3 #2
His feet moved on autopilot as he turned toward the parking lot, and his mind wandered back to the only girl who’d been in his thoughts for the past few days.
Olivia Cohen was a conundrum. She didn’t shut him down, but she also didn’t fawn over him the way other girls did.
Noah wanted to find out what made her tick, what made her blush, what made her stop and take notice.
He wanted to get inside her head and move the gears around until he understood them all.
She reminded him of one of those old-fashioned horseshoe puzzles he’d loved as a kid.
They seemed straightforward on the outside—slide the ring off the horseshoe, and he’d be home free!
—but once he’d gotten the box open and started moving the pieces around, he’d quickly realized it wasn’t as easy as it sounded.
He’d spent hours at a time trying to figure out exactly how they worked, and when he’d finally solved one, he’d been on top of the world.
The slam of a car door interrupted his daydream, and Noah looked up to see his thoughts turn into reality.
Olivia was stalking across the parking lot as if she intended to set the world on fire.
Noah stopped walking and watched cautiously.
In his experience, women were like Roman candles—relatively harmless until the fuse was lit.
But even then, as long as you could think on your feet and keep the business end pointed away from you, it was possible to come out in one piece.
Unfortunately, it looked like Olivia was already smoking at both ends.
A smarter man might have turned around, but Noah liked to test the limits of human intelligence whenever he could.
Besides, he’d only live once. He jogged up close enough to be heard, but not so close that she could turn around and slap him; he’d learned that lesson the hard way. “Hey, Pixie!” he called.
Olivia whirled around and met his gaze with more anger in her eyes than he’d thought such a tiny body could hold. “What!?” she spat, and he almost flinched.
“Nothing. I just wanted to see if you’re alright,” he answered.
She stared at him as if she couldn’t believe her ears. “Do I look like I’m alright?” she demanded.
“You look like you want to kill somebody,” he said, keeping his voice low and calm as if he were dealing with a wild animal. Which, in a way, he was. “Do you maybe want to talk about it first? I’d hate to see a girl like you go to prison.”
Olivia scoffed, shoving her hand through her hair like it had wronged her in some way.
Sunlight caught the strands as they slipped through her fingers, and Noah decided the color made him think of Cherry Coke—somehow shifting from brown to red as she moved.
“What I want is to hurt something,” she snarled.
Her words sparked an idea in Noah’s mind. “We can do that,” he said, thinking on the fly.
Olivia looked at him like he’d grown an extra head. “I was going to eat my feelings at the dessert bar,” she replied. “I don’t actually want to go to prison.”
Noah smiled slightly. “Not prison, the arcade,” he amended.
“The arcade,” she echoed. It wasn’t a question.
“Yes. Come with me,” Noah said. Taking a risk, he reached for her hand and closed his fingers around hers before she could protest. Then he pulled her in the direction he’d been going anyway .
“If we end up in your basement, I will remove your eyeballs with a spoon,” Olivia warned as she hurried to keep up with his longer strides.
Noah slowed his pace, though he couldn’t help but laugh. “Noted,” he said.
“And my older brothers are both marines. They can take your arms off your body and beat you with them,” she added, though she hadn’t let go of his hand.
“Just trust me, Pixie. No spoons required,” he said, and he felt his smile stretch tighter.
Forget Roman candles—this girl was a full-size mortar shell!
Good thing they were the best kind.
“You actually meant the arcade,” Olivia said skeptically, staring up at the neon letters over the building’s front entrance.
“I told you! It’s cheaper than therapy and more fun than prison,” Noah explained.
“Plus, you can win stuff when you’re done.
” He opened the glass door with an exaggerated flourish before following her inside.
“Pick your poison: Skee-Ball, air hockey, Whack-A-Mole, or the pièce de résistance—batting cages, five pitches for a dollar.”
He watched her look around the dimly lit room, her face painted by the colored lights of two dozen flashing game consoles.
A bored-looking teenager slumped behind a long prize counter where glass shelves showcased everything from plastic party poppers to small appliances.
Over the boy’s head was a full-size kayak and a glittering sign declaring it could be taken home for only twelve thousand tickets .
“I want to hit something with a bat,” she said firmly, and Noah chuckled.
“Alright. If the lady wants a bat, she gets a bat,” he said. He went ahead to the counter, pulled his wallet from his back pocket and put a couple of bills on the smudged glass. “Give me two, Garrett.”
The boy surveyed Olivia with obvious surprise before taking the bills and exchanging them for two gold-colored tokens. “Sure thing, man. ’Bout time you brought a chick in with you.”
Noah gave a vague sort of grunt, as if that were somehow an answer, and took the tokens from where they lay on the countertop before turning around. “After you, Pix,” he said, holding his arm out toward another door on their right.
Olivia went in the direction he pointed. “You come here a lot, I take it?” she asked.
He shrugged as they left the main building and wandered into the outdoor area beyond. To the left was the entrance to an eighteen-hole mini-golf course, and straight ahead was a curvy go-cart track complete with a tunnel. But Noah went to the right, toward a towering wall of chain-link fencing.
“Like I said, it’s cheaper than therapy and more fun than prison,” he repeated. They passed a rack of helmets, and he grabbed a small black one from the top row. “Here,” he said, handing it to her. “You’ll want number four. It’s got the smoothest pitcher.”
Noah went ahead and loaded one of his tokens into the console at cage four.
A round “start” button flashed green, and he waited while Olivia chose a bat from the rack and joined him by the fence.
She dropped her purse on the ground and then gathered her hair into a low ponytail before securing it with an elastic from around her wrist .
“Alright. You know what you’re doing?” he asked.
She put on the helmet. “Yeah.”
“Okay, then.” He held the gate open as the mechanical pitcher whirred to life. “Have at it.”
Olivia stepped up to where home plate was painted on the artificial turf. Noah pressed the button, and there was an audible click as a ball fell into place. She raised the bat to her shoulder and bent her knees. The first pitch flew through the air in a perfect arc, and she swung hard.
“Strike one!” he shouted. He leaned against the fence and hooked his fingers into the chain link above his head. She turned around, and he couldn’t help but grin at her obvious annoyance.
“Shut up!” she snapped, and she prepared for another pitch. The second throw followed the first in a beautiful curve, and she swung again. This time she tipped the ball, making contact but sending it behind the plate.
Noah cleared his throat with a strangled noise, trying not to laugh. “It’s supposed to go that way ,” he said, pointing toward the far end of the lane. Olivia turned and glowered at him from beneath the brim of her helmet, and he wisely shut his mouth.
She seemed to find her rhythm with the third and fourth pitches, sending them rolling back toward the wall as harmless grounders, and the fifth finally met her bat with a satisfying smack.
Noah watched it fly through the air and bounce off the wall with a thud. “Again?” he asked, already moving toward the console with his second token in hand.
“Again,” she confirmed.
She went through another five pitches, hitting all but one with a solid crack, and when the machinery wound down again, she ripped the helmet off her head with new light in her eyes.
Several strands of damp hair clung to her cheeks, which were red with exertion, though somehow that only made her prettier.
“Why haven’t I thought of this before?” she said, panting slightly.
“You don’t have the same juvenile tendencies that I do,” Noah answered.
“Cheaper than therapy and more fun than prison,” Olivia echoed as she opened the cage door and walked through.
She set her helmet on an overturned bucket, leaned against the fence and sank down until she was sitting on the concrete.
Then she tipped her head back against the chain link, soaking up what was probably some of the last warm sunshine of the season.
Noah lowered himself down beside her and stretched his legs out across the sidewalk. “So, Big Brothers Big Sisters, huh?” he asked, nodding toward the logo on her shirt. “Is that for your major?”
“Sort of. I’m in social work, so any work with kids is relevant, but I’ve been a BBBS volunteer since high school,” she answered.
“Why?”
Olivia turned to look at him with a curious expression.
“Why not?” she asked. “There are so many kids in the world who just need somebody to show up—somebody to cheer them on from the sidelines, listen when they need to talk, push them on the swings. If I can be that person, even once or twice a week, then I want to do it.”
Something warm surged through Noah’s veins. “So, you’re Super Pixie?”
She ducked her head with a soft smile, and Noah felt like he’d done something incredible. “Maybe,” she said. Then her face fell, and she let out a long, tired sigh. “But some kids have more problems than just listening can fix. ”
Noah looked across the lawn where it stretched toward the arcade.
A father and his young son had just exited the main building, and their matching orange T-ball shirts seemed to glow in the afternoon sun.
A pang of longing pierced Noah’s chest as a memory flashed through his mind, and he could almost feel the impact of a baseball in the palm of his hand as he and his own father threw it back and forth in a weekend tradition that had lasted for years.
Until, one day, it was over—that old glove discarded beside all the other things his dad had left behind.
“You’d be surprised what just showing up can do, Pix,” he said.
“You can’t control what they go through at home, but you can make sure they always have someone in their corner.
” He paused to clear his throat, pushing the words past a knot in his chest. “Just being around will do more than you’ll ever realize,” he finished.
Olivia didn’t answer for a moment. Finally, she gave a small smile and bumped her shoulder against his. “You know, there might be hope for you yet, Campbell,” she said. Then she seemed to pause and think for a moment. “Do you drink soda?”
He frowned, confused by the topic shift. “Umm, yeah. Doesn’t everyone?”
“Can you start keeping your can tabs? And maybe ask your friends, too? I need a whole bunch of them, like, a whole, whole bunch.”
He cocked his head. “Is this about a kid?” he asked, trying to piece the puzzle together.
“Yeah. And an owl and an art project.”
“Got it,” he replied, though he wasn’t totally sure he did. “Yeah, I can keep the tabs,” he agreed. Then a perfect segue popped into his mind. “Soif I’m collecting can tabs for you... does that mean I can have your number? ”
She turned sharply and leveled him with a serious stare, though humor still danced behind her eyes. “I’m not going out with you,” she said firmly.
Noah felt his eyebrows go up. “Well, that’s irrelevant since I didn’t ask you out.”
“But you’re going to.”
“Oh-ho!” he crowed. “Somebody thinks an awful lot of herself, doesn’t she?”
Olivia snorted and leaned back against the fence. “I’m just saying. I’m not going out with you.”
“Okay. Now, your number, please?” He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and typed in the digits as Olivia rattled them off. Then he sent her a text message, just to be sure.
Her purse vibrated by her side, and she fished through it before pulling out her own phone. Then she read the message aloud. “‘Noah Campbell—grocery thief, snake wrangler, couch delivery person.’ Really?”
Noah shrugged and smiled up at the sky. “Just in case you forget,” he replied.
She huffed, and he cut his eyes over to find her typing out a message of her own. His phone buzzed seconds later, and he raised it to eye level. “‘Olivia Cohen—yard sale princess, popcorn hoarder, not going out with you.’” He laughed as the last words left his lips.
“Just in case you forget,” she echoed smugly, and Noah lolled his head against the chain link.
“Oh, trust me, Pixie. I won’t.”