Fake Dates & Ice Skates: (The North University Series Book 1)

I know that running out of the basement was a bad idea but I can’t tell Miles about Austin right now. I haven’t told anyone about Austin yet. He said it himself that I stress him out when I’m stressed, so me leaving that night was the best thing to do. For the both of us. I even managed to get in a few hours of practice before the school rink closed. Still, I basically dragged myself to the rink this morning so I could get in a few hours of practice.

I’ve been avoiding my mom like a fucking disease but I can’t deal with seeing her right now. As much as I love my sister, I hate that she’s put this kind of pressure on me, especially right before I have my show. I know my mom is hard to please but I’m sure she would come around if Austin could just own up and tell her. Having a baby is such a huge thing, I’m confident that my mom could find it somewhere in her black heart to accept it. Instead, I’m greeted with four feet of flowers every time I walk into my apartment as some sick way of my mom showing that she still cares that I exist without actually trying to speak to me.

I make my way back home after a long day at the rink, ready to avoid the girls and take a long bath before snuggling in my bed with a paperback in my hands. Most nights, Scarlett and Kennedy watch a movie like we used to before I had the weight of the world on my back. But now, I’m so used to walking past them, mumbling a ‘good night’ that I don’t even realise that they’ve spoken to me.

“What?” I say in the near darkness, tugging my duffel bag higher up my shoulder. I step closer into the living room, looking at their makeshift fort that they’ve huddled in. They both pop their heads out of the fort, pulling the blanket around them.

“We’re going out tonight and you’re coming with us,” Scarlett demands.

“I want to stay home. I’m exhausted,” I say.

“You’re always exhausted. A night out will wake you up,” Kennedy adds with a shimmy.

“The showcase is in less than three weeks,” I say, sighing. As much as their friendship means the absolute world to me, sometimes I just want to be alone, needing to find a way to figure out how the hell I’m going to figure out the situation with Austin.

‘No, Wren. You’re going to speak to us because that’s what friends are for. You’re not going to shut us out because you’re stressed. Let your stress become our stress,” Kennedy relays.

“You guys really don’t want to know what’s been going on,” I whisper, everything that has happened in the last few weeks coming rushing back to me.

“Try us,” Scarlett challenges.

*

‘What the fuck? Are you serious?’ Scarlett exclaims once I’ve finished explaining everything to them. Everything from the Drive-In, to kissing Miles, to finding out about Austin to whatever the hell it was at Sophia’s house. It feels good to vent even though most of what I’m saying doesn’t make much sense to me anymore.

We’re at a secluded bar that Scarlett managed to get us into because of her family’s access to getting away with drinking without getting asked for ID. I don’t usually drink but being around these two, I feel safe enough and hell, I’m going to need it.

“Unfortunately, I’m being very serious,” I say, sipping more of my cocktail.

“No wonder you’ve been so distant,” Kennedy says quietly, shaking her head. “Does she really just expect you to tell your mom for her?” I nod. “Jesus. If Mia ever asked me to do something like that, I’d tell her to suck it up and do it herself.”

“I tried but she cut me off and isn’t answering any of my calls,” I admit, feeling helpless

“So what are you going to do?” Scarlett asks.

“I don’t know. I’m going to wait it out and see if she’ll tell her herself. I just know that this whole thing is going to come crashing down on me, no matter who tells her.”

As if they both planned it, they both trap me in a hug from both sides and I melt into them. We have always done group hugs like this; the person who needs it the most is almost suffocating in the middle with the others acting as the anchor, keeping us together. When we pull apart, I can still feel them around me, making anywhere become a home with them in my arms.

“Tell you what you need, Wrenny?” Scarlett asks.

“For you to stop calling me that nickname?” I ask hopefully.

“Shots!” she shouts.

And we do.

We drink so fucking much.

I don’t think I’ve ever consumed this much alcohol in my life but it’s making me feel alive. As if all my problems can be dealt with tomorrow and all that matters is being in this moment with my friends. My friends that are screaming Taylor Swift lyrics at the top of their lungs. I try to make a mental note to apologise to the bar staff who have had to put up with our atrocious singing for the last two hours.

“I love you guys so fucking much,” I scream when ‘Blank Space’ finishes. They pull me into a tight hug again, their microphones jabbing into my stomach. “Like, so, so, much.”

“Oh no,” Kennedy shouts.

“What is it? Have I had something in my teeth this whole time?” Scarlett asks, frantically searching for her mirror in her purse .

“No. Your teeth are perfect, babe. I just realised that Wren is an emotional drunk,” Kennedy says, pouting at me.

“I’m not emotional and I’m not a drink,” I slur, waving her off.

“Drunk, babe. You mean you’re not drunk,” Scarlett says, patting me on the back. Thank god she knows how to speak. “And you are. Watch.”

She pulls her phone out of her back pocket and clicks on her home screen and it’s a picture of the two of us at our kindergarten graduation. We look so tiny and small and so cute. We’ve got the biggest grins on our toothless faces with our graduation caps and gowns on. Then she clicks the screen and the worst thing happens. It changes to a picture of all of us, Kennedy now included, at our high school graduation, smiling as we hold our diplomas.

“See, that’s just cruel,” I say, the sob ripping through me unexpectedly. “I miss you guys.”

“We’re right here, Wrenny. And we always will be if you let us,” Kennedy says, looking at me with her gorgeous brown doe eyes. Then the waterworks are really flowing. God, I can’t get myself to stop. “More drinks!”

Then we drink more as the last few weeks I’ve had fade into a blur. Then my mind goes into a no-go zone. The Miles Zone. Suddenly all I can think about are his green eyes and his kind words and the fact that I’ve pushed him away since the interview and that I’ve tried to avoid thinking about him.

I do the stupid thing and pull out my phone which opens up to a picture of the two of us. It’s a selfie he took while he was confiscating my phone as I studied. He’s got the cheesiest grin on his face and is holding the camera high so you can see me in the background, my head buried deep in books. By the time he gave me my phone back, this was the picture he changed the home screen to and I haven’t had the energy to change it back.

I do an even stupider thing and I call him.

He picks up on the third ring.

“Milesy, baby. I miss you,” I say, the words unable to stop coming out of my mouth. The girls look at me with a sceptical look and I turn away from them, walking towards the bar to sit down. “What are you doing? Who are you with? You’re not cheating on me, are you?”

Apparently I’m a jealous drunk too. I hear him laugh low over the phone. “I’m on a Costco run with Evan. What are you doing?”

“Drinking at a bar with Kenny and Scarlett,” I say through a yawn. I whisper as if it’s a secret, “I think I’m drunk.”

“Really? I couldn’t tell,” he replies. “Are you okay, though? Where are you?”

“Shhhh. Stop shouting at me or I’m going to kiss you.”

He laughs but I don’t see what’s funny. “You’re going to kiss me? Do you mean kill, Wren?”

Oh. “Stupid autocorrect.”

“You can’t autocorrect with your voice, baby.”

“Stop calling me baby or I will kiss you,” I murmur but I don’t think he hears me. All I hear is a sharp inhale so I continue. “Can you come and get us, please. I need you.”

“Can you turn on your location for me?” he asks gently and I fumble to change the screen so I can send him my location. ‘I’m on my way.”

Less than twenty minutes later, we’re still all very drunk, a little less sad than before and the boys have turned up. Maybe I should have given Scarlett a trigger warning about Evan showing up because she almost throws up when she sees him. Which I can’t tell is because of the alcohol or because of the disgust she has for him. Evan is casually in pants, a crisp white shirt and a black tie hanging loose on his neck while Miles is wearing grey sweatpants and a white shirt.

Scarlett comes beside me as we stand in a line, staring at the boys as if they’ve interrupted a kidnapping. “Why is he here? You promised no blondes,” she tries to whisper but she’s basically shouting in my ear.

“I promised no such thing. Plus, he was already with Miles in his fancy car,” I say back, remembering the black Escalade that Evan’s driver has. Yes, he has a driver. What is this life?

“I can’t help it if I’m blonde,” Evan retorts, running a hand through his hair.

“You can dye your hair,” Kennedy suggests.

“Done.”

“No! Don’t do that,” Scarlett says, stumbling towards him as if he’s about to dye his hair this minute. Evan laughs, holding her as she almost falls into him.

“You just said how much you hate my blondeness.”

“That doesn’t mean I want you to dye it,” she mumbles, trying to get herself out of his grip but he keeps his hands on her forearms. “Would you really do it if I told you to?”

“If it annoys you that much, of course I would, Angel.”

What the hell? When did this happen? Has he always called her Angel? And has she always let him? I’m not going to remember this in the morning so I will start to erase it from my memory now. They both stare at each other and it’s hard to tell which one of them is drunk at this point.

Until Scarlett finally says, “I’m drunk I don’t know what I’m saying.” I’m drunk and I don’t know what I’m saying, title of your sex tape, I want to say but maybe right now is not the time to bring up my Brooklyn Nine-Nine obsession.

“Drunk thoughts are sober words,” I say, trying my absolute best to wink at Scarlett.

“That’s not how the saying goes. But good job, baby,” Miles says, wrapping his arm around my waist. “Can you walk okay?”

“I think you might need to carry me”

“Really?” I nod, smiling up at him. “Fine.”

He picks me up in a fireman’s carry, hauling me over and I’m lucky I’m not wearing the skirt that the girls begged me to wear. Luckily, all Miles can see is my fully clothed ass in my favourite pair of jeans. He carries me all the way to the car as Evan has Kennedy and Scarlett on each side of him and they slip into the back with us. We drive home mostly in silence and Miles insists on walking us up to the door.

After the girls have gone to their rooms, Miles follows me into mine. I’m still a little tipsy, on the verge of falling asleep but the second that Miles comes into my room, I’m fully awake. It’s pitch black outside and Miles Davis is in my bedroom and he’s looking at me, waiting for me to do or say something. Anything. He steps closer towards me and the back of my knees hit the bed and I sit down. My heartbeat is racing a thousand miles per hour as he kneels down in front of me and- Pushes me down? Obviously he wasn’t about to go down on me because that would be insane. Instead, he urges me to get inside my covers and he wraps them around me.

He passes me the glass of water that I hadn’t realised was there and I take a few gulps. He places it back on the nightstand and gets into the bed with me. I’m laying down, tucked neatly under the covers as Miles sits beside me on top of them, looking down at me.

I turn to the ceiling and say, “I’m sorry about that.”

“I’m just glad you’re having fun. You deserve a break sometimes, you know,” he says, sliding down onto the bed next to me, our shoulders brushing against each other. He looks up at the ceiling too as I turn to him before facing upwards again.

“I don’t deserve anything. I don’t deserve you and I especially don’t deserve a break,” I say into the air. I don’t know what’s going on with me? I know how pathetic I sound but I can’t tell my mouth to stop. He turns to me now, one arm resting beneath his face and the other wrapping a finger around my hair and it distracts me for a second that I almost miss what he asks next.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t think I try hard enough. If I tried hard enough my mom would actually like me and I wouldn’t be constantly trying to win her approval.”

His face is so close to mine now, the light touch of his hand centring me as his words reverberate through me. “You have no idea do you?”

“What?” I breathe.

“You have no idea how special you are, Wren, and it breaks my heart everytime I hear you speak like that. Because I would give up everything in this world for you to realise that you’re perfect in every way that counts.”

I suddenly feel like all the alcohol has left my body as the words leave his mouth and puncture me right in the heart. This is what it feels like for my inner child to be healed. I do what I’ve been needing to do since I saw him today and I wrap my arms around him. It’s a little struggle at first since we’re both lying down but once we’re comfortable, I nuzzle my face into his neck, breathing in his lavender smell. Instinctively, I hook my leg over his. Not in a way to be purposefully sexual, it’s just what feels the most comfortable right now.

“Can you stay here tonight? Just hold me,” I ask into his skin, not wanting him to leave me just yet. Yeah, I really am an emotional drunk.

“Rule number three, Wren,” he says.

“This doesn’t count. I’m not asking you to sleep with me. Well I am, just not like that. Can you, please? I need you. Here,” I admit, realising that this is the only thing keeping me calm. The only thing that is keeping my heartbeat at a settled pace.

“Anything you want,” he says, brushing my hair out of my face.

He gently pushes me to turn around until my back is flush against his front, his arms braced tight around me. I don’t tell him about Austin or how stressed I am because it doesn’t feel like the right time. All I need is to be held by him and it seems like he needs it too. So, he holds me.

All night.

He’s just there.