19
N oah looked toward the bleachers with a lump in his chest. They were sparsely filled, mostly with the girlfriends and bored roommates of the guys on the field.
Lexie was there of course, sitting alone along the third-base line wearing one of Jake’s baseball caps.
Olivia, however, was nowhere to be seen—but that wasn’t surprising.
It had been a week, and honestly, there was a piece of Noah that would be surprised if he ever spoke to her again.
And then there was another piece that knew he’d go crazy soon if he didn’t.
He’d thought about orchestrating some kind of “grand gesture,” but he also understood Olivia well enough to know that the more he pushed, the harder she’d dig her heels in. So, instead, he’d sent one message explaining the Misty situation and forced himself to leave it at that.
She hadn’t replied.
Noah glanced at the empty space beside Lexie again, and Olivia’s question from so many months ago resurfaced in his mind.
“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?”
He sighed and squeezed the bridge of his nose, trying to ward off his headache. Maybe she’d been right. Maybe he should’ve simply skipped ahead.
Olivia arrived near the end of the game and sat beside her best friend on the hard, metal bleachers.
She wasn’t completely sure why she was there, and a piece of her wished she hadn’t dragged herself out to watch—especially when Noah was playing so badly.
He missed his second catch in a row, and Olivia groaned. “Has he caught anything ?” she griped.
“He was fine before you got here. Maybe he can feel you glaring at him,” Lexie replied dryly.
“Or maybe he can’t concentrate because those girls over there won’t shut up,” Olivia growled.
She gave an evil side-eye to a cluster of young women near the fence who were making no secret about why they were there.
She’d been listening to their not-so-hushed conversation for fifteen minutes and had heard several of the players—including Noah—mentioned by name more than once.
The harpies were obviously window shopping.
They aren’t for sale! Olivia wanted to shout, but she restrained herself.
“Where did they even come from?” she snapped instead. “It’s like he has an entourage. I bet he thinks he’s—”
“Stop!” Lexie barked. Her unusually harsh tone cut Olivia off mid-sentence.
“You’ve spent the last eight days doing nothing but complaining about Noah,” Lexie went on.
“At this point, you’re just making things up to make yourself feel better, and I don’t want to hear it.
” She pointed across the field to where Noah stood.
“He hasn’t done a thing wrong, and from what I heard, you’re the one who shut him down. So if you feel guilty, that’s on you.”
Olivia did a mental double take. “From what you heard ?” she demanded.
“I was there, Liv! I was in my room when you got home, but I didn’t have a chance to come out before he started banging on the door. I figured it was better to be discreet than to announce my presence right in the middle of everything.”
Olivia stared slack-jawed at this revelation.
Lexie had the grace to blush under her best friend’s accusing glare.
“I would have told you sooner, but you haven’t been in a listening mood,” she confessed.
“The point is that you’re coming up with reasons to push him away just so you won’t have to admit you were wrong, and you’re making yourself and everyone around you miserable.
And as for those girls?” She nodded her head toward the fence.
“You can’t complain if you don’t stake your claim—but if you don’t, someone else will. ”
Olivia felt both shock and awe at this outburst. Lexie had never spoken her mind like that before! Maybe Olivia had been a good influence on her all these years, after all.
Or a bad one, depending on how she looked at it.
Olivia turned her attention back to the field, though she stared at home plate with unseeing eyes.
Was she just making excuses?
And if she was . . . why?
The voices of reason started a debate inside her head, each mounting its own argument .
Because things might change!
Oh, come on, face it. You’ve been dating for a while. What difference would it make?
Because the year is almost over!
And you’ll both be in Chattanooga next year. You have time.
Because it might not work out!
So what? It’s not like you’re in love with him, right?
For once, the cynic had no response, and Olivia felt her chest squeeze tight.
She wasn’t in love with Noah... was she?
She thought back to how much it had hurt to watch him step away the other night, even when she’d been the one to request it.
She thought about the past week and how many times she’d wanted to ask about his day or share something from hers.
She thought about the weekend at her parents’ house and how she could have danced through a thousand songs with him and never been tired.
He was the one who made her laugh when days were hard and the one who helped her forget why she was angry. He was the one she wanted to run to with good news and with bad. He was the one she leaned on and yelled at and trusted with the fears she couldn’t share with anyone else.
He was . . . the one.
Olivia nearly felt her heart stop as those words sunk in.
She pulled her cell phone from the pocket of her shorts and unearthed a text message that was buried six names deep—one she’d been avoiding for days.
She opened it and skimmed quickly through the part about the girl at the pool hall, but her eyes automatically slowed as she neared the end.
Noah: ...there’s no one but you, Pix.
No one who makes me laugh as hard or who drives me as crazy.
No one I’d rather spend my days and nights with.
I know this whole stupid game we’re playing started as a way to prove a point, but it’s more than that for me now. And I hope it’s more than that for you.
Olivia swallowed hard and read the whole thing again from the beginning, absorbing every word one at a time.
No one but you.
A cheer went up from the stands around her, and she blinked her focus back to the game.
Someone on Jake’s team had hit a home run and was rounding the bases without opposition—but it wasn’t Noah.
She scanned the faces in the dugout and finally spotted him standing at the end farthest from her, his forearms propped against the half-wall that separated the bench from the infield.
He wasn’t looking her way, but she felt drawn to her feet anyway.
“Liv, where are you going? They’ll come up here when they’re done,” Lexie asked, but Olivia didn’t stop to acknowledge her.
She was afraid that if she did, she might not have the guts to start moving again.
Instead, she thundered down the bleachers and hit the grass at a jog.
When she reached the infield gate, she pushed it open and stormed through.
“Campbell!” she bellowed, and several heads whipped her way in what looked like alarm, but Noah’s wasn’t one of them.
“Campbell, listen to me when I’m talking to you!
” she shouted again. This time, she got his attention, and his eyes went wide as she made her way into the dugout.
The men inside parted like the Red Sea, leaving Noah standing alone at the opposite end.
“You are the most infuriating, exasperating, maddening man I’ve ever met!” She came to a stop in front of him. “And I don’t want to play games anymore.” Then she grabbed him by the collar and pulled him down until her mouth met his.
There was a second when he didn’t respond—a second where she wondered if she’d made a horrible miscalculation—but then Olivia felt her feet leave the ground as Noah lifted her up and set her down on the dugout wall.
He kissed her back like he’d never had a reason to stop in the first place, and the whoops and catcalls of his teammates seemed far away as she threaded her fingers into his hair and tried to make up for all the almosts and should haves of the last six months.
“One chance. Don’t choke,” she whispered into the space between them, and Noah smiled so that only she could see.
“Stop talking.”