15
L ater, Noah towel-dried his hair and did his best to make it behave.
Then he dressed in khaki pants and a green button-up shirt he’d borrowed from Jake.
When he felt presentable, he opened the bathroom door and stepped out into the upstairs hall.
All the other doors had been closed when he’d gone to shower, but now the closest two were open, revealing rooms with impeccably made queen-size beds and suitcases on the floor.
One had a portable baby bed in the far corner, which meant it belonged to Michael and his family, leaving the second to Danny by default.
Which must mean . . .
Noah crept along the hall to the farthest bedroom, unsure exactly what he hoped to find, and discovered that the door was cracked. Someone was definitely moving around inside. He knocked hesitantly on the doorframe. “Hey, Pix? It’s me,” he called.
“Come in!” she answered, and he pushed the door open with one hand, peeking around the edge as he did.
He didn’t know what he’d expected... Red and black, maybe?
Rock-and-roll posters? It certainly wasn’t the soft, feminine colors she had everywhere.
The walls were powder blue, and there were gauzy green curtains over a window that faced the backyard.
Her bed was covered in a fluffy white comforter with what looked like colorful wildflowers embroidered on the bottom half, and a canvas painting of mountains hung above the wooden headboard.
Olivia was sitting in a chair in front of a vanity mirror, already wearing the green dress he’d accidentally picked out. “So, you survived,” she commented, sparing his reflection a glance as she wrapped a section of her hair around a curling iron.
Noah shrugged and leaned one shoulder against the doorframe, his arms crossed over his chest. “It wasn’t that bad, actually; he didn’t even show me his gun collection. I’ve been led to believe that was pretty standard when meeting a girl’s dad.”
Olivia half laughed. “That’s surprising, actually.
There’s basically a bunker in the basement.
” She unwound a long ringlet from the wand and turned her head from side to side, examining her handiwork.
Then she picked up a curl from near the edge of her face and pulled it around to the back of her head before securing it with a bobby pin from the dresser top.
Noah watched as one pin joined another, and whatever Olivia was creating began to take shape. His mind drifted back to the conversation in the yard.
“You’re a curiosity, son,” Mr. Cohen said. “You’re the first friend from school Livvy’s ever brought home who didn’t have both X chromosomes. You must have done something right to get this far, and I’d be doing you a disservice if I wasn’t up front with you from the beginning.
“That girl in there deserves the best, and not just because she’s my little girl, but because she’s a good person.
She’s sassy, sure, and probably too stubborn for her own good, but she’s also fiercely loyal to those she cares about.
She has the biggest, deepest, purest heart of anyone I’ve ever known, and whoever she chooses to give it to will be one of the luckiest men alive.
“But don’t be mistaken—she doesn’t need you.
She doesn’t need anyone; her mother and I raised her that way on purpose.
So, if she ever does choose you, it’s because she wants you—and that’s an honor you cannot imagine.
It’s an honor that should be respected and protected with your life. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir, I do.”
“Do you feel you deserve an honor like that?”
“No, sir, I don’t.”
Mr. Cohen studied him hard, his mouth in a firm line that never wavered. “Good, because you don’t now, and you won’t fifty years from now, either. But that’s how we know we’re the lucky ones.”
“There,” Olivia proclaimed, breaking Noah from his reverie. She rose to stand. “What do you think?”
He blinked a few times and realized that while he’d been distracted, she’d swapped from regular pins to clips with tiny white flowers on them.
They were tucked here and there among the loose curls that made a crown-like loop around the back of her head.
He cleared his throat, suddenly aware that he hadn’t actually said anything the whole time he’d been preoccupied.
Normally, he would have been uncomfortable with such a silence, but this time he hadn’t even noticed it.
“You look great!” he said. Then he pushed off the doorframe and ventured a few steps into the room.
“One thing, though?” he added, stopping when they were toe-to-toe.
He raised one hand and hesitated, waiting for a green light, and when she nodded, he gently freed one small curl near her face.
He twirled it around his index finger before letting it lay softly against her temple.
“I like it like this,” he murmured, and without having planned it, the backs of his fingers drifted down across her cheek—almost like they’d chosen to do so of their own accord.
Her gaze held his, and something electric passed between them.
Noah’s mouth went dry, and he automatically wet his lips.
He could kiss her. Right there, in her room, he could do it again.
Memories flashed through his mind like picture slides: Olivia’s hair sliding through his fingers on New Year’s Eve, the flush in her cheeks before she’d pulled him in for a second kiss, the way he’d been able to feel her in his blood.
But he hesitated a moment too long.
“Livvy!” Issa called from downstairs. “Hurry! Your mom’s turning into the driveway!”
Olivia’s eyes went wide, and she turned away all at once. “Come on!” she urged, hurrying into the hall. “I don’t want to miss her face when she sees the yard!”
Noah followed slowly, turning a strange feeling over and over in his mind. It wasn’t the disappointment of a moment missed; it was... something else. Something that felt too big to describe. Something that seemed... new.
The party was a success! Olivia looked around the crowded yard with pride as her mother’s friends and family served themselves from a catered buffet table and talked in animated groups.
The playlist she’d created of all her mom’s favorite songs played through Bluetooth speakers that were placed strategically around the yard, and several of their guests had found enough space on the grass to dance .
“This song reminds me of you,” Noah said, and Olivia met his eye as he took an empty Chinet plate from her hands and dumped it into an outdoor garbage can. Her ears tuned in to a familiar set of chords, and she felt her brows rise.
“‘Thunderstruck’?” she asked.
Noah chuckled and drained the last of his drink before throwing the cup away. “Yeah. It was playing in your car the day we met,” he explained.
“How do you remember that?” she asked incredulously.
He raised one shoulder in a shrug. “I don’t know. I guess it’s hard to forget when a beautiful woman actually leaves you in her dust.”
She laughed and tucked a wayward curl behind her ear—the one he’d pulled out earlier. “I didn’t do that. Did I?”
“Yes, ma’am, you did!” he confirmed. “You put on your sunglasses like some kind of Hollywood starlet, said ‘good luck with your snake problem’ and then hit the gas like you were joining the Indy 500. Dust everywhere; my uniform was a whole different color, and I couldn’t breathe for weeks!”
“Oh, that’s an exaggeration!”
“Not much of one,” he replied.
Olivia turned back toward the table where they’d been sitting with her family, but their empty seats had been claimed by someone else.
“Move your feet, lose your seat, I guess,” Noah said. Then he held his hand out in front of her in a clear invitation. “Want to dance instead?”
Olivia glanced down at his hand and then around the yard. The rest of her family was tied up with company, and there were other couples dancing close to the new gazebo. They wouldn’t be the only ones, and it wasn’t as if she had anything better to do anyway. Why not have some fun?
“Sure,” she answered. She took his hand and let him lead her toward the far side of the yard. The fairy lights she’d strung earlier stretched above their heads like a spider’s web, and Noah found a vacant patch of grass beyond the edges of the crowd as “Hurt So Good” poured from a nearby speaker.
He raised her arm and spun her in a quick circle, and Olivia found herself laughing even before she came back to face him.
Noah turned out to be a pretty good dancer, even if it mostly consisted of twirling her in and out until she was dizzy and breathless.
John Mellencamp faded into Modern English, and by the third or fourth song, Olivia could feel her face trying to split open from the force of her smile.
“Stop! I need water,” she begged at last, but when she stepped back, his hand traveled down her arm and caught her by the wrist, as if he weren’t quite ready to let her leave.
“I’ll be right back!” she assured him, reclaiming her hand.
Then she made her way toward the house and the beverage table, though she barely felt her feet touch the ground.
Instead, her entire body seemed to be buzzing—every cell alive with energy—and the places where Noah had touched her, however briefly, still felt like handprints on her skin.
But the thing was, she didn’t hate it.
Though she did sort of hate the way she didn’t hate it.
The simple truth, if she was being honest with herself, was that like it or not, Noah had weaseled his way into her life, and he was growing on her.
Like a wart, maybe, but growing nonetheless.
She reached for an empty cup and held it under the tap of a fancy drink dispenser .
“So, how long have you been together?” someone asked from over her shoulder, and Olivia didn’t have to look to know it was Michael.
“Not long,” she answered, filling her cup and turning to her brother. A pang of guilt speared through her at the lie, but she tried to ignore it. Noah wouldn’t be around forever, and when he was gone, the exact details of their charade wouldn’t matter.
Another sharp sting hit somewhere in her chest.
“Really?” Michael asked, obviously surprised. “You just seem very comfortable with him. It doesn’t look new. In fact, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say he’s half in love with you already.”
Olivia almost spit her drink in his face in surprise. “He’s what ?! No. I don’t think so.”
Michael smiled and raised his own cup toward where Noah was now standing with Issa, letting her use his arm as a support while she stood on one foot to fix her shoe. He had Aria balanced in the other arm, and the baby was diligently trying to chew on the collar of his shirt.
“You don’t think so?” her brother asked. “He could be literally anywhere else, but instead he’s here, wearing church clothes and pretending he likes spinach puffs, for no reason at all?”
“Maybe he actually likes spinach puffs,” Olivia supplied.
But Michael shook his head. “Nah. He may not know it yet, but it’s there. I’d put money on it.”
Olivia took another sip of her drink and watched as Noah bounced Aria in his arms, her young laughter piercing the air. Noah Campbell, in love with her ? No. The very idea was ridiculous! Noah didn’t do love. He didn’t do relationships. He didn’t do complicated.
And yet... wasn’t that exactly what they were? Complicated ?
“No,” she repeated at last. “No, he’s just having a good time. It’s a good party,” she reasoned.
“Yeah, it’s a good party,” Michael agreed, “for a fifty-year-old woman he’s never met.”
Olivia considered this as her brother gave one last knowing smirk.
Then he crossed the yard to his little family and took his daughter from Noah before tossing her easily into the air.
Noah’s attention drifted from the little girl to where Olivia stood staring, and she raised her hand in a small wave, trying to ignore the stutter-step in her chest.
Would it be so bad? a small voice asked, and Olivia mentally dug in her heels. Michael simply didn’t know what he was talking about. She and Noah may have become friends despite her best efforts, but that was as far as it went.
Actually falling for him was out of the question.