth as he backs away, and inside I’m willing him—“Say it, just say it,” I’m thinking.

“My birthday’s in October, and the J is for Jackson. What can I say, beautiful girls turn me into a complete and utter fraud.”

I turn back to the bleachers without saying a word, and I can feel Nate’s eyes on me the entire way—watching me climb back up to my seat, lean back, and cross my legs, making myself comfortable.

This is still flirting, and it’s going to make being just friends damned near impossible. But right now, I don’t give a shit.





Chapter 8





Nate





She stayed for the entire practice. She even walked with me through campus, back to the workout room. It’s fall, so we only have a few tournaments to play—exhibitions. The real work starts in a month or two, but I still have a pretty full schedule. It makes it hard to squeeze in extra things…Rowe.

The weekend is free, though. The dorms are all full, because classes start on Monday, and everything about this place feels exactly like I thought college would feel.

“Hey, douchebag!” Ty yells when he comes through the door, throwing his rolled up dirty socks at me. “Think fast!”

“You are such an * sometimes,” I say, brushing them from my lap to the floor. Seriously, Ty’s feet stink.

“Yeah, well. Tell Mom,” he laughs. “Speaking of, I talked to them this morning. They’re coming to visit in a couple weeks. Taking us to dinner, and all that. I’m bringing Cass.”

My brother’s infatuation with Cass fascinates me. He has never held onto a girl longer than a week, but she seems to have found his weakness. What’s more amazing is how absolutely normal she is. Girls have never been a problem for Ty. He was homecoming king in high school, and that was after his accident. The local paper thought it was this cool story, about how our student body elected a guy in a wheelchair. Then the reporter interviewed Ty, and his quote pretty much summed it up.

“The chair might make people notice. But this face is so pretty, girls just can’t help themselves,” he said, right there in print. Mom told him he shouldn’t be so cocky, and Dad just high-fived him. That’s Ty. I wish I had an ounce of his confidence.

“You should ask Rowe,” he says, his back to me. That’s how I know he’s being serious, and not just teasing. If he were giving me crap, he’d be in my face, relentless and crude about her. But he likes her; he likes the idea of her and me. And I like that.

“Yeah? You think she’d go?”

“Bro, I know she’d go,” he says, turning around and throwing his dirty boxers at me now.

“Fucking *!” I get him back when I stand up and push his underwear on his own head as I leave the room.

“That’s right, you better run!” he yells as I swing through the door.

Their door is open, and for some reason that makes me nervous. I can hear music blaring as I get closer. It’s not the kind of stuff I’d expect to hear from a girl’s room. I knock on the door, but I know they can’t hear it, so I step slowly around the corner. Rowe’s back is to me, but Cass sees me right away and winks. Rowe is singing “Sex Is On Fire” by the Kings of Leon, standing on a chair in the middle of her room, her arms pumping in the air as if she were actually on stage. It’s the single cutest thing I’ve ever seen in my whole life. I quietly slip all the way into the room and slide my back along the wall, pulling my knees up so I can sit and just look at her for a little longer.

When the chorus comes around, Cass jumps onto the bed and sings along with her. They sound terrible, but I’d watch an entire concert of this just to look at Rowe. She spins around once, but her eyes are closed, so she doesn’t notice I’m here, and it gives me such a good idea.

I put my finger to my mouth, motioning to Cass while I sneak up behind Rowe; Cass grins and nods. I wait for a few seconds for them to get to the chorus again, and when Rowe lifts her arms up, I wrap my arms around her waist and lift her up from the chair into my arms.