“Did you just smile?”
“Nope.” She shakes her head adamantly. “Take off your socks and shoes.”
“Why? Do you have some sort of foot fetish?”
There’s that crease in her cheek again. Or she’s grimacing. It’s hard to tell from the side.
“I don’t want to see your gross man toes any more than you do,” she mutters.
“Gross man toes? I’m offended.” I slip off my shoes and socks, anyway. “How do you knowIdon’t have a foot fetish?”
“You probably do.”
I step onto the machine. “I’ll show you mine, you show me yours.”
Her thick eyelashes fan over her cheeks, and I’m brought back to a memory of my mom holding an eyelash on her fingertip and telling me to make a wish. I wonder what Maddie would wish for.
“I’ll show you my foot right before I kick you out of my gym.”
That. She’d wish for that.
“Yourgym?“ I rub my beard. “I didn’t realize you’d been promoted.”
She glares, her eyes like twin black lasers.
I’m doing it again. That thing where I become a jerk around her.
“Sorry.” I step onto the machine, crucially aware of how close that brings us while she pushes the correct buttons.
“Try to hold still,” she says.
I suck in a breath and hold it.
“You can breathe.”
“Now you tell me.” An abnormal gust of wind rushes from my lungs.
“Not like that.”
It’s impossible to regulate my breathing with her inches away from me and smelling like a tropical beach. And her skin, it looks so smooth and warm, I want to run my fingers down her arms, and then tangle them up in her silky black hair. From this angle, I have a perfect view of the cupid’s bow in her upper lip. I wonder what those lips taste like if they are sweet and soft, or—
The machine beeps and I blink, tearing my eyes off her lips. A piece of paper pops out and Maddie takes it, scanning it over while she stands only inches to my right, unaware of what her presence is doing to me.
“What does it say?” I ask, my voice coming out breathy and crackly.
She frowns like she forgot I was here. “That you’re very average.”
“Ouch.” I grasp my chest and step off the machine, right next to her. “You have a real way with words, you know that?”
She bites her bottom lip, her cheeks turning that delicious shade of pink yet again. That’s three times today I’ve made her blush.
“Some people find the truth hard to swallow.”
My face splits into a grin, and she steps away, turning off the machine.
“You know who would enjoy your sense of humor?” I muse, slipping my socks and shoes back on.
She cocks her head and pulls open the door. “Everyone but you?”
