The Fall We Fell: A Small Town Friends-to-Lovers Romance (Ocean Pines Series Book 1)

  The Fall We Fell

  Ocean Pines series, book 1

  Victoria Denault

  Copyright 2021 by Victoria Denault.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronical or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Editing: Katie Kenyhercz. Cover: Oh So Novel Designs

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Prologue

  1. Terra

  2. Jake

  3. Terra

  4. Terra

  5. Jake

  6. Jake

  7. Terra

  8. Jake

  9. Terra

  10. Jake

  11. Jake

  12. Terra

  13. Jake

  14. Jake

  15. Terra

  16. Jake

  17. Terra

  18. Jake

  19. Jake

  20. Jake

  21. Terra

  22. Terra

  23. Jake

  24. Terra

  25. Terra

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Other books by Victoria Denault

  For Sarah Jillain, my Fryman soul sister

  Prologue

  Terra

  Aspen grabs my hand and pulls me into the center of the dank basement where all the other girls are dancing. The boys are all huddled up in clusters around the wood paneled walls. Some stare at the girls, some stare at the disco ball Aspen bought from the dollar store and hung from a water pipe in the center of the room. Some stare at their feet. None of them are staring at me, though. Except my brother Logan.

  I glare back and he laughs as he does this stupid little twitch thing, like he’s having convulsions and I know it’s his impression of my dancing. He’s mocking me, which isn’t surprising. He’s been such a dick lately. I don’t know why. Mom says it’s a phase because he’s a teenager. But I’m fourteen and I’m not a dick. And his twin brother Finn isn’t either. My oldest brother Declan is seventeen and he’s not a dick… I don’t think. He barely leaves his room lately, so I don’t really know. I’m actually really surprised he’s here. After all, he’s older than the party’s host, Aspen’s older brother Abbott Barlowe. But they are both on the varsity track team at school so I guess they’re friends.

  “Isn’t this the best co-ed party ever?” Aspen says into my ear over the blaring music. She’s dancing her cheerleader ass off, swinging and swaying, and I’m barely moving now because of Logan and to be honest, because my legs are achy and stiff. I have a low-grade temperature I’m ignoring too, so the basement feels extra hot and sweaty to me. I yank at the collar on the green sweater I’m wearing, the one I borrowed from Aspen, because she swears I look ‘killer’ in it. I didn’t tell her I’m feeling too warm to wear a sweater because she would tell my parents, or hers. Everyone is on high-alert since I was diagnosed with lupus last month. No one really understands it so everyone who knows is treating me like I’m some kind of alien or atomic bomb or something. Well, almost everyone.

  I don’t even really get what lupus is, but I know it basically means I’m going to feel shitty for the rest of my life, like I have for the last year. And I feel like a freak show.

  “It’s the only co-ed party I’ve ever been to,” I remind Aspen, who grins. It’s her only one too.

  Our parents are friends from church, which is how we know each other. Aspen’s mom Cynthia, who is even more hardcore religious than my mom, decided her kids weren’t allowed co-ed parties until they were sixteen and convinced my Mom to implement the same rule. Aspen’s brother Abbott just turned sixteen so this is his inaugural co-ed party.

  Aspen and I were supposed to be upstairs decorating gingerbread men for the church Christmas social tomorrow but we snuck down here when her parents went outside to shovel the elderly neighbor’s driveway for her. So far no one has ratted us out.

  I’m usually cool with the boundaries my parents set, but since I found out all my symptoms—the sluggishness and fevers and aches and general relentless pains—aren’t ever going to really go away, I have been itching to do stuff. Stay up late, watch R-rated movies, skip school, whatever. I just want to do everything, because I’m angry that I’ll never feel normal again. I feel like my life has been short-changed.

  “Your brothers… oh man.” Aspen starts fanning herself as her eyes land on Finn and then Logan before sliding over to Declan. “I wish one of them would ask me to dance when a slow song comes on.”

  The music stops suddenly as I’m making a gagging sound and pretending to stick my finger down my throat. Everyone gets quiet and a few people are drawn to the noises I’m making, including Finn and Logan’s mutual best friend Jake. He’s staring at me with an amused smirk and now I want to die. Abbott claps his hands, pulling everyone’s focus. “Who’s in for a little game?”

  He grabs a Santa hat that was lying next to a bowl of pretzels on the food table and holds it up. His birthday party is Christmas themed since his birthday is just four days before Christmas. “In this hat are a bunch of pieces of paper. Half of them say truth. Half say dare.”

  You can literally feel the tension in the room rocket, like a power surge that makes everything snap and crackle. The boys stand straighter, all the girls’ eyes get wider, and some start fussing with their hair nervously. Abbott’s grin widens. He’s really handsome. Tall with a thick, athletic build, blue eyes and thick blond hair. But for me it’s the kind of good-looking I can acknowledge but am not drawn to… I like dark hair with even darker eyes and an angular jaw and full lips and… Jake. Finn and Logan’s best friend. He’s the person I can never stop staring at. He’s the guy that makes me feel like I’m caught in a riptide whenever he walks into a room.

  Declan rolls his eyes and makes that sound in his throat he makes when he’s unimpressed like when Dad tells him to shovel the driveway even though it’s Finn’s turn. “This is a lame idea. And it’s not even the proper way to play the game.”

  “Rules are meant to be broken, Hawkins,” Abbott shoots back at Declan and then turns to everyone else. “You pick a piece of paper with truth or dare. You say the truthful answer to the question I give you or do the dare I give you, and then and only then, you get your secret Santa gift.”

  My eyes flitter over to the plastic tree in the corner with the wrapped gifts under it. Everyone was told to bring something that costs seven bucks or less. Aspen and I didn’t bring anything, so we should probably slink away now and head back upstairs. I glance at her and she’s standing as still as a deeply rooted tree. We’re not going anywhere.

  “I’ll go first!” Finn volunteers easily because he’s a daredevil. Always has been.

  “Good man, Finn. You are my new favorite Hawkins,” Abbott announces and holds out the hat. Finn shoves his big mitt in there and pulls out a folded piece of paper.

  “Dare,” he says with a happy grin. Of course he’s happy. He’s the kid who tobogganed solo down Demerit Hill when he was five, hit a rock, and his little body launched from the sled, careened over the road at the bottom of the hill, and almost landed in the barely frozen lake, then
immediately asked to do it again.

  “I dare you to spend two minutes in the closet with…” Abbott’s icy eyes scan the room, and I am horrified to notice all the girls look excited. About being locked in a closet with my brother? Gross. “Casey.”

  Casey Andrews, a bubbly brunette with the highest voice I’ve ever heard, turns this ridiculous shade of pink that somehow makes her look more attractive. When I blush I just look like a tomato. Casey’s in Logan and Finn’s class and I think she’s in love with both of them. Or maybe it’s just one of them but she can’t tell them apart. She spent half the summer at our family restaurant, sitting at the counter ordering sweet tea after sweet tea just to moon over them. Now Finn walks over to her. “You game?”

  Her answer is to giggle and I want to make the gagging sound again. Finn and Casey walk over to the little closet next to the bathroom. He gallantly opens the door for her. Inside, there’s a vacuum cleaner and a water tank and probably forty spiders. I try not to shiver. I hate spiders.

  As soon as Finn closes the door, Abbott walks up to it and leans on it, pulling his cell phone from his back pocket. He stares at the screen. “Time starts now, kids. Make it interesting.”

  I try not to think of what Abbott considers interesting. He may only be sixteen but I’ve seen him making out with girls, like big time, after hockey games tucked into the alcove where the pay phones used to be in the corner of the arena by the public restrooms. He knows what he’s doing.

  “Casey must be over the moon,” Aspen whispers. “What I wouldn’t do to be locked in a closet with one of your brothers.”

  “Are you trying to make me puke?” I whisper back with a frown. I grab the front of my sweater and subtly move it back and forth, trying to cool off. I don’t know if my fever is getting worse or it’s my anxiety that’s warming me. I am low-grade freaking out about the idea of playing this game.

  She nudges me and laughs. “Come on. There’s got to be someone here you want to be locked in a closet with. Boy or girl. No judging.”

  My eyes flicker over to Jake who has his head tilted to the left, talking to Logan. His voice is only a low rumble of undecipherable sounds from where I am but it still makes my stomach flutter. He is so… perfect. Aspen gasps and grabs my arm. “Do you wanna get locked in a closet with Jake Grady!”

  “Shut up!” I whisper back angrily and feel my face get hot. “You are insane. You don’t know what you’re talking about. Also he’s changing his last name when he turns eighteen. He told Finn that the other day. He’s going to be Jake Maverick.”

  I don’t know why I’ve told Aspen about all my crushes so far in life but not him. I feel like I can’t tell anyone. It’s like if I admit it, it will grow even deeper and I don’t know how to handle that level of infatuation. Also, I’m feeling more than a little vulnerable these days since being diagnosed with this albatross known as Lupus, and I’m worried she’ll disapprove. She hates my crush on Chuck on Gossip Girl. She’s always trying to get me to be Team Dan. Aspen continues to stare at me and I know this conversation is far from over.

  “Maverick? Why?”

  “He doesn’t want to be attached to Grady because of his family issues. Turns out his mom gave him the middle name Maverick, after some character on a popular eighties movie about pilots or something. I don’t know, anyway, he likes it better and thinks it’ll make people forget his family and his past,” I explain and I know it’s insane that I know all that personal Jake information, and that it rolls off my tongue like a memorized soliloquy. After all, Jake said all this to Finn while he was working as a dishwasher at my family’s restaurant and I just happened to be prepping food for the lunch rush, but I remember it better than the book I read for English class last week. What I don’t tell her is that I immediately found the movie online—it’s called Top Gun—and stayed up until midnight watching it on my computer that very night. The name is perfect, he’s a total Maverick. And I’m longing to be his Charlie.

  “He’s been arrested twice,” Aspen says, not with judgement, but more like with awe. She’s always wished she was a wild child, but she’s almost as tame and boring as I am. “And he’s the only emanciated kid this town has ever had, I think.”

  “The two theft charges were both dropped when the store owners realized his mom had made him try and steal those smokes and those groceries,” I remind Aspen, my voice a harsh whisper. “And the word is emancipated. You know Jake works hard at our restaurant and he’s even talking about finishing high school by taking night classes. He really doesn’t deserve the bad rep this town gives him.”

  Aspen’s eyes get bigger, as does the shape her mouth has dropped into, and I know I’m screwed. I won’t be able to deny these feelings any longer because she has this uncanny way of seeing the truth even when you don’t tell it. I sigh and shrug like it’s no big deal. “He’s hot. And he’s nice to me—really nice. But I can’t tell if it’s because he feels he has to be because he’s always at my house hanging out with my family or if he’s nice because… he thinks I’m cool too.”

  And Jake is the only one who didn’t look at me like I was some pathetic weirdo when he found out about the lupus. My brothers, God bless them, keep squinting their eyes and examining every move I make, trying to figure out what it is. Hoping to see something that they can understand. So far the only real outward sign I’ve had from lupus was a faint rash on my cheeks and the fevers. My dad is just a grumbling mess who won’t talk about it but is hugging me too tightly now. Mom cries and prays. Jake found out, I guess one of my brothers told him, and all he said was, “I heard about your illness thing. That sucks, Terra. I know you’ll handle it because you’re a badass, but if you need help with anything, let me know.” And that was it. No weird looks, no grumbling or avoidance or tears or stares. My crush grew even deeper that day.

  “He likes you,” Aspen declares in a firm whisper. “Your brothers aren’t even that nice to you half the time so he’s not doing it for their benefit. He probably gets teased by them for being nice to you. That’s how brothers work.”

  I want to believe her so badly.

  Abbott suddenly grins and swings open the closet door. It hasn’t been a full two minutes. He’s short by probably 30 seconds and so Casey and Finn are in full-on make-out mode. Her arms are around his neck and his arms are circling her waist, his hands both palm-down on her ass. And I swear his tongue is in her mouth. “Oh my God I really am going to barf,” I hiss and grab Aspen’s arm. “Let’s go.”

  “Hell no,” Aspen replies. “I want a turn.”

  “You’ll get truth and it’ll be boring because we have nothing to confess. We have no life yet, remember?” I tug at her wrist. “Please. Let’s go before your mom figures out we’re down here.”

  Finn and Casey have jumped apart and emerged from the closet, both flushed. I avoid looking at Finn and focus on Casey. I’m fascinated by her expression. Her eyes are glassy. Her lips are puffy and pink like she applied lip gloss to them but she didn’t. She looks… euphoric. I don’t think I ever understood the true definition of that word until this minute. Abbott slaps Finn on the back. “You just earned yourself a Secret Santa gift, Hawkins. Pick what you want. Casey you have to pull from the hat to get yours.”

  Casey tries to calm herself, taking a deep breath before she pulls a piece of paper from the hat. “Truth.”

  Abbott’s grin gets deeper. “Easy. Are you a virgin?”

  “Abbott, come on!” Declan barks. “That’s not cool.”

  Casey doesn’t seemed bothered though. “Technically.”

  A round of oohs starts to echo from around the room. Casey flushes again and bounces over to the gifts piled under the fake tree covered in horrible pink tinsel. She grabs a gift I know my brother brought—a tin of homemade caramel popcorn and a gift certificate to our restaurant. That’ll come in handy next time she wants to drink sweet tea all day and stalk my brothers.

  “Casey you also have to pick the next person to go,” Abbott annou
nces.

  Casey doesn’t even bother to look around the room she just says my name so quick and easy I don’t even register it at first until Aspen gasps. “O-M-G.”

  She always says the text version of oh my god so her mom doesn’t get angry about taking the lord’s name in vain.

  “Terra,” Casey repeats. ‘Let’s go, girl.”

  “The children aren’t playing,” Abbott announces and waves his hand in our direction.

  “Yeah, no. They aren’t,” Declan adds and Finn is nodding in agreement so hard I’m surprised he doesn’t snap a vertebrae in his neck.

  “No one wants to be their first kiss,” Logan calls out and people snicker.

  “It won’t be my first kiss,” Aspen retorts and snickers erupt. “And you’re just scared you’ll learn a thing or two, Hawkins?”

  “From you?” Logan rolls his eyes. “I dare you to teach me.”

  Aspen turns beat red at that and I panic. I do not want my brother making out with my best friend.

  “You guys are lame,” Jake announces suddenly turning the attention to himself. “Let them play. It’s not a big deal. They might pull truth and not every dare has to involve making out.”

  Aspen leans right into my ear. “See? He wants you to play. He likes you.”

  Spurred on by my anger at my brothers for humiliating me in front of everyone and the growing confidence I have at Jake’s defense of me, I march over and stick my hand in the hat and snag a piece of paper between my fingers before Abbott can yank it away.