Page 39 of Call My Bluff
Noahknew! He knew her little performance was a scam, and now he was calling her on it! It was the only thing that made sense!
She clenched her jaw and shook her head as aggravation filled her body. So, he wanted to make this a contest? Fine.
But he hadn’t won yet. And he wasn’t going to.
“You know what?” she said, stubborn determination taking hold. “I’ve changed my mind. Looks like I’ve got a date on Tuesday,” she told the group, and Lexie’s eyes widened in what looked like dismay.
“You’re actually going to do this?” she asked, and Olivia straightened her spine.
“Why not? He doesn’t want a relationship any more than I do, so he’ll only let it go so far.”
Lexie shook her head slowly, as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “The poor guy,” she murmured. “He won’t even know what hit him.”
10
“How do Ilook?” Olivia asked Tuesday night. She put her hands on her hips and turned on the spot for inspection.
“Like Secret Agent Barbie,” Lexie replied from her perch on the edge of the bathtub.
Olivia smirked at herself in the mirror and fluffed her high ponytail. It swung jauntily from side to side as she went on to brush unseen dust from her black sweater and jeggings. Most girls on a date wanted to stand out, but on this particular night, Olivia planned to disappear.
She pulled a tube of red lipstick from her makeup bag and smoothed a perfect coat onto her lips before popping them together. “What Noah doesn’t know is that Danny, Michael and I practically lived at the laser tag arena near Mom and Dad’s house when I was in high school. I’m going to wipe the floor with him.”
Lexie snorted. “I thought this was a date. Aren’t you supposed to tone it down a little?”
Olivia grinned and reached for the bottle of her signature perfume. “Just think about it, the whole reason for going is tomake him regret starting this little game, right? No guy wants to date a girl who shows him up, and to do it in front of hisfriends? Well, he won’t be coming back for seconds, that’s for sure.” She put a spritz of perfume on the inside of one wrist before rubbing it against both sides of her neck.
“I feel like you’ve said that before,” Lexie remarked, and Olivia rolled her eyes at her friend’s reflection in the mirror.
“Oh, ye of little faith,” she admonished. “Just trust me; I have a plan.”
A knock on the door told her Noah had arrived, and she quickly double-checked her pockets for her ID and debit card before heading into the hall.
“I know you have a plan,” Lexie called after her. “It’s the plan that worries me!”
“I love you, too!” Olivia shouted back. She reached for the doorknob just as Noah knocked again, and she opened the door before he could finish.
“Hey, honey!” she gushed, catching him with his hand still in midair. Then she stepped outside and shut the door behind herself. “Ready to go? I can’t wait to meet everyone. Do you think they’ll like me?”
Noah grinned broadly. “Of course! What’s not to like about a beautiful woman?” he asked. Then he slung his arm across her shoulders before guiding her gently toward the stairwell.
Olivia took a long, slow breath and tried to ignore the little sparks of lightning that pricked through the fabric of her shirt. She couldn’t shrug him off if he was supposed to be her “boyfriend”; he had certain permissions now that went with the title, and she was going to have to give a little.
Well, that or admit she’d been lying through her teeth before... and that wasn’t going to happen.
“Now, there will be eight of us—you, me and six of the guys,” he explained as they descended to the parking lot. “The arena just opened last semester. Apparently, some rich alum took pity on us poor Cypress Valley kids with nothing to do around here.”
He spent the trip across town explaining every minute detail of the game as if the words “laser tag” weren’t mostly common sense, and Olivia did her best to act like she was listening intently and not like she was contemplating taping his mouth shut. Finally, they pulled into the parking lot of a massive building just outside the city limits. There were cars everywhere, even in places that shouldn’t technically have been parking spaces, and she started to wonder how they were even going to get in.
“You reserve a game time,” Noah explained, obviously seeing the question on her face. “Ours starts in fifteen minutes; the guys should already be here.” He got out of the car and came around to open her door, though she beat him to the punch purely by force of habit.
His hand warmed the small of her back as he guided her through the lobby doors and then toward a small group of college guys who stood clustered near the equipment counter.
“Pixie, meet Parker, Beckett, Randall, Don, Carson and Rock,” Noah said rapidly, pointing to each of his friends in turn.
“Rock?” she repeated.
A guy with red hair and freckles gave a sheepish wave. “It’s Rick, actually,” he explained.
