Page 60 of Can't Help Falling

He held up one of her feet like she was wearing Cinderella’s glass slipper and fully inspected it.

“Why are you getting such a kick out of this?” she demanded. Then she squinted her eyes at him, her head cocked to one side. “Didn’t have you pegged for a foot fetishist.”

He laughed. “I’m not a foot fetishist. I’m an everything-in-its-right-place fetishist. And that includes matching socks.” He set her foot down and slid one of his socks on and then picked up the other foot, inspected that one too. “Funny feet. Who’d have known? The rest of you is so gorgeous. You know, undeniable perfection.” He tried to say it matter-of-factly, so that she wouldn’t mistake his honesty for a come-on. “I guess I just like that you have normal human feet.”

He quickly slid the other sock onto her foot and gave his handiwork a quick pat. He set her feet back on the coffee table and rose up to walk back around to the armchair. He really didn’t want her to think he’d been taking the opportunity to snuggle up on her.

She still had yet to say anything and he let five seconds pass before he chanced a glance at her.

He’d been expecting the ice of her usual gaze. He’d expected her to look all-knowing and disdainful. Maybe even to give him another healthy dose of the emoji eyebrow. But instead she’d folded her knees up under her chin, and she stared down at his socks on her feet. As he watched, she straightened her pant legs, traced her fingers over the pair of wool socks he’d just given her. He could only see part of her face, turned down as her head was, but confusingly, the part he could see looked...soft. And a little befuddled.

“They’re too big,” she told him, looking up after a minute, a begrudging smile on her face. “But you’re right. Matching socks definitely feel better.”

Holding his beer bottle in one hand, he gave her a little hand-rolling bow before turning back to the television.

They watched to the end of the program before Fin rose up and stretched.

“I’ll get you a car,” Tyler said, crossing the room to unplug his phone.

“Do you want these back?” Fin asked, one foot poised over her winter boots, pointing to the socks.

“No! No. They’re yours. Consider them a tip for working the late shift tonight.”

“Thanks.” She shrugged into her coat and didn’t question him when he put his coat on. He guessed that she knew him well enough at this point not to argue about him walking her down to the cab.

They were in the elevator when something occurred to him. “You have a guest bedroom at your place, right?”

She looked surprised by his question. “Yeah.”

“Well, if this kind of thing happens again, feel free to just bring Ky back to your place for the night, and I’ll come get her in the morning.”

She stared at him blankly, her long hair squashed between her winter hat and the collar of her coat. He wasn’t a parenting expert by any means and he racked his brain for what he could have said wrong. Maybe he was being presumptuous?

“I mean, only if you wanted to,” he hurried to say. “And Kylie wants to. I just thought you might prefer that to having to stay late at my house and then schlep all the way over to your place at one a.m.”

That blank look was still on Fin’s face, even as the elevator doors slid open, and it was starting to unnerve Tyler.

“You’d let her come spend the night at my house?” she said as they walked across the lobby.

“Sure, I trust you and—”

He cut off immediately, feeling like he’d just been socked in the gut when she turned to him and put her palm on his shoulder, giving him a tight, friendly squeeze over his coat.

Though he’d just manhandled her bare feet not twenty minutes ago, Tyler couldn’t think of a single time when she’d purposefully touched him, besides shaking his hand when they met. It was something he’d noticed about her. Though quite affectionate with Via and Matty, and occasionally Mary, Fin was by no means a toucher. She wasn’t even a toucher of things. Tonight was the first night he’d ever even seen her sit on his couch.

But there she was, hand firmly clamped over his shoulder, her eyes, once again bright, lit by the white Christmas lights in the lobby. Her gaze searing and potent. Tyler felt strangely like her hand was pinning him to some sort of interrogation chair while her eyes went ahead and saw straight through to the flipside of his heart. Weirdly, he liked it.

“Thank you,” she said simply before unhanding him.

He let out a breath as he strode to catch up to her, realizing that he hadn’t even been breathing during that moment.

Dangerous, he thought for the thousandth time.

But this time, he wondered at just how many different meanings a word like dangerous could have.

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