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“Well, thanks for the compliment, kid,” Cassie said with a smile.
“I don’t have much faith in your softball playing ability, though,” JJ said sleepily. “We’ll have to work on that.”
Jamal rolled his eyes. “We need to work on your tact, kiddo,” he said. When he didn’t get an answer, Cassie looked down JJ lying on her chest. She was fast asleep.
“My girl sure has taken a liking to you, Bambi. I guess that means you’re stuck with us,” he said in a soft voice.
Cassie looked up to respond, but froze at the look of vulnerability on Jamal’s face.Damn it, Cassie thought. I knew better than to get involved with this duo. Her heart was feeling the thing she hadn’t felt since she and Callie became friends their first semester in college: hope. Hope that she could make a connection to these people. Hope for the future. This was definitely trouble.
“Holy guacamole, look at the time,” Cassie stuttered. “I didn’t realize it was so late.” She started to get up from the couch, but she couldn’t move because of the position JJ was in. Cassie didn’t want to wake her, even though she was trying to get out of a situation that made her very uncomfortable for a variety of reasons.
“Hang on just a sec,” Jamal whispered, getting out of the recliner where he was sitting. “I’ll get her off of you and take her to bed.”
He walked over to Cassie and gently picked his daughter up and hoisted her in his arms. “She’s getting so tall, it’s even hard for me to pick her up like this,” he told Cassie with a smile. “Probably going to be tall and lanky like her daddy.”
Cassie sat up and leaned down to put on her shoes.
“Hang on,” Jamal said, a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t leave just yet. Let me go put her in bed. I’ll be right back.”
As he walked down the hallway to what Cassie assumed led to the bedrooms, she debated the wisdom of staying. Part of her wanted nothing more than to stay with Jamal and just talk. She hadn’t done that with someone of the opposite sex in such a long time. The other part of her, however, told Cassie that if she stayed there was going to be trouble.
“I know what you’re thinking.”
Cassie jumped at the sound of his voice. “No, you don’t.” She said stubbornly.
“Yes I do,” he replied, leaning against the door jamb of the hallway, arms crossed and looking sexy as all get out. “You were thinking you needed to get out that door before I came back in the room. What makes you so scared to get to know me, Bambi? I promise I don’t bite.”
Cassie leaned back into the deep couch. Jeez, it was comfortable. “Maybe you’re right. But itisgetting late and Idoneed to study. I wasnotrunning and I amnotscared of you.”
“I know an excuse when I’ve heard one, lady.”
Cassie shrugged her shoulders. “Think what you want. You’re not the one trying to finish her student teaching so she can graduate.”
“Fifteen minutes, Bambi. That’s all I’m asking for. Fifteen minutes.”
Cassie sighed. The couch was comfortable. What could fifteen minutes hurt?
Seeing the look of acquiescence on Cassie’s face, Jamal smiled. He knew he had won. Jamal immediately plopped down on the where Cassie’s barefoot feet were curled up against her calf muscles and quickly grabbed one of Cassie’s feet and placed it in his lap. Her eyes widened in surprise.
“What do you think you’redoing?” Cassie shrieked, trying to pull her foot back and out of his lap. It was way too close to his, well, his manly parts.
“I’m going to rub your feet,” he replied, firmly holding hard enough so she couldn’t move her foot. “You’ve had a rough day. But a good foot rub can solve anything. Even a black eye.”
“I don’t want you rub-” Cassie started to say indignantly, right at the moment Jamal started kneading her arch. “Oh, my jeez,” she moaned. “Woah. That feels, that feels-”
“Pretty damn good, huh? I’m a master foot rubber. Give me a foot and I’ll rub all the kinks out of your entire body.”
“Where in the heck did you learn how to do this?” Cassie asked, tilting her head even deeper in the pillows of the couch. “That feels amazing!”
“We have a reflexologist on staff,” Jamal said, rubbing between Cassie’s toes. “As an athlete, you have problems with pretty much bad everything. Bad backs, bad knees. I could go on forever. When I dislocated my shoulder in a game last year, I was having a hard time recovering for whatever reason. Jeeves said he wanted to try reflexology. I thought it was a bunch of shit, but I was at the point I would give anything a try. After four sessions, it was like my shoulder never even suffered an injury.”
“Jeeves?”
“The reflexologist. It’s short for Jeverson.”
“Sounds like a butler’s name. You know. Jeeves killed the doctor. In the library. With a knife,” she said, referring to the game Clue.
Jamal let out a laugh. “I’ll be sure to tell him you said that.”
