Can't Help Falling (5 page)

“Oh, thanks. Come in. Come in.” Allie said the right words but didn't move at all. The only way Emelia was going anywhere would be if she shoved her out of the way. “I'm so glad you came.”

“You going to actually let the poor girl in, hon?” a voice said from behind Allie.

“Yes, of course. Sorry.” Allie stepped back into the entryway, allowing Emelia to step across the threshold. “This is Jackson.” Allie gestured behind her to a tall guy with piercing blue eyes and a warm grin.

He reached around Allie and held out his hand. “You'll
have to excuse her. This is the first house party she's hosted. She's a bit excited.” Never had Emelia thought she'd be so glad to see another American. The familiarity of his accent was like a balm to her nerves.

“Emelia.”

His hand enveloped hers as she shook it. A good firm handshake. “Nice to meet you.” He planted a kiss on Allie's cheek. “I'll just go refill the snacks.”

Allie closed the door and put the bottle Emelia had handed her on a table nearby. “Let me take your coat.”

Emelia scanned the entryway quickly before she started unbuttoning it. She'd had no idea what to wear to something like this. Hadn't even thought to ask in the surprise of the invitation. So she'd played it safe with black pants and a tunic top. Not that she had much to work with given the minimal clothing she'd brought across the Atlantic with her. It was the first time since she'd left that she'd hankered for the extensive collection she'd had back home.

“Can I get you a drink?”

“Just a soda—um, fizzy drink, would be great.” She was still trying to come to terms with what the English called things. Thankfully, with a large international student population in Oxford, when she fumbled and asked where to find a drugstore, people knew she meant a chemist, not a place to acquire illicit substances.

“Great. I'll just go grab you something.” Allie gestured down the entryway to a room filled with people. “Go mingle. They're all friendly. There's a couple of other volunteers here. Lindsay. April. Elizabeth said she might drop by. I'll come find you.”

And with that, she was gone.

The floorboards creaked as Emelia walked. Peering into the room, which turned out to be a combined kitchen and living area, she looked for Lindsay, a serious girl whom she'd met once. A PhD student, if she recalled correctly. They may not exactly have been kindred spirits, but she would take whatever she could get over walking into a room full of complete strangers.

No sign of the studious blonde.

“Excuse us.” A couple of guys stood behind her, wanting to get past.

“Sorry.” She stepped back, but even then she ended up pressed into the wall, personal space nonexistent.

What was she even doing here?

Everything whirled around her. All the conversations near her were academic debates. Dante and Hobbes. Something about quantum physics. People stood shoulder to shoulder in intense discussion. All of them way over her head. No room for a newcomer. She hadn't felt so out of place since her first day interning at the
Washington Herald
. The place that had taught her connections mattered more than talent.

Her hands were clammy, her face hot. She didn't belong here. Turning around, she almost fell into a table filled with presents running along the entryway. A card on top of one seared her vision.
Happy Birthday.

She had made a mistake coming. That much had been obvious before she'd even realized she'd crashed a birthday party.
Coronation Street
at full trumpet blast was definitely better than this.

“Here you go.” Allie had appeared beside her like a mirage,
a glass of light pink soda in her hand. “Hope you like pink grapefruit.”

“Great, thanks.” Her voice wavered a bit at the last word. Emelia tried to force her face into a neutral expression, but it was too late.

Allie peered up at her. “Are you okay?”

“I'm . . . I'm so sorry. I had no idea I was crashing your birthday party.” She gestured at the table.

Allie looked around, as if surprised to see the presents. “Oh, you're not. You're totally not. It's not. My birthday was ages ago, I just never had a party and some crazy friends decided to use this as an excuse. Knowing them, they're probably all empty boxes.” Allie tapped one with her knuckles. Sure enough, it sounded hollow. “You're new to the snowy spires of Oxford, right? You said you'd just arrived? Do you have family here?”

“Yes. Week before last. And no. No family.” No anyone. Which had been part of the appeal, but now that she was here, she was realizing a life of splendid isolation wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

She'd expected to miss Lacey, her cousin, the only family member she was still close to. What she hadn't anticipated was that in the last few days, there'd even been the odd instance she'd have welcomed a conversation with Carolina. Which was saying a lot, given that the few times she'd seen her stepmother in the last couple of years, her social climbing and simpering had almost had Emelia reaching for the nearest blunt object.

Allie gave her a sympathetic look. “I get how crazy moving to a new country can be. I've only been here five months
too. But please, don't go. If you need some space, head on upstairs. Bathroom's up there. Take a few minutes. I have to go rescue some food in the oven, but I promise, when I'm done I'll introduce you to some great people. And if you're still not having fun in an hour, I will personally call you a cab. Deal?”

Emelia didn't have the heart to disappoint the hopeful face looking at her. She could always just hide in the bathroom for the next half an hour. She could hardly count on the party hostess to coddle her for the evening. “Deal.”

As Allie disappeared back into the crowd, Emelia took a deep breath and wound her way to the staircase at the end of the hall. Climbing up it, she felt immediately calmer as she rose above the noise and crowd.

There were four doors leading off the upper landing. All closed. Turning to the one to her right, she knocked and pressed her ear to the door. Silence. Turning the handle, she pushed the door open and peered into the room.

Not a bathroom. A bedroom. Allie's, judging by the large photo of her and her boyfriend on the dresser. Emelia was about to retreat when her gaze drifted past the dresser and stopped on a large wardrobe nearly covering one wall.

Another Narnia wardrobe. Was Oxford full of them?

She turned, ready to pull the door closed behind her, but spun back around before she could.

Don't be crazy, Emelia.

You can't.

Her feet stepped into the room as her mind argued.

But she hadn't been able to resist the pull of finding Narnia her whole life. No matter the consequences.

Just like her mother. And for her the consequences had been fatal.

P
eter wasn't a party guy. Especially when he had a training session early the next morning. Never when he had a session the next morning. Not even for Jackson and Allie, who seemed to have made friends with the entire city in the months they'd been in England.

So why was he breaking his rule tonight? There was zero explanation beyond the internal tugging he'd felt that he needed to be here. He could only hope the reason would become apparent sooner rather than later so he could go home to bed.

“Peter!”

Peter almost dropped the wrapped present cradled in his arm thanks to the trumpeting shout that erupted beside his left eardrum.

He looked down at the firecracker hostess standing beside him. “Thanks, Allie. I didn't need to hear out of that ear.”

“Sorry.” She didn't look sorry in the least.

“Happy not-birthday.” He held out the large gift.

She looked with horror at the box. “Seriously? What am I supposed to do with all this stuff? You remember my contract is up in six months, right? No job, no England.”

He seriously doubted there was any chance of that. From what he'd heard, Allie's Tolkien classes were so popular, there had almost been a few brawls between students trying to get seats.

She took the box, a smile quirking up at his amateur wrapping attempt before she placed it on a stack of other presents.
His eyes widened at the height of the pile, and he suppressed a grin. When someone had suggested that everyone put their presents into the biggest boxes they could find, just to wind Allie up, he hadn't expected they'd do so well.

“I'm glad you're here. There's someone I want you to meet.”

He sighed. “C'mon, Al. I know you're all flush with love, but I thought we'd agreed no more setups after the last one.” Most excruciating blind date ever.

“How was I supposed to know she'd go all fan girl on you?”

It had been the longest two hours of his life, starting with the girl wanting to take selfies of them and then spending half the time tweeting or Instagramming or whatevering them to her friends. “Awkward” didn't even begin to describe it.

“I don't need to be set up, okay? Especially not with only weeks to go until the Boat Race. That's all I'm going to have time for.” And after that, all he'd have time for was his coaching commitments to the local rowing club and training for his own comeback. Doing everything in his power to keep his promise.

Allie pulled a face. “Don't try and use that excuse with me. Do you forget some of your guys are in my classes? I've got plenty to keep them occupied the hours they're not rowing. It's not a setup, anyway. She's new in town. I just met her at church on Sunday.”

Well, she'd come to the right place. Allie had the amazing ability to make people feel like they'd been friends since they were missing front teeth and drinking out of juice boxes.

“She's a rower too, so I'm sure she's not going to go all gaga on you like the last one.” Allie studied him through critical eyes. “Though I'm not sure if I want her to meet you like this. You look like a total dork. What is with that sweater?”

He looked down at his green-, blue-, and red-covered torso. “Don't go knocking the jumper. My grandmother knitted this.” And he was only wearing it because, between training, the horrible weather, and not having a dryer, he hadn't done laundry in weeks. It was the ugly jumper that only came out in times of desperation. Not that he'd ever admit it to Allie now.

“Is your grandmother coming to this party?” Allie made a show of looking around. “Because that is the only acceptable reason I can think of on God's green earth for you to be wearing that monstrosity.”

He couldn't hold in his laugh. Jackson was never going to have a boring life with this girl, that was for sure.

“There she is.” Allie waved at someone over his shoulder. “Stay right there, don't move.” She ducked around him. Peter stayed where he was, as ordered. The room was so packed that even if he'd wanted to make an escape he wouldn't have been able to before Allie caught him.

She appeared beside him, a petite blonde trailing behind her. Peter's whole body tensed. It couldn't be. Surely not—

“Peter, this is Sabine. Sabine, this is Peter.”

It was. His ex-girlfriend's blond hair hung around her face like a golden sheet, her blue eyes big. This was about to get as awkward as the blind date Allie had set him up on. “Sabine.”

“Hi, Peter.” She looked as weirded out as he felt. No surprises there. Months of no contact and the first time they saw each other was like this. “Look, I had no idea it was you. That you'd be here.”

“You two already know each other?” Allie tucked a piece of hair behind her ear as she directed the question to Peter.

Peter fidgeted. Shoved his hands in his pockets. “Sabine and I used to date.”

Allie raised her eyebrows while Sabine gave him a look he couldn't quite interpret. Then she turned to Allie. “For three years. Right, Seven?” She used his old nickname, after his rowing position. He hadn't heard it in months.

Allie glanced between the two of them as Peter tried to beg her with his gaze to save him somehow. Of all the things he'd come prepared for tonight, the second face-to-face post-breakup conversation with his ex was not one of them.

Allie either didn't see his plea or ignored it. “So, um, I'm just going to go and top up the snacks.” Traitor. The girl moved faster than a speeding snowball as she turned and disappeared into the crowd.

The two of them studied each other for a second, both trying to find their bearings.

“Seriously, what are you doing here, Bine?” He switched to her nickname. As far as he knew, since their breakup, she'd stayed ensconced in London or wherever the women's rowing team was training. Both of them staying out of each other's turf. Her presence now in the middle of his was a clear breach of the unofficial settlement they'd drawn up. After three years together, a decent geographical distance between them seemed sensible.

Sabine shrugged a slender shoulder. “The team is on break for a couple of weeks so I came down to visit. Annabelle was coming to this and suggested I tag along.”

He studied her feigned nonchalance, letting his eyes linger on her perfectly coiffed blond hair, immaculate makeup, and clothes that made the most of her figure without being ostentatious. He checked his emotions. Tried to work out what was tangled there. Was relieved to see that it didn't seem to be dormant attraction.

Certainly nothing compared to the girl who'd fallen out of the wardrobe, which was insane considering he had a long and complicated history with the girl standing in front of him and absolutely none with the one he'd met in the most unorthodox of ways.

“Since I ran into you, can we talk?” Sabine placed a hand on his arm.

“Bine, I don't think we have anything to talk about.” He tried to say the words gently. It had been six months since their relationship had ended. It had been hard enough at the time, pain filling her face the day he'd broken it off. He didn't see what good could come from revisiting it.