Page 57 of Falling

“Every day?”

“Every day.”

He nods at me and pats me on the shoulder. “Good man,” he says, winking at me before disappearing again.

I didn’t realize how big the world of hoteliers was until tonight. It looks like people from up and down the country come to these events.

It reminds me a lot of my family and how loud and chaotic we are. Birthdays in the Davis family are wild. Thoughts and feelings are always at full volume. They look a lot like this but with more drinking, cheesy music, and more burned food.

“So, Mr. Berger, I have a very important question to ask,” I begin when her dad returns to the table. We’ve been engaging in small talk about hockey and classes for a while, and it’s about time I make it more interesting. Wren must know exactly what I’m up to because she glares at me.

He finishes his Scotch and looks at me. “Please, call me David. I can’t even stand the sound of that name anymore,” he pleads, waving his hand around. Wren laughs a little, still glaring at me. Honestly, it’s a little creepy.

“What do you think about cheese? Just in general. Like? Dislike?” I ask, feigning curiosity. Wren elbows me in the ribs, and I smirk at her. “Oh, or loathe, as your daughter likes to say.”

David laughs. “You know what, Miles? I cannot stand cream cheese. Everyone thinks?—”

“Miles hates cream cheese, too,” Wren says. She blinks up at me, her eyes silently screaming at me. “Don’t you, Milesy?”

“Yep, sure do,” I bite out, turning back to Wren’s dad, leaning on the table. “Now, tell me, David, what is it exactly that?—”

“Dad!” Wren basically shouts. She must really not want her dad to talk about cream cheese. “Why don’t you tell Miles about how you almost made it pro?”

“You're too kind, Wrenny. I was nowhere near making it pro,” he replies, shaking his head.

I almost choke on air as I spit out, “Kind? I'm sorry to tell you this, sir, but your daughter is everything but kind.”

Wren glares at me as her dad laughs. “I am kind. People are always delighted to meet me.”

“Delighted? No. Frightened, maybe.” I shrug, hiding my smirk. She pokes me in my ribs and returns her attention back to her dad, asking him about his hockey career again.

Of course, Wren gets what she wants, and her dad forgets about the cream cheese debacle and tells me all about his days as a young athlete in nearly every sport.

I laugh at his terrible jokes and ask him follow-up questions, and I play my part as the doting boyfriend. Wren eats up every second of it, smiling at me like she wants to hug me and kill me at the same time.

He disappears again, speaking to some reporters.

“So, what do you think of my dad?” Wren asks, her head resting in her hand on the table. She looks at me with dreamy eyes, and I can tell she's exhausted.

“He’s nice. Kind. Very different to your mom,” I admit.

“Yeah, she can be pretty intense,” she replies. “It’s nice to have a balance.”

“I can see where you get both sides of your personality from. You’re brutal, but you’re a little softie on the inside,” I coo, scrunching my nose up at her. She rolls her eyes before smothering her smile in her hand, trying to hide it. “See?”

We melt into my favorite kind of conversation: the one where we get to learn more about each other. She talks more about her sister and what a good cook she is. She over-explains her dynamic with Kennedy and Scarlett, telling me what their sun, moon, and risings are. Whatever the fuck that means.

In return, I tell her about me and Carter as kids and how we created our own annual Olympic tournament called the Reyes-Davis Games. I avoid talking about my parents and tell her about how I peed myself at my first hockey game as a kid. She listens intently, slowly leaning into me as I speak.

Until the dark-haired boy comes into my view again.

I give him, what I hope to be, a look to back away, but he stalks closer, his face twisting into an evil grin. He’s just seconds away from our table, his eyes completely focused on Wren’s exposed back.

I hook my finger into her chair and pull her closer into me, our legs intertwined. She yelps as I interrupt her rant on what my zodiac sign means about me. I place my hand on the exposed skin on her shoulder, and she looks at my hand and then back at me.

“What are you doing?” she asks.

My heart races.

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