All Lined Up

Chapter 18 Carson

I reach for the button of her jeans, and I see it in her eyes before she says it.

“I can’t do this.”

For a second, I think she means all of it, and I want to scream. But then she smooths a hand through my hair and pulls me up toward her mouth for another kiss, and I get it.

She just can’t do this.

I pushed things too fast. I seem to do that with her a lot. But as long as she keeps being honest with me, as long as she doesn’t run away, I can fix that.

“Okay,” I say, laying a series of kisses on her forehead, cheeks, and mouth. “That’s okay.”

“You’re sure?”

She looks like she expects me to fight her on it or kick her out because of it.

“Very sure.” I kiss her again, the compulsion to taste her too strong to deny. “This is more than enough.”

At her suggestion, we watch another episode of Doctor Who, the first one this time. She smiles at me as she pulls her long hair up into a ponytail while the new episode loads.

I want to pull her to me and wrap my arms around her again, but I also need the separation to calm myself down. I don’t need anything more than she’s given me, but I would like to be able to hold her without my raging hard-on making me miserable.

“I’m going to get some water. You want something?”

She shakes her head no, and I use the spare minutes standing in front of the ice-cold refrigerator to finish talking myself down. I come back with two water bottles, just in case she changes her mind.

This time I lie on my back, and she snuggles up close to me, resting her head on my chest. I run my fingers through her ponytail, and the scent of vanilla settles over me.

I fall asleep that way—my hand in her hair, her body draped over mine—and I can’t remember a more peaceful moment in my entire life.

I WAKE WHEN Dallas shifts next to me, lying almost completely on top of me as she reaches for the phone silently lighting up on the coffee table. She rests her chin on my chest once she has it, eyes heavy with sleep. She yawns and puts the phone to her ear, laying the opposite cheek down against me.

“Hello?”

She’s silent for a few seconds, and then she jerks upright.

“Shit! What time is it?”

I squint at the red lights on the cable box. 3:17 A.M.

“You called him? Are you kidding me, Stella?”

Damn. That didn’t sound good. Not at all.

“I was asleep. I didn’t hear the phone ring. No. I know.” She sighs and looks at me briefly before closing her eyes. “I’m at Carson’s.”

Stella says something, though really it just sounds like shrieking to me, and Dallas replies emphatically, “No, of course not! We were watching a movie and fell asleep.”

She struggles to pull herself up with one hand, so I help, getting us both up into sitting positions. She perches the phone between her shoulder and her ear, and then drags her shoes on.

”Stella, can we talk about this when my dad doesn’t think I’m lying dead somewhere in a ditch?”

She shrugs on one arm of her jacket and then the other. “I’m on my way now. Call him back and tell him . . . I don’t know. Tell him I sent you an e-mail to say I accidentally locked my key and my phone in our room and was crashing at a friend’s, but you just now saw it. And apologize like you’ve never apologized before in your life. I’ll text you when I get there. Can you come let me in through the east stairwell so the dorm monitor doesn’t see me come in? Yeah. Yes, I will. I promise.” She covers her eyes with her hand and mutters, “Bye.”

Still sitting on the couch, I perch my elbows on my knees and tell her, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to get you in trouble.”

“It’s my own fault. I lied and told Stella that I was leaving that party to go back to our dorm. When she got home and I wasn’t there, she panicked.”

“What did your dad say?”

“He’s freaking out, of course. He didn’t want me to live in the dorms in the first place, so this will be another addition to his list of reasons I’m not mature enough to handle going to school in New York.”

New York? I’m guessing that’s a dance thing, and I don’t like the way that thought leaves me feeling. I don’t like feeling like she’s about to fall through my fingers at any moment.

“Why don’t you stay? If Stella’s calling back your dad, there’s no reason for you to rush back in the middle of the night.”

She frowns, coming closer and pushing her fingers through my hair. “I can’t. Knowing Dad, he’s probably already had my RA and even the dean on the phone. I need to be there in the morning in case anyone decides to check up on our story.”

“Can’t you just tell the truth?”

“Carson.” The look she gives me is sharp.

“I don’t mean about me. Just say you were at a friend’s place and fell asleep watching a movie. It happens. You’re not a kid anymore.”

“As nice as it is to hear someone else make that argument, it won’t work. I don’t really have any friends besides Stella. And you.”

I stand and fold her into my arms. “Okay. But text me when you get there. And in the morning, after you talk to your dad.”

“I will.”

She pulls back to leave, grabbing her purse, but she doesn’t make it to the door before I stop her again. I cup her face in my hands and kiss her, slipping past her lips for one last sweet taste.

“I know it was on a couch and only a few hours, but that was the best sleep I’ve had in a long time.”

After she leaves, I don’t bother going back to my bed. I fall back down on the couch where it still smells a little like her, and stay awake just long enough to get her text that she made it safely back to the dorm.

I DON’T SEE Dallas for the rest of the weekend or on Monday or Tuesday. On Wednesday, I take it out on the weight room and everything in it, including Ryan.

“You have really got to get that friend-zone shit under control, man. You’re distracted, and I’m not too keen on being the dude you drop hundreds of pounds on when you’re not paying attention.”

I shake my head and stare at the floor, then do as he says, picking up the bar and throwing it above my head in a dead lift with all the strength I’ve got. Then I drop it back to the mats several feet away from where Ryan is leaning against a weight machine with his ankles crossed.

“Friend zone isn’t really the problem anymore.”

“Oh, do tell.”

I roll my eyes while he grabs a nearby chair and straddles it like he’s settling in for story time.

“I can’t really talk about it.”

He nods and makes a sound of affirmation. “Gotcha. She’s in the CIA, right?”

“Oh yeah. CIA agents really have a thing for college students.”

“Do not mess up my fantasy, man.”

“You’re such a geek. Of all the fantasies in the world, that’s the one you choose?”

“Hey, we’re talking about you here, not me. So, if she’s not CIA . . . let me see. She got a boyfriend?”

I shake my head, going for another dead lift. I grit my teeth and growl as I struggle to lift the weight all the way up. The moment that I drop it is almost as bad as the lift itself—that lightning-fast transition between holding all that weight and releasing it, makes my joints twinge.

“No boyfriend. Hmm . . . former lesbian too ashamed to admit you dragged her back into the closet?”

I bark a laugh, not even bothering to tell him no.

“I got it. You’re banging Coach Cole’s daughter.”

He laughs, and I drop the bar I’m holding before I ever get it past my waist, surprised.

Ryan has to jump out of the way to avoid a few crushed toes and his laugh trails off into dead silence. His face morphs into an expression that makes me want to drop that damn bar on my own head.

“Fuck, man. You are . . . Fuck! Are you crazy?”

“Yes,” I answer, because really, that’s all there is to it.

“You just . . . you’re . . . Oh my God, man. You better be wearing a rubber. I’m picturing your mangled body if you ever knock her up and the big dude finds out.”

“Shut up.” I cut my hand across my throat in a warning gesture. There’s no one near us at the moment, but I’m paranoid. Dallas’s rule strictly forbids me from telling anyone. I’ve already botched that up and don’t need someone else accidentally stumbling on to the knowledge. “We’re not . . . I’m not banging her, as you put it. We’re just seeing how things go.”

At least, I’m pretty sure that’s what we’re doing. We texted back and forth over the weekend, and she didn’t seem like she’d changed her mind, but she said she had church with her dad on Sunday and some dance thing on Monday and work on Tuesday. A small part of me is worried that she’s blowing me off. Okay, a big part.

“Seeing how it goes with the coach’s daughter . . . ”

“You’re going to take a dumbbell to your balls if you say that out loud one more time.”

He knocks on the back of the metal chair he’s straddling like it’s armor, and I’m moving forward to rip him off the chair when he holds his hands up.

“Relax, man. I won’t say a word. But you know”—he coughs instead of saying Coach’s name—“won’t be the only person you have to worry about. There’s Abrams, too. The guy’s an asshole, but no one talks about an ex as much as he does unless part of him still wants her.”

“I don’t give a fuck what Abrams wants. He’s not getting anywhere near her, whether we work out or not.”

Ryan nods, and after I do my last dead lift, growling a little more than is probably necessary to get me through it, he mercifully changes the subject.

“Speaking of Abrams. Dude is finally figuring out how not to shit the bed every other play.”

I stretch my neck from side to side, and then roll out my shoulders. “I know. I don’t know what it is, but he’s kicked it into another gear.”

“Maybe he felt you breathing down the back of his neck.”

“Maybe.”

Ryan checks his watch. “I gotta get to class, but let’s get lunch before you come back here this afternoon. What’s the closest cafeteria to your class?”

“Schaefer,” I say, and my stomach flips. That’s Dallas’s dorm.

“All right. I’ll meet you there. Try not to injure any pedestrians in your frustrated state.”

The only person I’m really in the mood to hurt is myself. If I didn’t have to get to Spanish, I’d stay and punish myself for another couple hours. I have a feeling I’m going to have to do more than my usual run to clear my head this afternoon.