He laughs and rolls one of his shoulders back. “I know the feeling.”

After laying his book on the coffee table, he stands and comes toward me.

“I think we’ve probably earned a break. What do you think?”

I watch him warily. “What kind of break?”

He moves close to me, and suddenly my muscles are tense for an entirely different reason. He reaches out, and I think he’s going to touch me, but instead he reaches past me and opens a cabinet next to his television that houses a few DVDs.

He doesn’t have to search long for the one he wants, plucking it right off the top shelf. He holds it out to me, and I laugh. “Aladdin? Really?”

“We could always watch Die Hard.”

“So we can listen to people shouting out your last name? No thanks, Bruce Willis.”

He shrugs. “I like Aladdin. It reminds me of the good old days.”

“When we were kids and our idea of homework was multiplication tables?”

“Nah. I meant the good old days when you were jumping off balconies and into my arms instead of down my throat.”

He’s teasing, and I’m glad for it because it loosens some of the remaining pressure in my chest.

I hold up my hands and give him an offended look. “Oh, excuse me! Next time I jump off a balcony, I’ll make sure I do more damage when I land on you.”

“Yeah, yeah, Daredevil. I know you’re capable of inflicting all kinds of damage. Now sit down and let’s relive our childhood.”

He doesn’t have to tell me twice. I’m so sick of reading those damn essays, I would take just about any kind of distraction. He turns the TV on and gets the DVD ready while I grab a blanket off the back of a muddy brown recliner beside the couch. I toe my shoes off, then snuggle into the arm of the couch. I stretch my legs out just a little, leaving a comfortable space between myself and where Carson will sit. He stays standing as he clicks past the previews and to the menu. He starts the movie, and while the familiar Disney castle is forming on the screen, he switches off the light and returns to the couch.

In the dark, the space I left between us doesn’t seem like nearly enough. The opening music starts, casting the room in a soft red light, and his hand rests on the couch next to him, inches away from my feet.

My heart beats faster. Over feet. How stupid is that?

I chastise myself for being an idiot, but don’t feel quite so stupid when Carson takes hold of my feet and tugs them into his lap, making me slide off the armrest and plop down on the regular cushions.

“What the crap, Carson?”

He smiles, leaving my legs draped across his lap and spreading out the bottom of the blanket.

“It’s the only blanket I have, Cole. Friends share things.”

I grumble, “I am not a football player. Please don’t call me by my last name.”

He smiles and makes that universal sound that means Too bad. “Just treating you like any other friend, Cole.”

I scoff and jam my elbow under my head in an attempt to get comfortable, refusing to let myself glance at Carson even though I swear I feel him watching me. I’m also seriously undone by the feel of his muscled legs beneath my shins. Just when I’ve got myself propped up the way I like it, my phone buzzes on the coffee table.

I reach forward to grab it.

It’s from Carson.

You’ve got some janked-up feet, Cole.

Chapter 14

Carson

Her reaction is about what I expected, though a little more violent. But at least it gets her to loosen up.

“You are such a jerk!”

One long foot nails me right in the stomach, and I catch her by the ankles before she hits me in a more unforgiving, more sensitive place.

“Hey! I’m just speaking the truth. That’s one of our deals, right?”

“I don’t want to hear those kind of truths! If you have a problem with my feet, then you should find a friend who isn’t a dancer.”

She tries to tug her ankles out of my grasp, but I jerk them back, sliding her a few inches closer to me on the couch.

“I didn’t say I didn’t like them, Cole. They have character.”

She turns her face down into the couch cushion and lets out a groan. I know it’s a groan of agitation, but that doesn’t stop my body from reacting to the sound.

She lays her cheek against the cushion and says, “Character is just a nice way of saying they’re ugly.”

Her attempts to kick herself free have left the blanket up around her knees, so I slide my hands down from her ankle and grasp the foot closest to me.

“What are you—”

The breathy moan she releases when I push my thumb along the sole of her foot just about undoes me.

“Oh God, Carson.”

Think nice, clean, friendly thoughts, Carson.

Yeah. That’s about as effective as ordering myself to know Spanish. In other words . . . impossible.

“You sit there and watch Disney while I prove I have no problem with your feet.”

They do look kind of tortured, like my hands when I go too long without lifting weights and then pick it up again. She has numerous calluses and a blister on the side of her big toe. And the joint below that toe looks like it wears a permanent red mark. I avoid it as I rub her feet, worried it’s a bruise and will be painful. I alternate between digging at the muscles with my thumb and running my palms over them softly.

Dallas is uncharacteristically still and silent. I could almost believe she’s asleep, except for the way her fingers are curled around the edge of the couch cushion in a death grip.

I switch to the other foot for a little while, relaxing back into the couch and watching the movie with lazy interest.

I don’t let go of her feet, but as my hands grow tired, I switch from a focused massage to unhurried caresses. When we get to the balcony scene, I tickle the foot I’m holding, and she digs her other foot into my thigh in warning.

Chuckling, I move my attention off her feet to her calves, and she flinches and breaks her silence with a gasp.

“That hurt?” I ask, circling my hands around her shins, and gentling the push of my thumbs.

It’s several long moments before she answers, but when she does, I know it’s my honesty rule that made her hesitate.

“No. It doesn’t hurt.”

She doesn’t tell me to stop, so I take that as permission to keep going. Her calves are lean and strong, and her skin is so silky smooth that I don’t want to ever stop touching it.