Chapter 14 #9
He loosened the straps with careful fingers, peeling the brace away slowly enough that nothing pulled. His hands were huge, rougher than they looked, callused from lifting and catching and whatever other violent rituals football required. But on my leg, they were gentle.
That contrast should have been illegal.
He set the brace on the floor in a neat line beside the ottoman. Of course he did.
“Heat?” he asked. “Ice? Icy Hot? Compression sleeve? I’ve got everything.”
“Everything?”
“Everything.”
“Of course you do.”
He looked mildly offended. “Bodies are expensive. I maintain mine.”
“I’ve noticed.”
The second the words left my mouth, I wanted to stuff them back in.
Drew went very still.
Then his mouth curved.
Slow.
Awful.
“You’ve noticed?”
I stared at the ceiling. “Heating pad would be great.”
“Deflection. Cute.”
“Drew.”
“On it, Texas.”
He disappeared down the hall and came back with a heating pad, a folded towel, and a remote. He tucked the pad beneath my hamstring with the precision of someone who had done this a hundred times, then adjusted the pillow under my knee.
“Too hot?”
“No.”
“Tell me if it is.”
“I know how temperature works.”
“And yet I’m still talking.”
He handed me the remote. “Netflix. Pick something that won’t make me lose faith in humanity.”
“That rules out most of your personality.”
“Mean women are my weakness.”
“Clearly.”
He pulled out his phone. “Hungry?”
“A little.”
“Good. I’m starving.”
“You’re always starving.”
“I’m a growing boy.”
“You’re enormous.”
“Exactly. Growth is working.”
He ordered food with the speed of a man who had memorized the delivery radius of every restaurant within ten miles. Thai noodles, dumplings, rice, something spicy for him, something less spicy for me because apparently he knew that too now.
Then he stood.
“I’m gonna shower,” he said. “You good?”
I was on his couch, in his jersey, with my leg on a heating pad, his remote in my hand, and my common sense bleeding out somewhere near the beach.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m good.”
His gaze moved over me once.
Not dirty.
Not exactly.
Worse.
Soft enough to make my skin feel tight.
Then he nodded and disappeared down the hall.
I listened to the shower turn on.
Which was a mistake.
Because then my brain had five full minutes to imagine Drew naked under hot water in the same house where I was lying on his couch wearing his last name across my back.
I tried to focus on Netflix.
The algorithm suggested crime documentaries, cooking competitions, and a Regency romance with a shirtless man on the cover.
Rude.
I picked a cooking show out of self-defense.
Drew came back before I had learned anything except that I was emotionally unprepared for fresh-out-of-the-shower Drew.
Gray sweats hung low on his hips, loose enough to be disrespectful.
His shirt was one of those cutoff things that should not qualify as clothing, all open sides and broad chest and biceps that made me briefly believe in bad decisions as a lifestyle.
His hair was damp, darker at the ends, curling slightly around his temples.
And he smelled—like some divine male soap designed in a secret lab to ruin women with standards. Clean. Warm. Expensive but not trying. Something like cedar and mint and skin.
My entire body noticed.
Every single useless part of it.
He looked at me. “You okay?”
“No.”
His brows shot up.
I cleared my throat. “I mean, yes. The show is annoying.”
His eyes narrowed slightly.
The doorbell rang.
Saved by noodles.
Drew smirked like he knew exactly what had happened and went to get the food.
By the time he came back, I had recovered enough dignity to sit up straighter and pretend his forearms did not interest me. He moved around the kitchen with the same easy order as the rest of the house, pulling plates from cabinets, opening containers, dividing food without asking.
“You don’t have to make me a plate,” I called.
“I know.”
“I have hands.”
“I noticed.”
He glanced over his shoulder at me, and the look that passed between us made the room tilt.
Then he smiled.
“I just like feeding you, Texas.”
My stomach swooped.
No.
Absolutely not.
Feeding me should not sound like foreplay.
But somehow, from Drew Travers’ mouth, it did.
“Stop saying things like that,” I muttered.
“Like what?”
“Like you enjoy being useful.”
“I do enjoy being useful.”
“That is suspicious.”
“That’s because you think all men are ornaments or weapons.”
I blinked.
He brought the plates over before I could decide whether to be offended.
Then I realized I wasn’t.
Not fully.
He handed me a plate piled with noodles and dumplings, then sat beside me with his own mountain of food. Too close. The couch was huge, but Drew sat close enough that his thigh pressed lightly against mine.
“For the record,” I said, stabbing noodles with my fork, “you do not need to feed me like I’m a wounded baby bird.”
“For the record,” he said, picking up his own fork, “you threatened a volleyball queen, yelled at two star athletes, made out with me in front of a bonfire, and then limped to my car like you were fine. You’re not a wounded baby bird. You’re a menace with soft tissue damage.”
I pointed my fork at him. “That was almost sweet until the end and I did not threaten her….”
“It was sweet the whole time.”
“You need classes.”
“On what?”
“Tone.”
“I have excellent tone.”
“You told me I had soft tissue damage.”
“Accurate and sexy.”
I snorted.
Drew grinned and reached over, twirling a little nest of noodles around his fork from my plate.
I slapped his wrist. “Those are mine.”
“I gave them to you.”
“You plated them for me. That is not the same thing as ownership.”
He ignored that, brought the fork near my mouth, and waited.
I stared at him.
“No.”
His brows lifted. “No?”
“I am not letting you feed me.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s weird.”
“It’s noodles.”
“It’s intimate noodles.”
His grin turned criminal. “Open.”
“No.”
“Texas.”
My body betrayed me before my pride could intervene.
I opened my mouth.
He fed me one careful bite, watching me the entire time like he had somehow turned dinner into a dare. The noodles were warm and sweet-spicy, but all I could focus on was the look in his eyes and the way his thumb brushed the corner of my mouth after.
“There,” he said. “Survived.”
I swallowed.
Barely.
“Stop.”
“Stop what?”
“Making everything feel like foreplay.”
His eyes darkened.
The air changed so fast I wished I had kept my mouth shut.
Drew leaned back slowly, plate in one hand, fork in the other, like he was giving me the chance to pretend I hadn’t said it.
I looked at the television.
Aggressively.
A woman on-screen was explaining how to properly season roasted carrots.
I had never cared more about vegetables in my life.
Drew chuckled under his breath and went back to eating.
We watched the show.
Or pretended to.
Every few minutes he stole something from my plate. Every few minutes I complained. Every few minutes it felt less like a fake date and more like a night we had earned after a long week of being something to each other.
When we finished, I tried to take my plate to the kitchen.
Drew gave me a look so flat I sat back down.
“Fine,” I said. “Enjoy your domestic dominance.”
“I will.”
He cleaned the kitchen.
Not tossed things in the sink.
Cleaned.
Rinsed plates. Loaded the dishwasher. Wiped the counter. Put leftovers into containers. Lined them up in the fridge like they had assigned seats.
I watched from the couch with the heating pad under my leg and the strangest ache in my chest.
I knew almost nothing about him.
That thought landed harder than it should have.
I knew Drew was honest when it would have been easier not to be.
I knew he cared too much and pretended it was arrogance.
I knew he had big dick energy so aggressively it should have been studied by campus health.
I knew he was sexy even when he wasn’t trying, maybe especially when he wasn’t trying.
I knew he was becoming the perfect fake boyfriend.
The most perfect fake boyfriend I had ever had.
Which was a ridiculous title because I had never had a fake boyfriend before.
But still.
I knew those things.
I did not know what his childhood bedroom looked like.
I did not know what his father did beyond whatever vague famous-rich-football-family energy he kept locked behind jokes.
I did not know who taught him to fold towels like a hotel.
I did not know if his mother called him every Sunday or if she was the reason he got quiet whenever family came up.
I did not know the real Drew.
Not yet.
That should have been comforting.
Instead, it made me want more.
Dangerous girl.
Very, very dangerous.
Drew came back into the living room and clapped his hands once. “Turn over.”
I blinked. “Excuse me?”
“On your stomach.”
“Absolutely not.”
He pointed at my leg. “Hamstring.”
“You cannot just order women onto their stomachs in your living room.”
“I can when they’re injured and pretending the heating pad fixed everything.”
“It helped.”
“It warmed it up. Now I’ll work it out.”
I stared at him. “You’ll what?”
He was already going to a cabinet near the hallway. He came back with a bottle of massage oil.
I looked from the bottle to him.
“Is that baby oil?”
“Massage oil.”
“Why do you own massage oil?”
“I play football.”
“That did not answer my question.”
He set the bottle on the coffee table. “You want your leg to feel better or do you want to interrogate my wellness supplies?”
“Both.”
“Turn over, Texas.”
I should have argued harder.
I did not.
Mostly because my hamstring did hurt.
Also because some reckless part of me wanted to know what Drew’s hands felt like when they were not pulling me against him on a beach.
I turned carefully onto my stomach, folding my arms under my head. His jersey rode up the back of my thighs, and I immediately regretted every life choice that had brought me here.
“Do not make it weird,” I said into the pillow.
Drew made a sound behind me. “Baby, I’m the one trying to be professional.”
“That has never been true.”
The couch dipped as he knelt beside my legs.
The cap of the bottle clicked open.