Far Love (Book 1)

3 | Dylan Woods

August 19th, 2023

He smirks, seeing through me, "I can wait down in my car unless you want to let me in."

I clear my throat, "Come on in." I pull the door back and step out of the way so he can walk past.

I clench and unclench my hands while I lead him to the living area, "Can I get you something to eat or drink?" I ask.

Not only is Dylan one of the star players on the University of Washington team, but he is also a part of the notorious Woods family. They are curated of everything famous–from a singer, an author, actors, and athletes.

"No, I'll probably be here for only a couple anyway," he looks out the window and I'm suddenly self-conscious of the beautiful view. Remembering that he probably got to where he was today by the fame his parents put on him helps me feel better because I worked for what I have, he most likely did not.

I nod, "Make yourself at home, I'm just going to be working."

I anticipate that he will keep silent as I walk back to the couch and plop down, pulling my laptop into my lap and bringing my headphones to my head. But after a few minutes of silence, he looks up and asks, "What do you do for work?" from his side of the couch.

"I write," I say lamely. I'm at the cusp of figuring out how to work through a giant plot hole.

"What kind of writing?"

I pull my headphones off and say, "I'm trying to work, could you please keep quiet?"

He shrugs and nods, pulling his phone out.

I settle back into my groove and he stays silent. I try to focus on my work, but sitting next to a literal celebrity makes my hands shake and I have to press the backspace multiple times to fix my errors. Finally, I take a break, pull my headphones off and close my laptop.

"If you're working it doesn't look like it," he mutters as I stand up.

"Well I'm hungry," I deadpan.

He asks, "What kind of writing?"

"I write new adult fantasy."

"That's cool, fairies are cool."

I roll my eyes, "It's fae."

He picks up my phone from where it was sitting on the couch and I run over to him, "What are you doing?"

"Texting your friend to come out. Hudson doesn't answer his phone when he's in the zone."

I turn red, "You think they are... you know, doing that?"

He smirks at me, "What do you think they are doing?"

I feel my cheeks turn redder and his lips turn into a full-fledged smile as he looks down at the phone. I roll my eyes and snatch it, "Unlike you, I'm fine just going in." I'd walked in on my friends many times, yes, but it was still awkward. But I'd already said I was going to do it, so I walk up to Nina's door and say, "Come on, your friends here Hudson."

Dylan walks up behind me. "It's Dylan," he murmurs next to my ear as I hear footsteps from the other side of the door.

I gulp and say, "I know." I regret my words immediately and swallow again.

The door opens and Dylan backs away from me.

Nina emerges from her bedroom with Hudson close behind. She pauses when she sees Dylan next to me and I bite my lip to stop myself from saying something I'll regret again.

She says to Hudson behind her, "It was nice to meet you, see you again?" she wrings her hands shyly.

I look at Dylan and he rolls his eyes at them. "Come on, I'm hungry as shit."

I roll my eyes at him and walk toward the couch, starting on my work again only to distract myself.

When the door shuts behind the football players, Nina runs at me and almost jumps on top of me. "Tell me everything."

I would have said nothing happened and that he just sat on the couch waiting for Hudson, but I feel my cheeks turn red, "I pretty much told him to shut up because I was working."

She gasps, "You didn't tell Dylan to stop talking did you?"

"I did," I clap my hands in my lap.

She giggles, which is the exact opposite of what I expected. "Oh, he'll be smitten in four days tops."

I roll my eyes and retrieve my laptop from where it fell on the floor when Nina jumped on me, "He won't. He'll forget about even coming here in less than an hour and won't remember me." I remember I don't like him at all, so I say, "Plus I don't like him."

She flips back onto the couch and sighs, "How could you not?"

I laugh, "I don't know him."

"He's Dylan Woods, you don't need to know him to like him."

"What about Hudson? You don't like him?" I ask to deflect.

She turns red, "I don't think so." And even with her red cheeks and clasped hands, I know this was the truth. Nina always got anxious around topics like this. "I just met him last night, so I can't really judge that yet, but I really don't think so."

"I get that," I say.

She nods, "I don't usually like guys like him. I mean he's attractive, but I like men that are more chill."

I nod, I do too. It is always Mara who would jump the bones of any popular guy at their school anyway. Besides last night, I don't think I'd seen Nina bring someone into her room in two years, and that was her boyfriend at the time.

"I don't know, I'll figure it out in enough time." She stands up, "I have homework to do, come in if you need anything."

I dip my chin and put my headphones back on. Putting my music to my fantasy playlist—curated of songs from movies and shows with the same vibe as my novel—I see a message at the top of my screen.

The contact says in bold, Dylan, above the text that read out, "It was nice to meet you."

At first I pale, then blush. How did he get his contact in my phone without me realizing? My mind goes back to when he picked up my phone. I never actually saw what he did before he went to Nina's contact, and it makes sense now.

I smirk and respond,

Rylie: Smooth

Rylie: Nice to meet you too

Then I put my phone down and try to concentrate on my manuscript, but every few minutes his blond hair pops back into my mind and the way his blue eyes look into my own brown ones.

I put my ginger hair up over the cushions behind me to get it off my neck.

I eventually get annoyed with myself and shut my laptop, I open my phone to my favorite true crime youtuber and focus on the woman and case she's covering, refusing to think of Dylan.

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Weirdly when I wrote this chapter I imagined the part in the first twilight book where Edward was annoying the shit out of Bella in the parking lot lmfao.

🪿
Katelynn J. Peterson

Published: March 19th, 2023