8 #3
Noah scrubbed his palm across his face in obvious frustration. “No, I didn’t. I was going to, but then my car wouldn’t start so I caught a ride with Riley. I’m pretty much stuck here until she and Bryce decide to go home.”
“Ah, that sucks,” Olivia commiserated.
“What about you?”
“What?”
“Why are you hiding instead of bailing?” he asked.
“Oh, I’m actually staying the night. Robin is a friend of mine.”
Noah nodded in silent understanding. “So, that’s how you knew this place was out here.”
“Yeah, I’ve been here before. How did you find it?”
“I was wandering—because that’s what sad, lost little grocery boys do, right?”
His tone was biting, almost like he was berating himself for matching his own description, and Olivia felt her brow pinch in the middle as she considered him.
He did look a little sad, and maybe somewhat lost, but mostly just very, very tired.
There was silence as Noah stared down at the rug between his feet.
“You okay?” she finally asked.
Noah’s shoulders rose as he drew in a breath, but he didn’t answer.
“It’s okay to not be okay, you know,” she went on. Then she waved her hand to encompass the walls around them. “No shame here. Cone of silence. Expires at midnight.”
His eyes drifted closed, and he pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers. Then he chuckled dryly. “You want to hear something funny?” he asked.
Olivia blinked in surprise. That was not the answer she’d expected to hear. “Uh, sure?” she replied.
“This morning, I was attacked by somebody’s grandmother.”
She barked out a laugh and then clapped a hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry, you were what ?”
He sighed and propped his elbows on his knees and his chin in his cupped hands. He sounded drained, but there was still a trace of his usual good humor on his face. “Alright, you want the long version or the short version?”
Olivia leaned back against the cushions and crossed her arms over her chest. “You got anyplace better to be?”
“No.”
“Then the long version, for sure,” she insisted.
A faint smile pulled at Noah’s mouth. “Alright, well, like all ridiculous Watson’s stories, this one starts with Simon.”
“Of course.”
“He told the new grocery supervisor black-eyed peas aren’t that popular around here, and that we didn’t need to worry about stocking any extra for the holiday.”
“Are you serious?” Olivia interrupted. “New Year’s Day is the only time black-eyed peas are popular!”
“I know, right? He’s a genius,” Noah went on. “Anyway, we ran out early in the week, and apparently, we can’t restock now because every warehouse in the southeast is empty. So we had to enforce a limit: one bag or two cans of peas per paying customer, no exceptions. ”
Olivia snorted in disbelief. She, like every other good Southerner, would have ham and peas and collard greens in the morning to bring good luck for the new year. It was tradition, and had been tradition, for generations; any store having a purchase limit was bound to bring trouble.
“So, fast-forward to this morning,” Noah continued. “I’m standing by my register when I hear yelling from aisle nine, which happens to be—”
“—where the peas are,” Olivia finished.
“Exactly. So, Josh and I go over to investigate.”
“Wait, who’s Josh?”
“A guy from the stockroom,” Noah clarified.
“Anyway, we go over to see what the problem is, and this little old lady has four bags of peas in her cart—the last four bags from the shelf. Another older woman is yelling at her, pointing to all the limit signs and lecturing her on being selfish during a holiday. I try to politely point out that the second lady is right and we can only allow one bag per customer, but then the first woman shoves her cart at the second woman, who falls down. Then, she swings her purse at me and hits me square in the chest!”
“Poor baby!” Olivia cooed, but Noah went on as if she hadn’t interrupted.
“Now, normally, this wouldn’t be a problem since I’m built like a tank—”
“Naturally.”
“—but this time, her bag was heavy ! Like bricks-in-the-bottom heavy. And when it hit the floor, it clanked .”
Olivia gave an exaggerated gasp.
“I know, right? So now we’ve got store security coming to break up an old lady fight and find out why her bag is making metallic noises. Turns out, she had three more cans of peas and a tub of frozen whipped cream in there! I have a bruise!”
Olivia couldn’t help it—she laughed out loud. “You really were attacked by somebody’s grandma!” she managed, forcing the words out between giggles.
“You thought I was lying, didn’t you?” he accused, though he looked like he was trying not to smile.
“I had to fill out an employee incident report and everything!” His face suddenly sobered.
“And of course Simon felt the need to yell at me in front of the staff because apparently customer violence is somehow my fault.”
Olivia pressed her lips together, her laughter all played out. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“And then it was also my fault when some idiot almost backed his car into me in the parking lot because apparently it’s hard to see a line of twenty shopping carts moving through your rearview mirror,” Noah bit out, looking back down at the floor. He sounded disgusted.
Olivia chewed on the inside of her cheek and thought about his story. “Maybe he deserved the snake,” she admitted, and Noah’s eyes flicked up to hers.
“Yeah, he did,” he said with a sigh. “But he hated me before that.” Then he leaned back, mirroring her position from across the coffee table. “And I should just be grateful to have a job, right? Even if the guy in charge uses me as a doormat?”
She tilted her head from one side to the other. “You’re allowed to be upset about it,” she acknowledged. “But graduation is coming, and then you’ll be done, right?”
He sighed again and ran his hand down his face in resignation. “Yeah, but it can’t come soon enough,” he muttered .
Olivia circled one of her ankles and flexed her toes inside her heels.
She’d never seen this side of Noah before—the one that wasn’t all fun and games.
It was actually a bit disconcerting. “If you could fast-forward time, would you?” she asked suddenly.
It was one of the questions she and her brothers had debated many times on long car rides, and it felt relevant.
Noah looked at her for a moment, understandably confused. “What?”
She shrugged and flexed her ankles again. “It’s pretty self-explanatory,” she said. “If you had the power to fast-forward time and skip the parts you didn’t like, would you do it?”
The expression on Noah’s face shifted, and he actually seemed to be considering the question. “If I fast-forward, do I come out the other side knowing all the things I would have learned in the time I skipped or do I come out exactly as I am now, just older?” he asked.
This was a point she’d discussed before, and she was ready with her answer. “You come out as if that part of your life has happened, but you didn’t actually experience it. So, if you fast-forward to graduation, you would have the knowledge without the hassle of actually going to class.”
He furrowed his brow. “So... let’s say I convinced you to go out with me during the time I skipped, I would wake up with a memory of a date, even though I didn’t actually go on it?”
Olivia rolled her eyes. “For the sake of argument, yes.”
“Hard pass, then. I definitely want to be there,” he answered instantly.
“But—also for the sake of argument—what if we go on a whole bunch of dates and you fall desperately in love with me and then I break your heart into five thousand tiny little pieces? Wouldn’t you want to skip that? ”
“You’re assuming, first of all, that I would fall in love with you, which is doubtful, and you’re also assuming you’d be able to give me up after all that, which is also doubtful.”
She huffed, now wishing she hadn’t asked the question in the first place. “Okay, fine, forget I asked,” she said, looking down at her feet. She pointed her toes and stretched her ankles again.
After a moment, there was motion in her peripheral vision, and she looked up to find Noah circling the end of the coffee table. “What are you doing?” she asked, instantly on alert.
He sat down at the far end of her couch, facing her with one knee pulled up onto the cushion. Then he reached a hand out, palm up, and curled his fingers inward. “Give ’em here,” he insisted.
Olivia scanned his face, caught off guard by the sudden change of subject and dismayed to see that he was completely serious. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Your feet. I know they hurt; you’ve been stretching your arches since you sat down. So give ’em to me.”
She let out a disbelieving laugh. “Uh, no, thank you,” she replied, suddenly self-conscious. There was no way she was letting him touch her feet.
Noah pursed his lips before folding forward and reaching toward the floor.
In one swift motion, he’d closed his hand around her left ankle and pulled it toward him, and Olivia yelped in surprise as her whole body swiveled ninety degrees.
“I’m going to be a physical therapist; feet don’t bother me,” he explained matter-of-factly.
Then he unfastened the dainty silver clasp on her ankle strap and slid the shoe off before dropping it to the floor with a thud.
Olivia only gaped, all protests dying on her lips as Noah took her bare foot in his warm hands, and she was immensely glad she’d decided to wear pants instead of a skirt.
He pressed both thumbs near her heel and smoothed a slow path upward before curving out and starting over.
Once, twice, three times. Every cell in her body was laser-focused on her foot, and she couldn’t seem to take her eyes off his hands as they moved over her skin.
When he crossed over a pain point, she hissed in a breath.