Page 1 of Call My Bluff
1
Noah Campbell watchedfrom the corner of his eye as Simon Provo, the store’s self-anointed “Customer Service King,” made his way toward his office in the corner. Noah kept his body turned toward his work, as if he weren’t paying attention, while his victim moved out of sight.
Three . . . two . . . one . . .
An inhuman scream split the air, followed by a tremendous crash. “Get it away!!” Simon screeched, his voice two octaves too high.
Noah bit down on his bottom lip, eyes clenched tight, as he fought the urge to laugh.
“Somebody help me!” Simon screamed again, and two other managers came racing from the aisles toward the source of the commotion.
Noah’s friend Riley leaned across the end of her register. “What did you do?” she hissed, but he shook his head violently. He couldn’t speak—not while the sounds of battle raged inside the small office behind him.
That bag of rubber snakes was worth every penny.
“Kill it! Kill it!” Simon shrieked. Then there was a pregnant sort of pause. “What do you meanit’s not real?!”
That was the last straw. Noah’s body shook with the effort of holding in his laughter, and tears started to leak down his cheeks.
“He’s going to kill you,” Riley whispered, though her voice trembled with her own amusement.
“He has to prove it was me first,” Noah muttered back. He sucked in a deep, cold breath and did his best to make his face behave; he was only partially successful.
“What’s all that about?”
A young woman’s voice caught his attention, and he turned to see a customer approaching Riley’s checkout stand. She wasn’t one of their regulars; no, Noah knew them all, and this girl he would have remembered. She was all bold colors and curved lines—from her reddish-brown hair to her green skirt, which stopped just above a pair of black, knee-high boots. She looked like she’d just come from a photo shoot for ’50s pinup posters.
“It seems our manager had an unwanted visitor,” Noah answered, finally bringing his voice under control. “No reason to worry, though. You’re safe with me.” He shot her the kind of grin that normally made girls blush, but this one simply raised an eyebrow in response.
“That seems doubtful,” she deadpanned, and Riley snorted.
The angry voices from the office grew louder, and there was another ominous crash. Riley began scanning the girl’s purchases, and Noah packed them in bags as fast as he could. “Can I walk these out for you?” he asked as he lowered the sacks into the girl’s now-empty cart.
She swiped a debit card and waited for her receipt. “You mean you don’t want to stay and watch the fallout?” she asked.
“I’ll catch the reruns,” he replied quickly, stepping behind her cart and closing his hands around the handle. “Besides, we give carryout service with a smile!” He started toward the exit just as the occupants of the office emerged.
Simon’s hair was on end, his face still red, and one of the other managers was holding averyrealistic-looking rubber rattlesnake by the tail. The poor thing had somehow been hacked to bits in the melee, and its head was hanging by a thread.
Noah passed through the automatic doors without looking back; either the girl would follow her groceries, or she wouldn’t, but he was getting out of Dodge just the same.
Footsteps hurried up behind him a moment later.
“A snake? Really?” the girl asked as she drew even with him.
Noah felt an incriminating smile stretch across his face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said as innocently as he could.
“Sure you don’t.”
There was a moment of silence as they walked farther across the parking lot. Noah waited for some indication they were approaching her car, but none came.
“You know this is pointless, right?” she finally asked.
“What is?”
“The whole ‘grocery store carryout’ thing. I mean, I appreciate the gesture, I guess, but I’ve got to haul these up three flights of stairs when I get home.That’swhen I’d rather have help,” she said.
“Well, you could take me home, but you’d have to buy me dinner first,” he quipped, diving headfirst into the opening she’d given. It was too good to waste. The girl huffed, but Noah saw the edges of her mouth twitch like she was trying to control a smile. “Assuming you still need dinner after all this candy,” headded. “Please tell me this will last more than a day.” He waved his hand toward her groceries, which included chocolate pretzels, gummy bears, half a dozen pints of ice cream and the biggest bag of Pixy Stix he’d ever seen.
