Page 24 of Break Your Fall

The ocean breeze lifts my hair over my face and I tuck it behind my ear as my eyes settle on Banks and his tortured death stare. “Is this what you did after you guys stopped being friends before? Spy?”

“Yep,” he says, then raises a finger. “Butno way, if he ever asks.”

I laugh, then give him an encouraging pat to the back. “Go talk to him. You don’t have to pick sides.”

He makes a face at me. “Yeah, I do. He needs to know what it’s like to not be picked.”

While I agree whole-broken-heartedly, Julian’s lesson is being taught from Banks’s own let down when their friendship had once cracked.

“Nice to know this isn’t about me,” I gripe through a half-tease.

“Oh, it’s about you,” Banks declares. “You weren’t picked, either.”

The sting is immediate, but so is the balm. I smile at him.

Music drifts to my ears, and I drop a quick glance past Banks to the guy strumming a guitar a few paces down. I can’t place the song—could be one of his own—but it pulls at the imagination, leaves you wanting. I become lost to the phantom feeling of fingers sliding gently along my jaw to glide along my bottom lip, a hand tucking my hair behind my ear as it tickles my cheeks.

A hand to hold mine and take me away from this place.

“There’s my freak,” chimes a voice, and my daydream is snapped away to a familiar redhead as she approaches me and Banks, and I straighten up.

“There’s my lady,” Banks flirts with a smile as he whips around.

“Not even close,” the redhead rejects.

Banks sneers. “Well, you would be if you weren’t so hung up on Dustin.”

“Decker,” she corrects. “He’s the best guy I’ve ever had and I was stupid enough to let him get away. That fucks up a girl.”

Something in her words makes me drop my gaze. A pang returns to my chest as my eyes scan the crowd, searching with no aim. Inaudible pieces of chatter filter in and out of my ears as people shuffle by.It’s not him,my head tells me the moment a blond-haired guy wearing a hoodie grabs my stare. The stranger passes, and the pang beats.

We’re going to become strangers.

I feel a tap on my arm and jerk my stare to the redhead. A strand of hair has fallen from her messy bun and blows across her face.

“Greta,” she introduces, holding my stare, sensing the distance there.

“Reyna,” I say with a small smile, the recognition finally hitting me. This isthe girl. The girl I stopped Camille from recording when she came with Banks at Julian’s house. I snicker to myself.

Greta’s eyes brighten with their own familiarity, then a gleam of mischief as she looks at Banks. “The oneyou’reso hung up on.”

“I don’t get hung up,” Banks denies, bouncing on his feet before directing his denial at me. “I’m not hung up.”

“So,” I start to our new friend, “you’re still here, andstilltalking to this one.” I rest my arm along Banks’s shoulder and he beams at the contact.

Greta musters a smile. “He has a charm.” Banks points at her while looking at me with lifted brows, and I drop my arm with a playful eye roll. “I’m leaving soon. Wanted to check out the show.”

I’m about to ask more about her when Banks says to me with a challenge in his voice, “You’re not a goody two shoes, right?”

While I haven’t been feeling quite like myself, I’m still adamant aboutnotbeing a goody two shoes. “Right.”

“Wanna prove it?”

Both pairs of eyes pin to mine, and I feel a thrill buzz through my veins at a challenge I don’t dare ignore.

“Sure,” I say, then poke Banks’s chest. “Butyouare doing something for me first.”

7

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