Page 52 of Show Me 1

I changed the channel and flopped down in the empty space next to Sam. “Thought you were tired,” I said when he didn’t make any move to go to bed.

He shrugged. “Might watch a little longer. See how this turns out.”

I grabbed a handful of popcorn from the bowl on the coffee table. “Where’s Ansel?”

“Said he had a date.” Cam yawned.

“With who?”

“He didn’t say that.”

“He’s such a weirdo.” If one day Ansel popped up on Instagram as some running phenom who lived out of a van and just drove across the US uploading videos of himself doing yoga, running marathons, and scaling various mountains, I wouldn’t have been surprised.

“A cute one, though,” Cam said.

“Agreed.”

Sam gave me a sideways look, and I tossed a piece of popcorn at him. “He is. It’s okay. You can admit it, too.”

Ten minutes later, my eyelids were drooping. When I swung a look over at Sam, though, he seemed wide-awake, his posture stiff.

“You okay?” I said quietly and craned a look back at Cam. He’d fallen quiet, too, but I wasn’t sure whether or not he was asleep.

“What? Oh yeah,” he whispered back. “Really nervous about this challenge.”

I side-eyed him. “Not to spoil it for you, but they’re all going to make something delicious and be lovely while doing it.” We hadn’t even reached the technical challenge yet. We were still in my favorite part, the signature challenge where contestants showed off their tried-and-true recipes.

“Well, I’ve become a little invested already. You cold?” Sam eyed my arms, which I’d hugged around my chest. No idea why. But before I could respond, he dragged a blanket from the back of the couch and offered it out to me.

“Gonna tuck me in, too?” I teased, then chuckled quietly as he rolled forward, tucking the blanket tightly around my shoulders and then stretching it out over both of us.

“You would kill it on this show,” Sam said, sotto voce, and I felt the warmth of his large hand close around my toes and squeeze. Somewhere in the midst of the getting comfy and blanket draping, my socked feet had naturally come to a rest against his outer thighs. I hadn’t given it any thought before, but now I was on high alert.

“You’ve placed a lot of unearned confidence in my baking skills when I’m pretty sure I’ve never baked for you.”

“It’s the same thing as cooking, right?”

I gasped in mock horror. “You take that back right now. They’re not the same thing. There are people out there who are amazing cooks and shitty bakers. And vice versa.”

“Hmmm, maybe you should bake something for me, then. Let me be the judge.”

“I see what you’re doing.” I snuck a look at him, but his focus was still drilled at the TV, his profile to me, not even a hint of a smile to suggest he was messing with me.

Okay, I’d play along.

I wiggled my toes and stifled a smile when he squeezed them tight. Something—probably his thumb—swept lightly over the top of my foot and hooked beneath the band of my sock, dragging it down slowly. I tensed. If he fucking tickled me right now while I was enjoying this cozy cocoon ofGBBO, blankets, and beefcake jock, I’d end him.

Instead, he pulled my sock all the way to the ball of my foot, then pressed his thumb firmly into my skin, following the curve of my arch.

I couldn’t help it. I moaned. It was a tiny insignificant sound that somehow managed to ring through the air like a siren. I threw another glance over my shoulder. Cam’s eyes were slits. He didn’t even fucking move. Sam’s face was a different story, though.

He was grinning now, though still staring at the TV while he rubbed my foot. His other fingers got in on the action, too, caressing the top of my foot, squeezing and relaxing. I’d had a foot rub exactly once in my life. A girl in eighth grade had given me one on a dare because the other classmates we were playing with weren’t sure what else to do with me, I guess—I’d declared my gayness loudly and early. If her foot jobs were a prelude to other jobs she might give down the road, then I was glad to have gotten off easy. Or, rather, not gotten off at all.

Sam, however, was good at this. A maestro, even. In spite of his complaints, maybe his massage sessions with the trainer had some side benefits. The pressure and heat of his fingertips melted every bit of resistance away, and the sensation extended up the backs of my calves and thighs, all the way to my groin.

He kept messing with the bit of sock he’d left on my foot, running his thumb over the skin under it, then on top of it. By the time he inched it the rest of the way off, I swore I felt every millimeter of fabric sliding over the sensitive arches of my feet, and he might as well have been sliding my boxers down my thighs the way pleasure did a lightning bolt dance through me.

And he still wouldn’t look at me either.