16
N oah laid the Super Soaker against Olivia’s windshield and tucked an index card beneath it.
Then, he ducked behind the base of an oak tree several yards away and pressed his back against the bark.
Voices drifted over from the social sciences building, and Noah tensed before peeking through a fork in the tree’s trunk.
He had a clear view of Olivia’s Mustang, and he couldn’t let her strike first. Not like last time.
He didn’t have to wait long. Olivia came down the sidewalk chatting with a friend, and their goodbyes filtered through the leaves that hid him as the girls parted ways. Olivia’s footsteps came closer to his hiding place, but then they stopped abruptly.
“What the . . .” she said softly.
Noah craned his neck and watched as she slid the note from beneath the water gun. She said nothing, but he knew what she was reading.
“Defend yourself. Good luck.”
She raised her head and looked around suspiciously. “Noah?” she called.
He laughed silently to himself. That hadn’t taken her long !
“Noah?” she shouted again. “Don’t you dare shoot me!”
But he didn’t listen. He rarely did. Instead, he raised the barrel of his gun and fired through the fork in the tree, purposely splattering her windshield with water. “What’s wrong, Warrior Princess?” he taunted. “Afraid to get wet?”
Olivia jumped back as his second shot rained down across her sneakers, and Noah was delighted to see a flash of determination streak across her face.
He knew she wouldn’t let a challenge like that go unanswered.
She snatched the water gun from her hood and then yanked her driver’s side door open and crouched behind it like a shield.
“You’re gonna get it, Campbell!” she yelled. “This means war!”
He snickered again and fired a shot directly at the window of her door.
It wouldn’t get her wet, but it would distract her long enough for him to change position.
The water doused the glass, and he made a run for the next tree to the right, silently thanking whoever had landscaped the campus quad with so many convenient hiding places.
Sure enough, Olivia came up shooting, her stream of water aimed directly at the tree where he had been moments before.
Noah held in another laugh as he ran in a crouch and slipped past a Jeep four spaces down from her car.
He crept along the bumpers of three other vehicles before peeking around the last one.
Olivia’s door was still standing open.. . but she wasn’t there.
“Gotcha!” a voice shouted, and a blast of lukewarm water drenched the right side of Noah’s face before pouring down the front of his shirt. He stood and fired blindly across her trunk in the direction the shot had come from.
“Too slow!” she taunted, and Noah wiped the water from his eyes with one hand .
“Where did you go?” he demanded, ducking down behind her car again, and musical laughter met his ears from somewhere near the hood.
“I can’t tell you that, now can I?” she teased, and Noah threw himself flat on his stomach. Sure enough, there was a pair of familiar blue tennis shoes near her front tire, and he fired beneath the vehicle in a sneak attack.
He was rewarded with a shriek of surprise, and the shoes jumped.
“You think you’re slick, don’t you?” she demanded, her voice filled with laughter, and Noah watched her feet move away over the grass.
He pushed to his feet and ran along the line of vehicles before cutting up toward the sidewalk, intending to come around behind his original position.
But again, he rounded the side of the tree line and found it empty.
He peeked first around one large trunk and then into the space between two others.
Then he scanned the parking lot again. Nothing.
Just as he was turning to double back, he heard a twig snap close by.
Too close.
Noah turned around, and another spray of water came down from above and soaked the front of his jeans. He looked up and saw Olivia wedged between two branches of a tree, the lowest of which was still above his head.
How did she get up there so fast?
He raised his weapon and fired, hitting his mark dead in the middle, and a wet spot bloomed across the center of Olivia’s gray T-shirt, turning the material black. He ducked her return fire before drenching her a second time.
“Okay, okay, I call a truce,” she spluttered, but Noah laughed .
“Only because you’ve cornered yourself!” he said. “That was a bad decision.” Another stream of water hurtled down from the branches, but he saw it coming and sidestepped it easily. “So was not going high enough,” he added, and he reached up to close a hand around her ankle. Then, he shook it.
“Stop that!” she shouted, though her voice wasn’t afraid. She tried to yank her foot back, but he held on tight. With the other hand, he fired his gun again and turned the leg of her jeans a dark blue. “Noah!” she shrieked. “That’s not fair!”
“Neither is turning into a squirrel, but here we are,” he replied with a grin. Then he shook her leg again, and her shoe came loose from the bark.
She caught hold of the branch above her but dropped her gun, which clattered to the ground at his feet. “Noah, you’re going to make me fall!”
Some of the water from her clothes dripped onto his face as he looked up at her perch, and suddenly he realized he had missed her .
It had been a week since they’d gotten back from her parents’ house, and while they had texted back and forth since then, it wasn’t the same as actually being close to her.
He wanted her down from this tree.
Now.
“Come on, little squirrel,” he said, tugging on the foot he still held in his hand. “It’s time to jump.”
“No,” came her stubborn answer.
He tugged a little harder, and she laughed and clung to the branch over her head. “Come on, I’ll catch you,” he insisted.
“Umm, I think not.”
“Don’t you trust me?”
“Jury is still out. ”
The thing that had started growing in Noah’s chest last weekend got a little bit bigger. He liked that she was having fun with him—fun that wasn’t tied to earning points in some stupid game of emotional chicken.
Maybe we could have this all the time , he thought. Maybe we could be... more.
The thought made his whole body tense.
What does that mean? he asked himself.
It means what you think it means, idiot.
Yeah, but I’ve never . . .
Times change.
But I don’t know how to . . .
Figure it out.
But she doesn’t want me!
Then change her mind.
The finality of that thought rocked Noah’s whole world. Just change her mind. It sounded easy, but was it possible? He looked up into Olivia’s eyes, still wild with adrenaline, and tried to imagine never seeing her again—tried to imagine leaving her behind one day.
And he couldn’t do it.
“Jump, Liv,” he heard himself say, and her gaze locked onto his, almost as if she could hear the shift he felt inside. “Trust me,” he went on. “I’ll catch you.”
Olivia took what seemed like a long, slow breath, and then, almost without warning, she let go of the tree. Noah dropped his water gun as she plummeted toward the earth, and then he caught her in both arms, just as he’d said he would.
She snaked her arms around his neck and kicked her feet like a child. “Alright, now put me down. ”
He put her feet on the ground but didn’t fully release her. “What are you doing on Monday after work?” he asked.
She scanned his face, clearly caught off guard by the change of subject. “I don’t think anything,” she said. “Why?”
“I have a surprise for you.”
Her nose scrunched up, and a wrinkle formed in the middle of her forehead. “Is it more water guns?”
Noah laughed and tried to soak in the feel of her standing in his arms. “No, no water guns. You’ll like it, I promise.”
She chuckled. “Well, then, no, I’m not doing anything.”
“Good. Now you have plans.”
“Now I have plans,” she repeated, and he could hear a note of confusion that made him think she was still trying to figure out his angle.
But there was no angle—not this time.
He just had to figure out how to prove it.
Monday afternoon, Olivia grabbed a bag from under her desk and changed quickly in the staff bathroom, swapping her pencil skirt and blouse for a pair of flowing, wide-legged pants and a top that slouched off one shoulder.
She left her hair down but fluffed it out with both hands before leaning toward the mirror to touch up the wing on her eyeliner.
She kept reminding herself that she’d been out with Noah before—she’d made out with Noah before!
—so this shouldn’t feel any different. And yet, for some reason, it did .
When she was done, she headed for the parking lot and found him standing behind her car, leaning against the trunk the same way he had the day he’d asked for a ride. Except this time, he was wearing nice jeans and a black T-shirt instead of his work uniform.
“Hey, Pixie. You ready to go?” he asked.
Olivia walked past him and popped the locks on her car before laying her work clothes in the back seat, silently reminding herself not to look too eager. “Where are we going?” she asked.
“That’s for me to know and you to find out,” he answered cryptically.
She shut her car door and immediately felt his hand against her lower back as he steered her away from her vehicle and toward his.
As she slid into his passenger’s seat, he leaned down and brushed his mouth against her ear.
“You look amazing, by the way,” he said, and a tingling wave of goose bumps washed down the side of her neck.
Keep it together, Cohen! she warned herself.
Though she was starting to think that might be harder than it sounded.