I nod for him to go ahead. It's only fair.

"Stay away from the other football players. Abrams, Moore, anyone who comes up to you in cla.s.s or a party or whatever. If we're keeping our worlds separate, then they need to stay that way. Completely."

His voice is firm, an almost growl, as he says it. I don't let myself think about the possessive edge in his tone. That's a rabbit hole I can't fall into.

"That's an easy yes."

He nods, but the troubled expression on his face doesn't go away with my acceptance.

"We're honest with each other, no matter how hard or awkward it is to say whatever needs to be said. We"-he uses a hand to gesture between us-"are a safe s.p.a.ce. You can say anything to me, and I promise I'll hear you out. I'll listen. No matter what it is."

I swallow, wondering just how honest he plans on getting, but I don't refuse.

"Okay. Is that it?"

"You don't walk away without an explanation. An honest one."

"If that's what you want." It's likely to be a brutal truth; it always is, but if he can take it, I can say it.

"All right, then. Come sit down."

He scoots over, repositioning some of his papers so that there's room on the coffee table for my stuff.

Last time, I was so caught up in keeping my cool and getting out of here as quickly as possible that I didn't really look around. But this time I take a bit more liberty. The furniture is all older and generic, and I wouldn't be surprised to find that it came with the apartment. The living room is dotted with athletic items-free weights in the corner, at least three footb.a.l.l.s in various spots around the room, a basketball, an extra pair of tennis shoes. His playbook lies open on the coffee table next to his homework.

I sit down beside him gingerly, unnerved by how cool he is with all of this. Most guys would call me a nutjob and send me packing, especially when all those hoops to jump through are just for friendship and nothing else.

"What are you studying for?" I ask.

"Spanish," he answers in a near-groan.

I laugh. "I take it foreign languages are not your thing."

He pulls a pillow into his lap and lays a textbook across it. With his eyes on the page, he replies, "School is not my thing."

He keeps scanning the page, so I take that as my cue that it's not a subject that he wants to talk about. I bend over to rummage through my backpack for the book of essays I'm supposed to finish by tomorrow. It's a thin book, not more than a hundred pages, but it's drier than Dad's attempts at cooking, and I've yet to manage to read more than one essay at a time.

I look over at Carson as I sit back, and catch him staring at the strip of skin on my back where my shirt has ridden up.

I raise an eyebrow. "You're a little slow on the uptake when it comes to this friendship thing, huh?"

He grins. "Practice makes perfect."

I roll my eyes and pull my legs up onto the couch, balancing the book on my knees and flipping open to the dog-eared page where I left off.

We work in silence like that for a while, and when I sneak the occasional look at him, he's concentrating hard on the page in front of him, mouthing words silently. Verb conjugations, I'm guessing.

After I've read three essays, my brain feels like mush. Really boring mush. When I let out what is probably my fifth or sixth annoyed huff since I started reading, Carson's eyes lift to mine.

"You want something to drink? Or eat?" he asks. "We could order in if you're hungry."

I wave a hand at him and stand up to stretch. Carson doesn't try to hide the way his eyes follow my movement. "I'm fine. Go back to your Spanish. I just need to stretch a bit. I had a dance cla.s.s this afternoon, and I stayed after to work on a piece of my own. Then I had another cla.s.s tonight at my old dance studio." Not to mention waking up bright and early for my shift at the Learning Lab. "I might have gone a bit overboard."

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 d.a.m.n 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 s.p.a.ce 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 s.p.a.ce 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 c.r.a.p, 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 G.o.d, 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 ma.s.sage 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.

She turns her head away from the television, pressing her forehead down into the couch cushion, and I know she's just as affected as I am.

Even though I don't want to, I take pity on her and stop my ministrations. I rub my thumb over her skin one last time, not kneading, but just a light goodbye touch. Then I leave her legs in my lap and prop my arms up along the back of the sofa, and try to return my attention to the movie.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watch the rise and fall of her back as she breathes. As the minutes tick past, the movement becomes less p.r.o.nounced and her breathing calms. When she's completely in control, she sits up. Since I dragged her closer earlier, she's now sitting on the middle cushion directly beside me. I could drop my left arm forward off the back of the couch, and it would land around her shoulders.

While I'm debating whether or not it will be worth the elbow to the ribs it will surely earn me, she stands and looks down at me. "Right or left?"

I don't know what she means, and the first conclusion my mind jumps to is that she's asking which side of the bed I prefer.

She's not. I know she's not, but my brain seems to be at least a little divided on that conclusion. My voice thick with all the things I won't let myself say, I ask, "What do you mean?"

"Your throwing arm? Right or left?"

Oh. I clear my throat and answer, "Right."

"Scoot." She pushes at my knees, and mechanically I slide over, making room for her on my right side. I'm only halfway on the middle cushion when she slides in beside me, deliciously close.

She's facing me completely, her back pressed against the armrest. She has one leg pulled up on the cushion, bent at the knee and touching me from my hip to midthigh. Her touch is tentative, and she can't decide exactly how she wants to go about doing this. Eventually, she pulls her other leg up on the couch, leaving it propped upward. She lifts my arm and lays my elbow on her knee so that my upper arm and shoulder are completely open to her. I let my forearm hang down on the other side of her knee, my fingertips brushing both her calf and her thigh at the same time.

Her touch is light and exploratory at first, tracing the dips and curves of my muscle. I drop my head back against the couch and concentrate on keeping my breathing even. But it's a battle I'll never win, not with her touching me. One warm hand curves over my shoulder, slipping underneath the sleeve of my T-shirt. I groan, and I let the fingers brushing against her leg grip just above her ankle.

She freezes, and I wonder if she'll repeat the question I asked her, if she'll make me admit the noise had nothing to do with pain.

She doesn't.

Instead, her touch turns firm and she expertly works my sore muscles. She starts at my shoulder, pressing her thumb hard against the knots she finds there. It hurts in the most perfect way, not dissimilar from the way this night as a whole feels.

"You've got a lot of tension," she murmurs.

You have no idea, Daredevil.

But at the moment, my mind is on a different kind of tension. With my fingers wrapped around her ankle and the way she's positioned, I know that one well-placed pull would have her across my lap just like the night we met.