Page 71 of Call My Bluff
Noah groaned again, though this time, it sounded more like pleasure than pain. Olivia kept her fingertips moving across his scalp.
“They come for the samples,” he mumbled. “Like stray cats.”
She looked fondly down at where his hair was slipping through her fingers. “Well, the semester is almost over; there’s light at the end of the tunnel,” she assured him.
He chuckled dryly. “Are you sure it’s daylight? Because it feels like a train.”
Olivia didn’t answer, turning her attention back to the movie instead. Her hand kept moving almost absentmindedly, and she gradually realized he hadn’t said anything for a long time. In fact, he hadn’t moved at all. She looked down and saw his back rise and fall in a slow, even rhythm, his eyes closed and the stress gone from his face.
He’d actually fallen asleep.
She smiled as his lashes fluttered through whatever dream he was having. He’d been at work for some part of every day that week, filling his own hours and some of his coworkers’ as well; Wednesday he’d even worked both openingandclosing shifts! A swell of emotion rose up in her chest, but it wasn’t pity. It was respect. Noah Campbell, despite his class-clown attitude, was one of the hardest-working young men she’d ever met—both on the clock and off—but he never acted tired when she was around. In fact, just earlier that week, he’d begged her to stay at the arcade until they’d turned on the multicolored lights around the mini-golf course, and it had been his idea to have late-night appetizers afterward.
Hemadetime for her.
And not because he wants to win, a voice said softly. It sounded an awful lot like her brother Michael.
Finally, Noah stirred. He took a deep breath and rolled onto his back before blinking slowly up at her as if through a haze.Then, he smiled, and it was one of the most genuine things Olivia had ever seen.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, his voice thick from sleep. He cleared his throat and rubbed the palm of his hand across his face—and Olivia saw it.
The blip.
It was a strange moment that kept happening over and over: on the bridge beside the arcade’s tiny windmill, in the stairwell at her apartment, in the parking lot of the pizza place. It was as if Noah had something he wanted to say but couldn’t quite work up the nerve to spit it out, and she was at her wit’s end as to what it might be.
Or, what shewantedit to be.
He rolled onto his side before propping his head on one hand. “Can I tell you a secret?” he asked.
Olivia felt her throat tighten, and it was suddenly hard to swallow. “A secret? I thought you were a vault.”
“Shut up. Do you want to know or not?”
“Of course I want to know,” she replied.
“Jake is going to ask Lexie to marry him.”
Oh.Olivia relaxed against his headboard. That wasn’t a secret. At least, not from her. “I know,” she declared. “I helped him figure out her ring size.”
Noah shook his head as if in disbelief. “I can’t believe it,” he said. “I mean, Ican.I think we all saw it coming, but I just can’t believe someone I know is going to getmarried, you know?”
She nodded. “It is hard to believe we’re that old. I think it’ll be a while before I’m ready, though—after grad school, at least.” She toyed with a loose thread on his comforter and wonderedaloud, “What about you? Do you see yourself ever getting down on one knee?”
Noah let out a long breath and chewed on his bottom lip like he was thinking hard. “Last year, I’d have said no,” he finally admitted. “But now... I think, if the right person came along, then yeah. I mean, it’ll be a few years, but... yeah. I can see it.”
He looked up at her as he finished, and the blip happened again. But just as Olivia was about to shake him until whatever it was came out of his mouth, he suddenly pulled himself to a sitting position and swung his socked feet to the floor. “You hungry?” he asked. “I’ll go light the grill.”
Olivia growled in frustration as he left the room. There was definitely something floating around in his head, and one way or another, she needed to find out what it was.
The Hawk’s Nestwas crowded for a Sunday night. Noah opened the door and shouldered his way toward a back corner booth where he knew his friends Parker and Beckett would be waiting. Unfortunately, they weren’t alone.
“Campbell! This is Charlotte,” Parker said, nudging the girl currently sitting beneath his arm. Then he gestured across the table. “And Beckett found McKenna over by the jukebox showing very poor taste in classic rock, so we rescued her, too.”
Noah glanced toward his lab partner, who was doing a whole lot more than just “rescuing” McKenna... unless she’d needed mouth-to-mouth. “Nice to meet you, Charlotte,” he said distractedly. He wrinkled his nose as he watched the display in front of him. After a few seconds, he shook his head hard, breakinghimself out of his own thoughts and turning back to Parker, who had obviously lost interest in Noah’s presence. Instead, he was whispering something in Charlotte’s ear that turned her cheeks a pretty shade of pink.
Wonderful.
Noah grabbed an empty chair from a nearby table and swung it around to the outside edge of the booth, setting it down hard enough to make both Parker and Charlotte jump. Her face flushed almost guiltily, and she murmured something about the bathroom before sliding out of the bench seat and slipping past Noah without looking him in the eye.
