Page 75 of The Art of Falling

“I was having dinner with Rory.” Her gaze doesn’t come to me until his does.

“Fun.” She looks at me like the only thing that sounds fun to her is carving out my eyeballs and feeding them to the yapper dog she no doubt owns.

“Hi, I’m Miles.” I look back at Archer’s teammate to see a big smile on his face, revealing a mouth of almost too white teeth.

“Rory.” I cling to Archer’s hand like it will somehow rub off some of his ease on me. “You play on defense, right?” I vaguely remember seeing him with Enzo once and I know how those defensive guys like to stick together.

“That’s right. Cornerback.” He nods, his dark hair so short it’s practically nonexistent. He also has the prettiest skin I’ve ever seen—the smoothest caramel brown color—which now that I think about it probably makes me sound like some psychopath like Buffalo Bill fromSilence of the Lambs.

“Hey, aren’t you friends with Enzo’s girl?” He seems to put the pieces together.

“She’s my roommate,” I confirm. “Speaking of, do you know if she’s here tonight?”

“I haven’t seen her, but Enzo’s inside, so she’s probably somewhere.”

“So are you two like a thing?” Jen puffs out her chest, like this will somehow get Archer’s attention. I have to stifle a laugh when he barely even glances at her.

“We are, actually.” Archer holds up our joined hands as if that puts the question to bed.

“Well, Rory, you must be one special woman to tie this racehorse down.” Miles’s statement leaves me with a weird feeling churning in my gut. I’m just not sure if it’s good or bad. Maybe a little bit of both.

Like it excites me knowing that in the fifteen months Archer has been here, he’s never dated anyone and now here he is, holding my hand, telling people we’re an item—which, for the record, still feels a little bit like a dream. But it also reminds me that Archer Copeland is a stallion and everyone knows how hard it is to break a stallion. Wild to the core, I wonder if I’ll ever be enough to tame him. Or if I even want to be.

“Doubtful.” Jen sneers, disregarding me with nothing more than a flick of her hair. “Come on, Miles.” She slips her arm through his. “If memory serves, we were on our way out,” she adds quickly enough that not a single person addresses thedoubtfulcomment.

“Right.” Miles shifts his weight from one foot to the other. “We gotta go. I’ll see you at practice tomorrow, Arch.”

“Yeah, see you then.”

“It was nice to officially meet you, Rory.” He turns to me next, much to the irritation of the woman on his arm.

“Yeah, you too.” I smile, despite the dirty looks I feel being thrown my way.

“You two have fun!” He throws up a wave over his shoulder as they quickly disappear down the dark driveway.

“Um, what was that?” I ask Archer the instant I lose sight of them.

“What was what?”

“Doubtful,” I repeat Jen’s words back to him.

“Don’t listen to her. She’s just jealous.”

“Jealous of what? She was here with your teammate.”

“Which she probably only did in hopes that it would get back to me.”

“What do you mean?”

He tugs me toward the porch and I have no choice but to move or fall flat on my face.

“Jen has been trying to get me to fuck her since last season.”

“Trying to get you to fuck her? As in, you haven’t?”

“I already told you, I don’t stick my dick in anything that moves like a lot of my other teammates. I do have standards.” He throws me a sideways glance.

“Does that happen a lot? Girls acting that way?”

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