17
Noah: I’m still having nightmares.
Olivia: LOL! About the women tell all?
Noah: Yes! What kind of trainwreck did you make me watch?
Olivia: *evil laugh* Admit it though, you loved it. The cat fights are the best part.
Noah: Not all the kissing in the sand?
Olivia: No. Sand gets in all kinds of places where you don’t want sand. No thank you.
Noah: Ha! Noted.
Noah: I felt bad for the guy, though. Sitting in a room full of your exes while they ask you why you didn’t want to marry them is every dude’s worst nightmare.
Olivia: He signed a contract. He knew what he was getting into.
Noah: True. Plus he can’t be very smart if he’s kept Courtney all this time.
Olivia: Who would you have kept?
Noah: That’s a loaded question.
Noah: Nobody.
Olivia: Nobody? Why?
Noah: Because you aren’t there.
Saturday, March 10
Noah: How is Avery’s art project going? Need any more can tabs?
Olivia: No, you’ve already contributed plenty. Thank you! Please tell me you didn’t drink all of those yourself.
Noah: No, I had help. There may or may not have been a burping contest involved.
Olivia: Gross
Olivia: The owl looks great! He’ll definitely win something in the art show next month.
Noah: Good.
Olivia: You should try to come!
Noah: I’ll see what I can do. :-)
Sunday, March 11
Olivia: All Lexie can talk about is watching Jake play intramural baseball, and she wants me to keep her company. She says practice starts tomorrow. Any chance you can come hang out, too?
Noah: Not in the stands, but you can cheer for me if you want.
Olivia: Oh, are you playing?
Noah: Of course!
Olivia: Well, good. I’ll have somebody to heckle.
Noah: Do your worst! I’ll keep an ear out.
Noah dropped his phone on his blanket and rolled off the bed before heading down the hall. “Jake!” he yelled, but there were no sounds from the floor above. He crossed the living room and tried again. “Jacob Tanner!”
There was a loud thunk, and a second later Jake opened the door at the top of the stairs wearing nothing but boxer shorts. His hair stuck up in all directions, and it was obvious he’d been asleep only moments before. “Is the house on fire ?” he snapped, but Noah ignored him.
“Hey, are you still recruiting for your baseball team? I want to play third base.”
Jake blinked several times, gaping down at him. “ That’s what you’re yelling about? Have you lost your mind ?!”
“Just answer the question. Do you need another guy or not?”
Silence reigned, and then Jake heaved a loud sigh. “You can play if you want to. Practice starts tomorrow at seven.”
“Perfect, thanks,” Noah answered. Then he started back to his own room without waiting for more information .
“Hey!” Jake shouted down the stairs. “Get your girl problem under control!”
Noah chuckled and kept walking. That was exactly what he was trying to do.
“Are you kidding, Campbell? That was horrendous!” Olivia bellowed, both hands cupped around her mouth.
Noah looked up from the infield where he’d just missed a throw from second base and glared at her from beneath the bill of his hat. Olivia grinned and settled back against the uncomfortable metal bleachers where she and Lexie were watching the men’s team practice.
“You’re so mean to him,” Lexie remarked.
Olivia shrugged. “He asked for it. Next time, I’m gonna wear a shirt with Conner’s last name on the back just to drive him crazy.”
Lexie chuckled and shaded her eyes from the sun as Jake stepped up to home plate. He took a few practice swings. “You can do it, Jacob!” she shouted, and then she turned to Olivia with a smug smile. “See? That’s how you be a good girlfriend.”
Olivia elbowed her in the side. “I’m not trying to be a good girlfriend because Noah and I aren’t actually dating, remember?”
Lexie smirked and raised one eyebrow. “Are you sure about that?”
“Yes, of course I’m sure! I think I would know if we were.”
Olivia’s friend huffed in an unconvinced sort of way. “But you spend a lot of time texting, right?”
“Yeah, but—”
“And you enjoy hanging out with him, right?”
“Sure, but we—”
“And you go on dates and flirt, and there’s definitely chemistry, right?” Olivia didn’t answer right away, and Lexie nudged her with her shoe. “Don’t try to deny it. Total strangers can tell there’s something going on there.”
“Okay, yes,” Olivia muttered.
“And neither of you are seeing anyone else, right?”
Olivia considered the possibility that Noah might be talking to some other girl the same way he talked to her, and the very idea made her stomach twist into a knot. She didn’t think that was true—not while he was still trying to get under her skin, anyway.
“Right,” she admitted reluctantly.
“Then you’re actually dating. Joke’s over. The end.”
Olivia’s mouth fell open to reply, but nothing came out. It wasn’t that simple! There were extenuating circumstances—circumstances that were still in effect until either she or Noah specified otherwise.
And when you do? What happens then?
Olivia reached back and tightened her ponytail, as if that would somehow silence the voices that asked far-too-relevant questions these days. Suddenly, the clang of a bat resonated across the small practice field, and Olivia looked up to see Jake had hit a hard line drive toward third base.
Noah dove wildly to his left, and the ball hit his glove with a smack just before he hit the ground.
He rolled once before regaining his feet.
“Out!” he yelled, pointing first to his best friend and then toward Olivia in the stands.
The cocky smirk on his face spoke volumes, and Olivia rolled her eyes and tried to keep from smiling.
Show off.
Later that night, Olivia was almost ready for bed when her phone buzzed against the porcelain sink.
Noah: When I said do your worst, I clearly underestimated you.
She smiled around her toothbrush and held it in her mouth while she typed a reply.
Olivia: Rookie move.
Noah: So are you in for the night?
Olivia: Yes. Wild horses couldn’t drag me back out.
At that very moment, there was a knock on the front door, and Olivia narrowed her eyes.
Olivia: If that’s you, go away.
Noah: If what’s me?
Olivia: Whoever’s come to keep me awake.
Noah: And you think I’d do such a thing? I’m not stupid. You get cranky when you’re tired.
There was another knock, and Olivia finished brushing her teeth before wandering down the hall to see who or what was so important that it had to interrupt her life in the middle of the night.
She yanked open the door, fully expecting to find Noah Campbell with his phone still in his hand, but was surprised to find the landing empty.
Then she noticed a single red rose secured to the door itself with two short strips of duct tape.
She smiled and stepped out to peer over the railing toward the parking lot below.
Noah was nowhere to be seen, but she knew he’d been there.
Turning back, she carefully detached the flower from the door and pressed the soft petals against her nose.
Stop it! she told herself. You’re immune to this!
But then her phone vibrated in her pocket, demanding to be heard. She fished it out with one hand as she drifted back into her apartment and shut the door with her foot.
Noah: Will you accept this rose?
Her smile grew into a beaming grin.
Okay, maybe not completely immune.
Noah swung the bat as hard as he could, reveling in the way the connection jarred his bones all the way to his spine.
The ball crashed against the far wall of the batting cage just as a second popped from the automatic pitcher.
He smashed that one, too, though it went wide and rolled harmlessly down the netting that protected the rest of the Saturday arcade crowd from his agitation.
Hitting pitches usually quieted his mind, but today even getting to beat something with a metal stick wasn’t helping.
It had been two weeks since he’d brought her back to the arcade, and while he hadn’t expected an overnight transformation, he’d really thought there would be something— anything!
—to suggest that maybe Olivia could be convinced to see him differently, that maybe their game could morph into something else.
But so far, nothing.
And he was running out of ideas.
Noah ripped off his batting helmet and put it and his bat on a rack by the cage door as he left.
What he needed was an expert. Unfortunately, female friends weren’t really a thing in his life, so he only had one option—but at least he knew she would answer.
He entered the number by muscle memory, barely even looking at his keypad.
It was almost three o’clock in the afternoon—the perfect gap between the lunch rush and the dinner shift—and his mother answered on the third ring.
“Hi, sweetheart!” she said. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”
“I have a problem,” Noah groaned, sliding down to sit on the sidewalk in much the same way he’d sat with Olivia months before.
“Oh, really? Is it the car again? I can send you some—”
“No, mom, it’s not the car,” he interrupted.
“Oh. Well, then are you okay? Are you sick?”
“No, I’m not sick. It’s...” He sighed, almost second-guessing himself. “It’s a girl. ”
There was barely a pause on the other end of the line. “The one you call Pixie?” she asked.
Noah brought his brows together in surprise. “How do you know about Pixie?”
His mother laughed faintly. “Honey, you talk about her all the time.”
“Do I really?” he wondered aloud. If he did, he honestly hadn’t noticed.
She laughed again, louder this time. “Oh, baby, you’re in deep, aren’t you?” she asked fondly. “I don’t even know this girl’s name, but I know she loves popcorn, works with children and seems to enjoy driving you crazy.”
Yeah, that about summed it up.
“Well, she also thinks I’m ridiculous,” Noah added almost bitterly. “I’m doing my best to change her mind, but she still seems to think everything I do is a joke!”
“Of course she does. Why wouldn’t she?”
Noah stopped, startled and, honestly, a little offended. “What does that mean?” he demanded.
His mother sighed. “Honey, you forget that I know how you are with women. You hide how you feel behind jokes and games,” she explained. “No woman with a brain in her head is going to take you seriously until she knows that you take her seriously.”
“Well, how exactly do I do that? Because nothing so far seems to have helped,” he protested.
“Have you told her ?”
Noah felt his stomach start to twist into a knot. “Told her what?” he hedged.
“Told her how you feel ?” she asked, emphasizing each word .
Noah flicked dirt off the knee of his jeans and didn’t answer right away. “Sort of,” he mumbled.
“Baby, ‘sort of’ isn’t going to cut it this time,” his mother said. “Smart girls don’t want ‘sort of,’ they want to know exactly where they stand and why. They want to know they aren’t just part of the crowd, that they would be safe with you. Tell her ,” she insisted.
The knot in Noah’s gut got tighter, and he shifted on the concrete. Just the idea of telling Olivia what he was thinking made him antsy. “But what if she doesn’t like what I have to say?” he asked.
“That is the risk you take, sweetheart,” she said gently. “That’s the price of falling in love.”
Noah’s protests came to a screeching halt and his mind narrowed to a single point of thought.
Love.
He hadn’t used that word in his own mind yet, but when his mother said it out loud, it felt right.
“Just talk to her, honey,” his mother went on, filling the silence. “If you want her heart, you have to trust her with yours.”
Noah took a long, unsteady breath and dragged a hand back through his hair. “Thanks, Mom,” he said.
“Of course, sweetheart. Good luck, and I love you,” she replied.
“Love you, too,” he answered, and then she was gone.
Noah set his phone on the pavement and stared up at the March sky, where the cold gray of winter had finally given way to the bright blue of early spring.
He wanted Olivia to choose him, even when she didn’t have to.
He wanted her to know that he was serious, that things had changed.
He’d tried everything he could think of.
.. everything short of actually laying his cards on the table.
But maybe that was the only thing left to do.