Page 44 of The Hardest Fall

I knew Dylan had a team dinner and a study group because I’d overheard him talking to his friend on the phone. I wasn’t sure whether it was Chris or not, and it wasn’t like I could ask him either, but knowing he wouldn’t be home any time soon, I got comfortable in the living room and brought my laptop with me to get some studying done. If I could squeeze in some retouching of the last shoot I’d done for Leah’s fashion blog before I hit my bed, that would be even better. From the way things were going with my little photography job, I had a feeling saving up to move out at the end of the year wasn’t going to be as big of a problem as I had expected.

Facing the windows, I sat down on the floor, spread everything out on the coffee table, and got to work. The only break I took was to grab a banana and a piece of slightly burnt toast leftover from breakfast. It was a big letdown after imagining having a delicious cheesy pizza, but what’s a girl to do?

It was around nine o’clock when my eyes started to grow heavy from the school work, so I put in my earbuds and switched over to Photoshop to work on editing the fashion shots. The loud music I put on woke me up pretty fast, and I was able to tune out everything other than Leah’s photos on the screen.

This was what I loved to do. Sure, sometimes I spent more hours in front of my laptop than I did actually behind the lens, but that was how it worked. If everything went according to plan, I was hoping photography would be my future. It didn’t have to be fashion photos per se, but as long as I was using a camera, capturing different faces, emotions, memories, moments…heartbeats I knew I’d be fine.

At one point, my Spotify radio started playing “Gorilla G-Mix” by Pharrell, and in no time, I was belting out the lyrics to my heart’s content because it was one of my favorite sex songs. Everyone had those, right? I’d never had sex while it was playing—it’d be weird if nothing else—but whenever I listened to it, I could definitely see it happening if I closed my eyes.

At the very least, it always brought out my inner stripper. It was weirdly sexy, or maybe it was only sexy to me because I was weird? Might have been the latter, but I didn’t care one bit either way. Only Jared and Kayla knew about my weird R&B-hip-hop-sex obsession. Still singing, still sitting on the floor, I dropped my head back on the couch cushions, spread my arms out, and closed my eyes.

My hips moving of their own accord, I sang the whole thing, even made the gorilla noises, as if the lyrics weren’t enough. You can guess where I’m going with this, right? Because it’s me we’re talking about here.

When my eyes lazily opened, Dylan Reed was staring at me upside down. I closed my eyes, opened them again…tried it yet again for good measure…but he wasn’t going anywhere. When I’d first seen him looking down at me, I’d thought and hoped I had just conjured him up because I was feeling…a certain way. Watching Dylan Reed do push-ups and sit-ups was not something that was easy to erase from your mind, after all. Watching his muscles ripple under that smooth skin that begged you to touch, lick, and slurp, to…do all the things you couldn’t and shouldn’t and wouldn’t do to a friend…

My eyes fixed on the ceiling, I let out a long breath. He still hadn’t uttered a word. Reaching for my earbuds, I took them out, and the next song that had started playing slowly drifted away, taking Drake’s voice with it. The apartment was completely quiet. You could’ve dropped a pin back in my bedroom and I would’ve heard it from where I was sitting.

The roar in my ears started low until it drowned out pretty much everything. It felt like my heart was pounding in my brain like an intense bass line. Feeling a little lightheaded from the embarrassment, I sat up and the world righted itself. Biting my bottom lip, I gripped the top of my laptop with clammy fingers, clicked it shut, and then gently placed the earbuds on it. My face must’ve turned every color in the rainbow by then.

“You can say it,” I choked out in a low, low voice.

Eventually, he came into view and stood right next to the giant leather couch that was made for snuggling. I kept staring forward, out the window, but I could see his lips twitching in my peripheral vision.

He cleared his throat, and I bit my bottom lip harder.