A Safe Place To Fall (The Fall Book 1) Read Free

she had left
herself with no way to pay her way through life. No way was she
going to rely on Ricky to keep up both sides of the rent and
utilities. He had been a good friend this summer but a person had to
draw the line somewhere.
    She handed Tracie a bill for the cookie.
“Well, I have to head to class.”

    After her last class Lana headed
straight to the gym. About a week after the graduation party she had
decided she needed an outlet for all of the pent up anger. Deep in
the back of her mind was the thought if she had been a size or two
smaller she would've had more confidence. Maybe she wouldn't have
fallen under Shawn’s spell as fast. So, every day she hauled
her ass to the gym. Even on days that her body felt like it was
being drug through fire. It was her only escape.
    Tonight she settled for running a couple
of miles on the treadmill. Music blasted through from her
headphones. She ran like the devil was chasing after her. In her
mind the devil was Shawn. No matter how fast she ran she'd never be
able to escape the damage he had done.
    ****************
    Drew sat on a weight bench watching Lana
run on the treadmill. Just watching her confirmed that the chick had
demons. She practically screamed as much in class by refusing to
have coffee with him. Hell, it was just coffee. Yet, she acted as if
he proposed he take her back to his place and they have wild,
passionate sex. Hell, watching the way her ass moved as she ran, he
knew he would be unable to refuse if she proposed just that.
However, the fact she just assumed he was only after that irked him.
    “Don’t even go there,”
Chris, his roommate and current spotter, warned. “That girl
has issues.”
    Drew laid back under the barbell and
lifted it up. “What kind of issues?”
    Chris stood with his arms outstretched
prepared to catch the bar, if Drew decided to get clumsy and drop it.
“Hell if I know.”
    “Maybe, she's just shy,”
Drew grunted, raising the bar back up.
    “I think it runs a little deeper
than that,” Chris stated. “A week ago, I followed her
outside heading to my bike; she freaked out and ran to her car.”
    Drew was beginning to feel the burn down
his arms and shoulders from the weights. “Yeah, I gathered she
could be the flighty type.”
    “You know her?”
    Muscles straining, from exertion, Drew
raised the bar back to its holder. “She’s in my terms
class.”
    “I would keep it at that,”
Chris said. “She would take a lot of work.”
    Drew sat up to take a drink from his
water bottle. “Nothing good is ever easy.”
    Chris laughed. “I don’t see
her going to all of the bars you play at.”
    Drew shrugged, watching as Lana pressed
a button. A second later, she was running faster. She reminded him a
lot of his sister.
    ********************

    “So, what do you think?”
Ricky asked, coming out of his room. He was wearing black leather
pants, a purple buttoned down shirt, with a black leather cowboy hat.
    Lana laughed. “You look like
you’re going to a gay club.”
    “Well, you look like you’re
staying home, stuffing your face with popcorn, and watching some
sappy movie on lifetime,” Ricky commented. “At least we
both look the parts that we are playing.”
    Lana eyed the huge bowl of popcorn
sitting beside her on the couch, and promptly stuck her tongue out at
Ricky.
    He laughed. “Are you sure, you
don’t want to come? I can wait for you to get dressed in
something besides that,” he said with a sneer and raised
eyebrow.
    She eyed her baggy sweatpants and
over-sized Twilight shirt. “Hey, back off of the clothes.”
    “Okay, well, don’t wait up,”
he said, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively, walking out the door.
    Lana rolled her eyes. He was ridiculous
sometimes. Okay, maybe all of the time. However, he was truly her
best friend. Just not the type of person she would divulge her
darkest secret to. He was the type you watched Who
Wore It Best with and trash
talked the clothes. Nothing about Ricky