Page 41 of Call My Bluff
“All hail thewarrior princess!” Parker shouted as he burst through the arena’s exterior doors and out into the chilly evening air. The rest of the guys echoed his words, and Noah bit the inside of his cheek to keep from joining in.
He’d made a mistake. Several, actually.
First, he’d underestimated his opponent. He’d honestly expected Olivia to turn his invitation down flat the way she’d done before, but she was clearly more dedicated to the cause than he’drealized. Second, he’d given her an audience—one that was now eating out of her hand.
“Aww, come on, Campbell,” Beckett said, knocking his shoulder against Noah’s as they walked. “Why the long face? It’s not like she held you to your lowest score in memorable history. Or hunted you like an animal. Or made you her personal whipping boy. Oh, wait, she did!”
Laughter burst from the group as its members made their way down the sidewalk toward a burger joint nearby.
Noah glanced toward Olivia where she walked beside him. He was sure if he looked up the word “smug” in the dictionary, he’d find her current expression sketched in the margins. She’d obviously abandoned the doe-eyed damsel routine, for which he was grateful, but she’d made a few mistakes, too—the biggest of which was assuming her total domination would be a turnoff when in fact it was strangely the opposite. He clenched his jaw and made a conscious effort not to dwell on the fact that Olivia in laser tag gear bore a striking resemblance to Lara Croft inTomb Raider.
“Liv, are you coming?” Carson shouted from up ahead, and Olivia’s pace increased.
She turned around and walked backwards several yards ahead of Noah. “Come on, Campbell! Try to keep up with the big boys!” she taunted, and her ponytail bounced with every step.
Noah narrowed his eyes and refused to let her goad him. She may have won this battle, but the war wasn’t over.
He just needed to raise the stakes.
The next afternoon,Noah loitered near a water fountain across the hall from the Department of Social Work while he waited for a good opening. Some professor with a pair of yellow pencils stuck into her bird’s nest bun was on her cell phone right in front of the desk where a cute blonde student assistant was pretending to write something down.
He knew she was pretending because she’d actually been watching him for the last five minutes. She glanced up again, and he gave her a practiced smile, one he knew made girls blush and fidget. After all, what was the point of being pretty if you couldn’t use it to your advantage from time to time?
Finally, the professor finished her call and wandered away, leaving the coast clear. Noah pushed off the wall and quickly approached the office door—a man on a mission. “Hi,” he said, stepping up to the desk. “I’m Noah.”
The young woman—obviously another student worker—chewed on her lower lip. “Hi, Noah. I’m Bethany. What can I do for you?”
“Well,” he started, leaning his hands against the top of her desk. “I’m hoping you can help me with something. You see, I need information, and I’m pretty sure you have it.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. I’m looking for someone—a senior social work student, a friend of mine—and I need to know where he might be on, say, a Thursday.”
A coy smile stretched across Bethany’s face. “You can’t just ask him?” she asked.
Noah smiled back. “If I did that, I wouldn’t have a reason to talk to you, now would I?”
A bright pink blush rose in her cheeks. “Well, senior students work their internships Monday through Thursday, so your friend won’t have a campus class until Friday afternoon,” she replied. “Then they’re all in capstone at two thirty.”
“See there? Youdidhave what I needed,” Noah answered. “Where is that class?”
Bethany nodded toward the hall. “You were standing in front of it.”
“Oh, so right where I saw you? That’ll be easy to remember.” He winked, and she beamed up at him from her seat as he straightened. “Thanks, Bethany. Maybe I’ll be back around sometime.”
“I’ll be here,” she replied as he took a few backward steps toward the door. He gave her another smile before turning and making his way down the hall. Friday was only two days away.
Good thing he had a few favors to cash in.
11
Olivia jumped asher friend Clara elbowed her in the ribs. “Samson’s talking about intern evaluations,” she whispered. “Act like you’re paying attention.”
“Thanks,” Olivia replied. “I got distracted.”
“Obviously. You look like your hamster fell off the wheel.”
Olivia let out a tired sigh and tried to focus on her professor’s words. Her hamster was running alright, just on a completely different track. This class was supposed to help graduating seniors take the final steps between their internships and the real world, but Olivia was starting to wonder if she’d ever really be ready. She’d only been working at the Harrelson Center for Children’s Services for two weeks, and already she’d seen more of the “real world” than she’d been prepared for.
