such illusions.

You're crazy.

I know. But will you be mad?

I hesitate and then reply.

Of course not. I can't stand the

dude, but do what you want.

She sends back a fist-pump emoticon followed by a smiley blowing me a kiss.

I'd halted at the bottom of the stairs to Carson's place, not trusting myself to climb and text at the same time. I jog up them quickly now, feeling a slight chill creep through my leather jacket. Even though a couple weeks have pa.s.sed since the the first game, it's just now starting to smell like football season, that slightly damp, gra.s.sy smell that most people probably just call fall.

I knock, and then shove my fists into my pockets, glad at least that I didn't give in when Stella tried to push me to wear a skirt to that party. The only noise that follows my knock is the whining chirps of a dozen or so crickets huddled close to the wall of the building. I shiver. Crickets. Just another reason to despise fall. They come out in plague proportions.

I knock again, bouncing on my toes, finally feeling those nerves.

I pull out my phone to text him, but suddenly don't want him to know that I came all the way over here without actually knowing for sure that he wanted to hang out. I head back down the stairs and back toward my car, nursing my disappointment. Even if Stella weren't currently trying to score with douche-lobster Silas, I still wouldn't feel like joining her at another party. I love her, but I'm not much of a drinker, and the only other thing to do there is listen to drunk conversations that I find only slightly less annoying than people's compulsion to post pictures of their food online.

I'm two buildings away from my car when I pause by the party I noticed on the way in. Maybe that's where he is? Maybe he didn't hear his phone over the music?

I hesitate just long enough for the smoker I smiled at on my way over to notice me. He's alone now, a cigarette still dangling from his mouth.

"Back so soon?" he asks.

He's wearing a beanie that it's not quite cold enough for, but with his scruffy jaw and surprisingly pretty curly black hair, it works. He's also one of those guys with impossibly pretty eyes and long eyelashes. He puts the cigarette to his lips and takes a slow drag.

"Looking for a friend, but he's not home."

Smoke curls slowly out of his mouth, and he smiles. "You could make some new friends. We're a friendly bunch. Promise."

I'm the one who has friendliness issues.

I contemplate how I might find out if Carson's inside without actually admitting that I'm looking for him.

"You live here?" I ask.

He shakes his head, tapping at his cigarette to release some ash from the tip. "Nah. But I'm here a lot." He nods at the apartment behind him. "This is my friend Ryan's place. You live around here?"

"No. I, uh, live on campus."

He hums around his cigarette before giving a close-lipped smile.

"Freshman."

"Yeah, so?" I'm defensive, which is stupid. I mean, the whole freshmen are so lame tripe is annoying, but I could care less. I'm just annoyed that I don't know where Carson is. And I'm annoyed that I care enough to be annoyed.

I'm kind of annoying myself.

He chuckles. "Easy, girl. I couldn't care less how old you are. Want one?" He holds up his cigarette carton in offering, and before I can decline (because blech), an arm drapes over my shoulder, and I'm pulled in close to a very sweaty, very hard body.

"You looking for me?" Carson asks.

His chest rises and falls rapidly, and I know he's been running. He's smearing sweat on me, and my reaction should be similar to Beanie Boy's cigarette offer (blech). Instead, I find it kind of . . . hot (brain = broken, clearly).

I narrow my eyes on him. "Aren't you supposed to be taking the night off? How long have you been running?"

He brushes a strand of hair off my face, and thumbs my nose in a gesture that feels both affectionate and condescending, like I'm a little kid.

"I don't need a mom, Cole. Got one of those."

"I'm not your mom. I'm your friend." I shoot him a challenging look, and all he does is grin in response.

"Right."

He stretches out the word like I've just said something delusional, and when he glances at Beanie Boy, it's with hard eyes that don't seem very friendly.

"Have a good night."

Then his arm tightens around my shoulder, and he starts steering me back in the direction of his apartment.

"Hey!" I stick my elbow into his ribs and use it to pry myself out of his grip. "I was talking to him! What if I liked him? You can't just go steering me around like I'm your pet."

Apparently, I didn't wait until we were far enough away, because Beanie Boy shouts after us. "Do you like me?"

I flounder for a response, my mouth doing that unattractive open-and-close bit that makes me look like a fish.

"She doesn't. Sorry, man," Carson says, grabbing my wrist and pulling me along a little faster.

"Seriously? I get mad at you for controlling me, so you decide to do it some more? You are really not getting this whole friendship thing."

"You gave me rules for a friendship. Stealing you away from some guy obviously not worth your time was not mentioned anywhere in those rules."

"You don't even know him! How could you possibly know if he's worth my time?"

He stops and steps close enough to me that I have to tip my head back to see his face. Momentarily, I think about how much I love that he's actually taller than me. My head is perfectly aligned with his chest so that if I leaned into him, I could lay my head in the crook of his shoulder.

"I don't know if he's worth your time, but I do know he's not getting it. You came here to see me, which means your time belongs to me for as long as I can manage to keep you here."

I'm beginning to see why other people find my honesty off-putting. There's no good way to reply, so I change the subject.

"You're lucky. You weren't home, so I was about to leave."

He hooks his arm around my shoulder again, and this time I manage a more appropriate response.

"Gross, Carson. You're all sweaty."

"Am I?"

He pulls me into him and buries his face in my neck, wiping his damp hair across my skin. He smells salty and masculine and delicious and gah-seriously, what is wrong with my brain?

"Carson!" I push at his shoulders, trying to stifle a laugh and failing. "What's got you in such a good mood?"

He stops rubbing his hair against me, but doesn't unwrap his arms from around me.

"Just celebrating my luck."

He holds me for a few seconds longer, and I can feel his tantalizing breath against my neck. I dig my fingernails into his arms, but that only makes me more conscious of how close he is. He pulls away one torturous moment later, his arm still over my shoulder, but otherwise not acknowledging that anything more than friendly had just happened.

"So what do you want to do tonight, Daredevil?"

It takes me a second longer than I'd like to find my voice. "Doesn't matter. I was just bored of the party Stella dragged me to."

"Well, we can't have that."

We approach his building in silence, but as we take the stairs he asks, "So, what was this party?"

I shrug. "It was at another art major's house."

"And you weren't having fun? Not even with your friend? I guess that means you don't want me to shower and take you back to the party we just pa.s.sed. I know the dude who lives there."

"Uh, no thanks. I just never feel comfortable at parties. If you're not drinking, it just seems like work-all the get-to-know-you chats that are painful on a normal basis, but straight-up miserable as the other person gets progressively less coherent."

"No personal conversations, huh? You're not the easiest person to get to know, Cole."

I roll my eyes. "It's different at a party. Most of those people, I'll never see again, so it just seems like a waste of time. I don't mind talking with you. You're different."

"I'm free to ask invasive, get-to-know-you questions? Why didn't you tell me?"

"Within reason," I hedge.

He opens the door to his apartment, and I step inside without any hesitation this time.

"Make yourself at home," he says. "I'm going to rinse off in the shower, but I promise I'll be fast. There are food and drinks in the fridge if you want anything."

I take a seat on the couch and tell him that I'm fine. He disappears down the hallway, and as soon as I hear his bedroom door click shut, I throw myself down face-first on his couch with a silent scream, and do my best not to think about him getting naked in the other room.

I fail.

And my imagination is surprisingly vivid.

Chapter 16.

Carson I take the coldest, fastest shower that I can manage, and I run plays in my head to keep from thinking about the girl just on the other side of the wall. I'm p.i.s.sed at myself for not taking my phone on my run. I d.a.m.n near missed her completely because I'm too insecure to take a night off.

I'm getting better. That much is for sure. I've had three sessions now with Torres and Brookes, and I'm finally starting to see the payoff of the hours I'm putting in. The receivers are jokers too, which makes the time fly by. Unlike a lot of the c.r.a.p I hear on the field and in the locker room, their jokes are genuinely funny. Most of the time.

But while I'm getting better, so is Abrams. Maybe it's being back under the demanding eyes of Coach Cole or maybe he's just got his head on a little straighter after having played for a year. Either way, I'm losing ground as fast as I gain it, which means there's no time to take it easy.

The cold shower means there's no steam to fog up the mirror, and I have to look myself in the eye during that last thought, knowing that spending time with Dallas sure as h.e.l.l falls into the category of taking it easy.

But she's too d.a.m.n hard to resist.

I pull on a pair of clean jeans and a gray T-shirt instead of the sweats I would normally don for the night. She's dressed for a party in dark, slim jeans, a tiny leather jacket, and a long green shirt that matches her eyes.

I take a second to collect my thoughts before I leave my room, but all my thoughts about her are stubbornly polarized. I want to be the friend she's asked me to be. I want to convince her we can be more. I want to run in the other direction. So I push all those things aside and just decide to do whatever feels right.

As I walk into the living room, she's sitting sideways on my couch, my playbook resting on her knees, chewing on her thumbnail as she surveys the page.

"I thought this was a football-free zone," I said.

She jumps and practically throws the thing off her lap. Then, with a little more composure, she says, "I was bored."

"And that was the best snooping you could do?"

"I wasn't snooping. I was just mildly curious to see how Dad has changed things up."

I pick up the playbook and sit beside her, resting one of my elbows on top of her knees.

"You know you could ask him if you really wanted to know."

She dons a look of horror. "I said mildly. If I mentioned it to Dad, he would talk my ears off for hours."

I pick up the book, full of combinations and variations that I'm busting my a.s.s to memorize should I ever actually get a shot to play. "So you can actually make sense of this?"

She scowls. "I'll have you know, I knew that thing backward and forward when I used to help . . ."