7
N oah came home from work the Monday after Thanksgiving and crept through his own house like a burglar.
Jake’s truck was in the driveway, and the last thing Noah wanted to do was make enough noise to bring him downstairs.
Something had clearly happened with Lexie over the holiday, though all Noah really knew was that his best friend had become a ticking time bomb, and life was easier when he made himself scarce.
He quietly assembled a sandwich and took his plate and a soda to the safety of his bedroom before pulling out his phone.
Noah: How’s Lexie?
Olivia: Still crying. How’s Jake?
Noah: Not good. He threw a box of loose sockets at the garage wall yesterday.
Olivia: Poor guy.
Noah: What actually happened?
Olivia: I don’t know. She went to his house for Thanksgiving, met his family, was having a blast and then... this.
Noah: Well, Jake didn’t do anything.
Olivia: How can you be so sure?
Noah: Because he’s totally whipped. I couldn’t pay him to spill her milkshake.
Olivia: Don’t say he’s whipped. That’s so condescending.
Noah: Alright, fine. He’s lost his mind over a girl, and he’s going to further destroy my house because of it.
Noah: Better?
Olivia: Much.
Noah: I guess this makes me the enemy, huh?
Olivia: Yeah. It does.
Noah: Well, that could be fun. ;)
Olivia: I wish you could see how hard I’m rolling my eyes right now.
Noah: I can be there in ten minutes.
Olivia: Go to bed, Campbell. I’m not allowed to have wild animals in the house.
Noah: Aw! But I’ll sleep at the end of your bed, and I’m totally housebroken.
Olivia: Well, that’s something at least.
Noah made his way quietly along the next-to-last row of bookshelves on the library’s second floor, an odd buzz of anticipation coursing through his veins.
He’d finished his last final exam that morning.
He had the night off work. There was absolutely no rational reason for him to be on campus again until the end of January.
.. but he couldn’t help it. He felt like an addict who needed another hit—just one more night to get him through the holiday break.
He paused at the end of the ancient history section when Olivia’s table came into view.
There she was, just as he’d expected—her books spread out on the wooden surface and her hair secured almost haphazardly with a bright-red clip along the back of her head.
Several tendrils had already escaped, and they hung like wisps around her face as she leaned forward, her chin resting on the heel of one hand.
There was something about that look—the one that was both careless and intentional—that drove Noah crazy.
Maybe it was the idea that such a put-together woman could come undone.
Olivia reached for a neon-green highlighter and moved the tip across a sentence in her book. “I know you’re standing there,” she said, without looking up.
Noah shook his head and made his way toward the empty seat across from her.
“Were you waiting for me, Pix?” he asked as he sat down.
He reached his hand hesitantly toward her open bag of popcorn, which he noticed was now out in the middle of the table.
It had started the week securely in her lap, so in some small way it felt like he was making progress.
“I’ve made peace with the inevitable,” she mumbled. She glanced up, and her gaze caught on his hand as it inched toward her snack, but she made no move to stop him.
Noah grinned and tossed a handful of still-warm kernels into his mouth. “You know, if you really wanted to get rid of me, you would sit somewhere else.”
“Too much work,” she acknowledged with a sigh.
“Or maybe you don’t actually want to get rid of me that badly,” he suggested.
Olivia made a noncommittal sort of noise that wasn’t an agreement or an objection.
Noah decided to take it as a win. He watched as she returned to her book, and her lips moved ever so slightly, like she was reading to herself.
She frowned again and circled something with her highlighter.
He wasn’t cruel enough to distract her while she was legitimately focused, so instead he contented himself with eating her food and watching people stroll through the quad out the large window behind her.
It was creepy to stare at a person while they worked, after all.
But, despite his best efforts, his attention kept drifting back to her, like a magnet intent on finding true north.
Her fruity perfume burrowed into his brain and wrapped around the memory that had lived there rent free for nearly three weeks: the quiet hush of that thrift store; the way the pulse in her wrist had pounded; the blaze of fire in her eyes when he’d leaned in.
“Don’t kiss me,” she’d said. How was it that three simple words—and negative words, at that—could play on repeat through so many different daydreams?
He still wasn’t sure how he’d managed not to pin her against a wall and kiss her until she couldn’t walk a straight line.
He’d only meant to get under her skin—maybe give her a reason to think about him after the afternoon was over.
Talk about backfiring.
Olivia finally sat up straight and shook her arms out by her sides. “I need a break,” she muttered.
“I give massages,” he offered, but Olivia met his hopeful expression with a skeptical one of her own.
“No thanks.”
Noah pushed his lip out in a childish pout. “But what’s the point of having me here if I can’t help you with anything?”
“I’m still trying to figure that out,” she shot back, and he couldn’t help but grin.
He reached forward and took a single kernel of popcorn from the package of Orville Redenbacher’s best. He’d slowed down his own consumption to be sure she’d have enough left for the rest of her evening, but no sooner had his hand touched the bag than she leaned over and pulled a gallon-sized Ziploc of kettle corn from her backpack.
He stared in both amusement and surprise as she unzipped the top and started munching as if this were completely normal behavior.
“Has anyone ever told you that you have a problem?” he asked.
She shrugged. “Corn is a vegetable.”
“Yeah, corn is a vegetable, but the salt and butter it’s covered in are not.”
She held a piece of her emergency stash up to the light before tossing it into her mouth. “This is made with brown sugar,” she pointed out.
Noah simply shook his head. There was no reasoning with this woman when it came to popcorn.
“Is this your last exam?” he asked instead, nodding toward the open book on the table. The upside-down chapter headers suggested a topic on abnormal child psychology.
Olivia let out a tired-sounding sigh. “Yeah. One more tomorrow, and then the girls and I are spending a week in the mountains.”
Noah leaned forward earnestly. “You’re sure you can’t fit me in your suitcase?” he joked.
Her expression did not change. “Yes, I’m sure. This is a girls-only trip; no boys allowed.”
“But I’m not a boy, I’m a man.”
“Not until you’re thirty, remember? And besides, they’ll have men there.”
Noah grunted and leaned back, stretching his legs out beneath the table. One of his boots bumped against hers, and he brought his ankles together—trapping her feet between his calves .
She met his challenging gaze and narrowed her eyes. Then she shifted in her seat, and the boots she’d been wearing went limp. He glanced beneath the table and found them empty, while both her socked feet were tucked underneath her, cross-legged.
Noah felt his face fall. “You’re no fun,” he grumbled, and Olivia shook her head slowly, as if humoring a small child.
“What is it you think you want from me, Campbell?” she asked. “I don’t have time for a relationship.”
“Well, then don’t worry,” he replied flippantly. “I’m not picturing you in any long white dresses. Short black dresses, however...”
Olivia popped another handful of kettle corn into her mouth. “Okay, then are you fishing for a friends-with-benefits situation? Because that’s not going to happen, either.”
He smirked. “I want to know if you ever think about the almost ,” he said, and a flicker of something foreign crossed her face—something very close to guilt.
Like maybe that was exactly what she’d been thinking about.
“No,” she said, though she glanced down at her textbook as she did. “You and I are just friends , Campbell, and that’s how it’s going to stay.”
Noah did his best to rein in a smile. “Say that again, Pix, with more conviction this time,” he taunted.
Olivia looked up, embers flaring to life in her eyes. “I said we are just friends, and that’s how it’s going to stay. Whatever headway you think you’ve made with me is futile.”
He rose to his feet and rounded the end of the table, keeping his eyes on hers as if stalking his prey.
She sat with her arms crossed over her chest, every bit of her body language warning him to keep his distance, but pushing her buttons had become his new favorite pastime, and he loved the sparks that ignited when he found the right ones.
He pushed his luck to the point of recklessness and stepped behind her chair, her sharp, sweet perfume pulling him in like a bee to a flower—exactly as it had in the store.
He tweaked one of those tempting tendrils along her jaw and then leaned down until his mouth was right beside her ear.
“I think about the almost , Pix. All the time,” he admitted softly.
She whipped her head around then, her mouth open to say something in reply, but Noah didn’t wait to hear what it was. Instead, he flashed her a smile and turned his back, making his way down the aisle in the direction he’d originally come. “Try not to miss me!” he called over his shoulder.
An unmistakable huff of female anger punctuated his challenge, and he chuckled as he turned toward the lobby stairs. He didn’t have Olivia Cohen all figured out—far from it, in fact—but he did know she was a bad liar.
And she had definitely thought about it.
Olivia checked her phone the next afternoon as her plane pulled into the gate at the small airport in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
There were two messages from her parents; one from her brother, Danny; and another from Noah.
Apparently, he’d rigged the creepy doll to drop from the ceiling of Conner’s closet, and its appearance had prompted the invention of a few new words.
Noah’s voice filled Olivia’s mind as she read the other texts.
“I think about the almost, Pix. All the time.”
She shook her head and tried to banish the memory as she pulled her backpack from under the seat in front of her.
Noah Campbell was getting too close for comfort.
It wasn’t like he was the first guy to ever catch her attention, but he was the first one to really get under her skin like this, and it needed to stop.
Winter break was the perfect chance to conduct a personal detox—a two-month Noah Campbell cleanse.
The simple truth was that, even if she were in the market for a man, she and Noah wanted very different things.
She wanted someone serious, and he wanted a girl who would entertain him.
He’d find somebody willing to play that part soon enough; all she had to do was keep him at arm’s length until he did.
It was simple: out of sight, out of mind. Problem solved.
“Hey, Liv, can you grab my bag?” her friend Robin asked from across the aisle. She pointed to an overhead bin just ahead of where Olivia and Lexie were sitting.
“Yeah, sure thing,” Olivia replied, rising to her feet.
She slid her phone back into the pocket of her jacket before reaching to retrieve first Robin’s bag and then her own.
The small plane was filled with the normal hustle and bustle of people all anxious to get out of the cramped space and off to whatever adventures awaited them, and Olivia made a decision right then and there: she was not going to spend this girls’ trip worrying about Noah-anything.
He simply wasn’t worth the aggravation.
Thursday, December 15
Noah: I guess you guys are home because Lexie is here.
Noah: Jake answered the door. No screaming. I think the Cold War might be over.
Noah: Which is good because now we can go on that second date.
Olivia: Your wishful thinking is adorable.
Noah: I’m told it’s part of my appeal.
Olivia: You have a peel? That sounds like a personal problem.
Noah: Ha ha. You’re not funny.
Saturday, December 24
Noah: See you tomorrow, Pix.
Olivia: ??
Noah: You’re what I asked Santa for. I’ve been a good boy this year.
Olivia: Keep dreaming, Campbell.
Noah: Oh, trust me, I will.