Falling: A Fake Dating College Hockey Romance (North University Book 1)
Falling: Chapter 15

I didn’t know how lonely I was until I felt what it’s like to be around Wren. Even with all her walls, being with her feels less empty than being alone.

I used to have Carter for that. We were inseparable, always together, whether it was on the ice or just hanging out. He was more than a best friend—he was like a brother. We had this tradition of getting burgers at Joe’s Diner after every game, win or lose. We’d sit there for hours, analyzing every play, arguing over missed shots, and laughing about the stupid stuff that happened during practice.

I’ve spent so much time alone since then, sinking into this dark hole. But Wren—she’s like this unexpected light. She makes me feel less alone. Even though she’s guarded, her presence is comforting.

Now, I feel like smashing my head against the wall out of boredom.

Every day after classes, I’ve gone home and done nothing. Going to the rink feels like the stupidest thing I could do because whenever I see my teammates I can just see the empty space where Carter used to be. The rink feels so empty without him, like a part of me is missing. Every time I laced up my skates, I’d see him there, grinning like an idiot, ready to take on the world. There’s this deep, unsettling feeling that I get whenever I consider going to skate, knowing he’s not here anymore.

I see him in everything, and when I don’t have anything to distract myself from, I start to feel myself slipping back into old habits. I can’t go back there. I’ve been working hard with Wren in the gym, and I don’t think I’ve been in better shape. I can’t fuck that up now because I’ve had a couple of bad days.

It isn’t helping that I’ve not gotten a call from either of my parents or my sister. I can’t blame them. I shut them out completely after what happened, and I can’t stomach the thought of talking to them again like everything is fine when it’s so far from it.

I put myself out of my misery and throw on jeans and a hoodie and jump into my car. I connect my phone to the Bluetooth and put on the playlist that I’ve started to put together for Wren.

Okay, it’s not for her, but it’s also… for her.

It’s just songs that not only remind me of her, but songs that I know she likes from going to the gym and hearing them on repeat. I know she hates my usual music taste, so I’ve altered it so it fits more of the music she likes, but it’s still got me written all over it.

When I’m not on the ice, I love discovering new music. Carter and I would have a pre-game pump-up playlist, and it was our own superstition that we were sure would guarantee the win. Now, just hovering over that playlist makes my stomach flip.

I put on Jump Then Fall, by Taylor Swift, and it immediately puts me in a good mood as I drive around my side of town, desperately trying not to go straight to Wren’s apartment.

I mean, technically, I should be able to go and see her when I want since she’s my girlfriend, but I have more self-control than that. I’m delusional enough to think she must be thinking of me too because the second the song finishes, my phone lights up with a text from her.

The bubbles appear, but they disappear again, and I laugh to myself for getting under her skin. I can’t help it sometimes. She’s just too easy to wind up, and lucky for her, I like it when she gets mad at me.

I can count on one hand how many times I’ve been to the campus library, which says a lot about how much I care about my studies. Choosing sports sciences was the easy way out, but actually having to study sucks. Kinesiology sounded fun when I was applying for colleges, but I’m already a lost cause. I’ve been attending classes per Miss Hackerly’s request, but Wren hasn’t been keeping up with her side of the deal to tutor me. She just sends me links and hopes that it helps. Besides, she’s way too busy to try to get my pea brain to focus.

I walk through the large doors, scanning my NU card onto the machine to go through the security gates, and I’m in the middle of unknown territory. There are floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, filled with deep-brown paperbacks and textbooks. I know it’s a library, but it’s too quiet here. So quiet that the second I accidentally step on the wrong piece of wood, the few people that are in here snap out of their study focus and give me a death glare. But it also draws my attention to the one person I wanted to see.

Wren is sitting at a table tucked in the back of the study zones, the only person in her section. She has a pile of books on the right side of her, and her laptop is on the table.

She looks different in this setting. She’s not sweaty and panting from skating or working out. Instead, she’s wearing the cutest owl frame glasses, her hair is tied into a high ponytail, and she’s wearing a white tank top and shorts, her knee pulled up to her chin.

I walk over to her with the biggest grin on my face, and I step on another wrong plank of wood. You’d think that they’d try to make the floors as soundless as possible, but no. Wren shakes her head at me, pulling up her glasses to rest on the top of her head.

“Could you be any louder?”

“Hello to you too, girlfriend.” I reach over to tap her glasses and pull them over her eyes. “These are cute.”

Her nose crinkles as she rolls her eyes. “Thanks,” she mutters, looking down to her laptop and then back to me. “I need you to test me with these questions.” I raise my eyebrows at her lack of manners, and she whispers, “Please.”

She turns the laptop toward me, and I see the list of questions she has in her Word doc about a book called “Atonement.” I have no idea what that is, but the questions seem interesting. Well, interesting if you’re into literature.

“Is this all you need me for?” I ask, scrolling through the endless list. She nods, scribbling something down into a notebook. “Couldn’t Kennedy and Scarlett do this? As much as I know I’m going to enjoy asking these questions, I know I wasn’t your first choice.”

“Do you have any volume control?” she whispers, pinning me with a look. “Scarlett has an exam today, and Ken’s working.”

“And you don’t have any friends from your class?”

She shakes her head. “Just ask me the questions, Milesy.”

And I do.

I learn all about the cultural and social setting of the novel and a bunch of other random shit that I don’t need to know. I don’t know how she’s worried about passing this exam when she answers every question immediately and exactly with the answers that she’s written down.

When I finally get to the last question, I turn the laptop back around to her. “What’s next?”

She scrolls through it, picking up her very annotated copy of the novel before typing something down. “I need to write down some last-minute notes and then I’m going to do a timed essay.”

“And you need me here for that, why?”

“So you can confiscate my devices. I’ll get too distracted if I have them in front of me. It’s what me and the girls usually do,” she explains.

“Do you really have that little self-control?”

“I have a lot more self-control than you do,” she argues. “I’m just gonna make these notes and then do the essay. You should go and explore while I write.”

“And risk getting death-stared by every person in here? No thanks,” I say, leaning back in my chair, crossing my arms. “I can just watch you study.”

Watching her study is slightly motivating me. I know I should have brought some of my own stuff with me to study for exams that aren’t for months, but I would have just got distracted anyway.

Have I mentioned how beautiful this woman is? How is she managing to read, write, and listen to a podcast all at once? I can’t figure it out for the life of me, but her dedication to studying as well as skating is one of the most attractive things I’ve ever seen.

I’ve been making paper boats with her spare paper for almost an hour. She’s written her essay and has moved on to making more notes, and I’m this close to dying of boredom. I tap her pen with the fluffy end next to the laptop as she types away.

“Wren. Wren. Wren. Wren,” I press, and I know it’s about to irritate the fuck out of her. “Wrenny, Wren, Wren.”

She stops typing, slamming the laptop shut. “What!?”

I smile wide, popping my dimple out and everything. “Hi.”

Her face almost breaks for a second, but she sticks her tongue in her cheek before opening her laptop again. She starts typing as she says, “Don’t do that.”

I bash my eyelashes at her innocently. “Do what?”

“Annoy me like a puppy.”

“Isn’t that what boyfriends are for?”

“Real boyfriends,” she clarifies. “Real boyfriends can annoy me. Real boyfriends carry my books for me. Real boyfriends take me shopping and buy me anything that I want. Real boyfriends fuck me in bathrooms just because they can. But you, Miles Davis, are my fake boyfriend.”

“We can change that.”

“No, we can’t.”

“We can. Just say the word and I’ll carry your books, spoil you with whatever money I have left, and fuck you into oblivion in every bathroom in the city,” I whisper. Her cheeks turn the slightest shade of pink, and I smile to myself. “Does that sound like something you’re interested in, Wren?”

She swallows, dropping her gaze back to her work. “Not at all.”

When Wren finally finishes her intense study session, she picks up all of her shit and we walk across to Florentino’s. It’s busy here, as always. If there is one good thing about NU besides hockey, it’s this café. We walk up to the counter, my arm around her shoulder, Wren’s books clutched to her chest, and I’m sure we look like every clichéd couple in a teen drama.

“What’s your usual order?” I ask when we join the line.

“It depends what the special is. Ken is always making something crazy back there,” she says, nodding to her best friend who is working frantically behind the counter. “Her mango smoothies are fantastic.”

“It’s freezing outside and you want a mango smoothie?”

“What would you suggest?”

“Deluxe hot chocolate, obviously,” I say. “It’s expensive, but it’s so fucking good.”

“That’s not the most expensive thing on the menu,” she whispers, shifting from one foot to the other as we move further down the line.

“Really? What is?”

“The caramel crunch cappuccino,” she concedes, avoiding eye contact with me.

“Let me guess. That’s your usual order,” I say, laughing. She nods.

“Even with Kennedy’s discount, it’s still ridiculous,” Wren replies. “It is the best drink though.”

“I’m a nineteen-year-old student. What makes you think I can afford a seven-dollar coffee?” I spit out, and she laughs, shrugging.

“You said you’d spend the money you have left on me. This is a clear opening,” she argues.

“If we’re playing that game, does the rest of what I said stand?”

She shrugs, avoiding my gaze as she faces forward. “We’ll see.”

“You’re lucky, princess. You are the only exception.”

She shakes her head and snorts, a combination of mannerisms I’m sure she reserves just for me. I nudge her in the shoulder to move forward since we’re next in the line. When Kennedy sees us, she smiles wide, clearly our biggest fan.

“There is my favorite couple,” she cries, leaning on the countertop. “What can I get for you?”

“The most expensive drink you have,” Wren chimes in, smiling at me. I’m going to be fourteen dollars more broke than I was this morning, but if it makes her smile like that, I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

Kennedy beams, winking at me. “Coming right up.”

We walk out of Florentino’s sipping our drinks and head toward Radnor Hall, where Wren’s classes take place. I’m holding both of our drinks in my hand while Wren hooks one arm into mine, holding her books with the other. It’s probably the most PDA I’ve ever engaged in as I give Wren regular sips of her drink. I swear every time we walk past someone, they do a double take. I don’t think I’m ever going to get used to this. The stares. The whispers. The looks.

“Hey, I forgot to ask you something,” Wren says after a long stretch of comfortable silence. I hum, and she continues, “My dad’s hosting a charity event at one of his hotels, and he wants us to come. We were talking the other day and I slipped, saying I was seeing someone. He’s excited to meet you.”

I swallow the lump in my throat. “He is?”

“Yeah, he likes hockey, and you like hockey. You’ve already got so much in common,” she says, laughing. “It’s a laid-back event, but people get really into it, so you’ll have to wear something nice.”

“Something nice?” I bite out the words like they’ve personally offended me.

“Yeah, a nice suit or something,” she says. She grabs a hold of both our empty cups, throwing them away. “You don’t have to go if you don’t want to. I just thought it’d be fun and probably the only time you’d get to meet my dad. He’s pretty busy.”

“You really think he’ll like me?”

I shouldn’t care so much, but I do. Whether it’s fake or not for us, this feels like a big deal, and I can’t mess it up. Wren shrugs. “Yeah, he likes everybody. The only thing is we’ll have to stay the night. It’s a couple hours’ drive, and he doesn’t like the idea of me driving back so far at night. Is that okay?”

“If this hotel is anything like the gym we go to, then hell yeah, I’m in.”

She looks up at me. “Really? You seriously don’t have to go if you don’t want to. It’s just a stupid event and everyone’s going to be⁠—”

“Hey, I want to go, okay? If you’re just saying that because you don’t want me to go, you can just say that.”

She bites her bottom lip. “I do want you to come.”

“Then it’s settled. I’m going with you.”

She smiles at me, and I don’t know why I’m already feeling nervous. Her dad seems nice from what I’ve heard, but meeting someone’s parents is a big thing. The kind of milestone I never reached with my ex.

“Wren! Oh my god. I was just looking for you.” A girl with dark-brown hair rushes toward us as we walk back past the library. The girl I’ve never seen before in my life hooks Wren’s arm into hers, taking her away from me.

“You were?” Wren asks, looking back at me as her friend walks in front of me with Wren in tow.

“Yes! I was trying to replace you to talk about the exam we’ve got coming up,” she explains. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your boyfriend?”

Wren turns around, looking at me skeptically, her eyes suddenly wide and unsure. “This is Miles Davis. Miles, this is Katie Buxbaum from my creative writing class.”

“So you guys really are dating?” Katie asks, looking between the both of us. We nod. Her eyes narrow for a second before she nods again, slowly. “Cool. So will you guys come to my party tonight, then? It’s a low-key thing, but most people from class are going.”

I’m about to respond, but Wren awkwardly unlinks her arms with Katie’s and slips her fingers into mine instead. This is much better.

“Thanks for the offer, but we’re busy tonight. We’re like newlyweds. Just can’t be apart from each other,” Wren says, her voice an octave higher than usual as she snuggles into my side. “I’ll see you in class.”

Wren practically runs down the corridor, pulling me along with her, turning the sharp corner until we’re away from her and panting.

“What the hell was all that about?” I ask when Katie is out of sight.

“I don’t want to go,” Wren replies, her big green eyes boring into me.

“We don’t have to, but you didn’t have to run away.”

She huffs, running her hand across her forehead. “I swear I’ve never spoken to Katie before today. The thing is, she’s really nice, but I don’t want to build our friendship around the basis that I’m sort of popular now because of you. I’m sure she’s great, but I just⁠—”

I cut her off, placing my arms on her shoulders as she clutches the books to her chest. “Then you don’t have to be friends with her, Wrenny. Just relax, okay? You’re letting yourself get worked up over nothing.”

“I know, I just⁠—”

“Breathe,” I say slowly, and she stops. She takes in a deep breath, breathing out of her nose. “Good. Now give me your books.”

Her eyebrows crease. “What?”

“Let me hold your books for you, princess,” I say, plucking them from her. “Oh, and your bag too.” I sling her tote bag over my shoulder, feeling ridiculous and proud all at the same time. She shakes her head at me, laughing.

She hooks her arm through mine again, walking us down the corridor toward her class. “These are the kind of fake boyfriend perks I need.”

“I can give you all the perks if you want.”

“I’m good,” she replies, scrunching her nose. Her phone rings, and she reaches into her back pocket and pulls it out. “I’ve got to take this. It’s my dad. I’ll let him know that you’re coming with me. My class is just there. I’ll see you later.”

She collects her books and her bag from my shoulder. She starts to walk, leaving me behind, but I call after her. “I think you’re forgetting something.”

“What? I have all my books.”

“My kiss.” I grin.

“Right. How could I possibly forget?” Her shoulders slump, and she walks back up to me and presses the softest kiss to my cheek.

This is going to be perfect.

I get to watch her study. I carry her books. I walk her to class and then I get a kiss on the cheek. Fake dating Wren Hackerly might be the best thing to ever happen to me.