Falling Capricorn by Dallas Adams Page B

couldn't let them out in front of a stranger, even if they were both female.
    “That must really suck.” Roxie drove to the gate which had already closed from the length of time that had passed during their conversation. Roxie rolled down the window and reached up to the keypad, typing in the passcode that made the gates slowly open. Roxie headed out of the parking lot and followed the commands that the GPS chimed at her. “So how did you and Joey meet?” she questioned out of curiosity.
    “It was freshman year of college. It is actually a pretty funny story. It was the first day for me and my friend Kat, who you saw me with earlier. We were encouraged to see the campus so we went walking around, checking everything out. While we were walking, a baseball came speeding at us headed straight for my face. I shut my eyes since that was all I could do. I had no time to react,” she continued. Roxie interrupted.
    “Let me guess. He tackled you out of the way, or he somehow caught it?” Roxie asked, a small hint of sarcasm rolling off her words.
    “No.” Christen chuckled. “I actually got hit right in the face. The force from it set me flying to the ground, and also broke my nose which hurt extremely bad. Joey had been running to try and catch the ball before it hit me. He looked like a superhero charging toward me to trying to stop the disaster. Once the ball hit me, Joey realized it was too late. He tried to stop running but ended up losing his footing and crashed into me, landing right on top of me.” She laughed but Roxie did not find it as amusing. Roxie knew she would have that man’s head on a stick rather than winding up dating him.
    “He sounds like he was a really clumsy idiot,” Roxie murmured.
    “He had his clumsy and stupid moments, but everyone has those,” Christen giggled. “After I was hit, you can bet your ass I was crying my eyes out. Kat was so mad; I thought her face turned into an apple. She was screaming at him from the top of her lungs. She called him an asshole, and even though he repeatedly said sorry over and over again, she still schreeched at him about how sorry wouldn’t fix anything. Joey started to panic. One girl was yelling at him while the other one was sitting there crying like a baby. It created quite a scene, and got a lot of people’s attention.” She laughed as she remembered when Eric had to come in and calm Joey down. “That was also the day I met Eric. He told everyone to basically shut the fuck up, and mind their own business. He instructed Joey to help me up and carry me over to their car. We all headed over to the hospital after that.”
    Roxie stared at her in disbelief. She still didn’t see why she would date someone who did that to her. “And that made you see him and be all, I want to be with him for the rest of my life?” Roxie questioned with sarcasm cutting through again. Christen laughed.
    “No. At first I was really angry at him. Despite that, he stayed there the whole time I was in the hospital. Even then, he felt it was still his fault. He started following me around at school like a puppy; opening the door for me, carrying things to class, walking me to my classes, and even to my place. He was a real gentleman to me. We, of course, became really good friends. Eventually we started getting feelings for each other. We both found the other attractive for months. We just didn’t want to tell each other. And that’s how we came to be. Eric just always tagged along. I’m not going to lie. I felt it was creepy that he followed us everywhere, at first. Honestly, I thought he had a gay crush on Joey.” She rubbed her head as she spoke.
    “Oh I see,” she stated as she pulled up to Christen’s apartment. “So here we are then, I think,” she muttered calmly.
    “I can see that.” Christen gave her smile. “Thank you for the ride." Christen unbuckled her seatbelt has Roxie pulled to the curb.
    “Of course, sweet heart,” Roxie nodded her head. It