Page 11 of Last Fall

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Zoe

The Male Dating Pool is Made Up ofTurds

“Iwant you Jessica.When you’re ready, I’llbehere.”

I slammed my laptop shut and groaned. I was doing it again...somehow my characters kept managing to get themselves alone and say words that sounded eerily like the last words Erik said to me before he tucked me into my car and sent me onmyway.

It was as if I was using my characters to analyze whathappened.

Okay, that’s exactly what I wasdoing.

I still didn’t believe any of it was real. It was too crazy, right? There is no way I actually kissed Erik Cassidy and he most definitely didn’t enjoy it, ask for more, kiss the crap out of me, and then say incredibly romanticthings.

Nope.

It was all a figment of myimagination.

And yet here I was nearly a week later. With my trilogy done and off to my editor, I was free to work on my next romance. A romance that kept coming back to this scene between my heroine, Jessica, and my reluctant hero, Ryan. The book was all outlined and ready to go. Normally I loved getting lost in these books. They were my escape—fun to write and filled with all the messy things I kept out of myreallife.

Except Ryan kept transforming into Erik and I kept replacing Jessica, and suddenly I wasn’t writing a book anymore. I was detailing myreallife.

I kissed Erik. What the hell had I beenthinking?

You’re safe with me. Ipromise.

He meant it, too. Every single word. That man couldn’t lie if he had to. He wasn’t built that way. Erik was serious and straightforward. If I knew anything about him, I knewthatmuch.

And then he made me feel so safe when I was freaking out—a freak-out that still freaked me out. What was that anyway? It had been nearly three years since I left Tony. He was a non-factor in my new life and Erik wasn’t like him in any way. It was just that look he gave me at lunch, right after asking me to come sit in the family section. I panicked. It was so similar to the way Tony would zero in on me—something I craved when we first got together, but later learned was the worst kindoflove.

I ran because that’s what I do when Ipanic.

I hadn’t expected Erik tofollow.

“Hey Zo, how’s the writing going today?” June asked as she popped her head in myopendoor.

I realized I was sitting in front of a closed laptop and that might look a little strange to her. “I’m mad at my characters so I was just taking a break.” Then I realized how tired she looked. “Areyouokay?”

She sighed dramatically, wandering across my room to throw herself down on my bed. “I have three words for you. Bench. Clearing.Brawl.”

“Oh snap. Iseveryoneokay?”

“Yes,” she groaned. “Wes has a black eye. Kaine might have a bruised rib. It was nuts, Zoe. I haven’t seen a brawl like that inforever.”

“What happened?” I hadn’t been to a game, or watched a game, or read an update on the games, in the last week. I was deep in Erik-denial.

“The rivalry with The Waves just went nextlevel.”

The two teams had once been on good terms but this season things took a turn for the worse. Everyone had been happy for Wes’s trade to the Mantas until the Waves picked up Makai Hudson. He and Wes were pretty much mortal enemies, going all the way back to their college days. The bad blood started flowing prettyquickly.

“Whostartedit?”

“Makai. Dude kept mouthing off to Wes when he was batting. He kept his cool until the fifth, then he started mouthing back. Wes tagged him out in the seventh and Makai pushed him. Two seconds later both benches were clear and everyone was punchingeveryone.”

I found it strangely comforting how passionately teams defended each other. “Sounds like you had a busy day patchingpeopleup.”

“It wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been, but yes. I’mtired.”

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