Page 4 of Call My Bluff
“Are you sure?” she asked, clutching it to her chest as if he’d just given her the Taj Mahal. “Thank you, sir. I appreciate it!” She handed over her payment and mentally did a victory dance right there in the driveway—and not a moment too soon. The rumble of an engine grew louder, and she saw a blue pickup come to a stop near the end of the driveway.
Lexie opened the front passenger’s door and jumped to the ground. “Liv! It’s beautiful!” she gushed when she reached the garage. She plopped down onto the generous cushions and wiggled happily. “I think it’s full of angel wings.”
“I know, right?” Olivia answered, sitting down beside her friend. “Now we just have to get it loaded before the lady who lives here realizes her husband practically gave it to me.”
“Oh, don’t worry. The boys will have it done in five minutes,” Lexie assured her.
Olivia absentmindedly wondered who Jake had brought withhim—probably another soft-spoken cowboy type, like himself. She thought, again, of the boy from the grocery store and wondered if he’d made it through that day alive. She wouldn’t be surprised to find out he’d been fired... or burned at the stake. His manager had certainly looked angry enough to do it, though it would be a pity if those pretty eyes went up in smoke.
She heard the boy’s deep chuckle in her mind for the thousandth time and quickly pushed the memory away. She’d never been in the habit of chasing after boys, and she wasn’t going to start now. Graduation was coming, her internship would start next semester, and job application websites were bookmarked on her laptop. This was not the time to complicate her life—pretty eyes or not.
Jake backed the bed of his truck up over the curb, and she watched the taillights flash and go off. Moments later, the rear driver’s side door popped open, and Jake’s friend slid out. He was wearing light-wash jeans and a dark T-shirt, and a shock of jet-black hair peeked out from beneath a baseball cap. As he came closer, she found herself looking into a familiar pair of blue-gray eyes that sparkled with humor as they met hers.
Apparently, Olivia didn’t need to complicate her own life—karma was happy to do it for her.
Pixie.
Her long hair was tied up in that messy thing girls did when they were trying not to care too much, and she wasn’t all made up the way she had been that day in the store, but even from a distance, Noah knew it was her. He made his way up the driveway, watching her as he went, and he saw the moment recognitiondawned on her face. Judging by the look in her eyes, she was just as surprised to see him as he was to finally find her.
“You’ve got to be kidding!” she shouted, her voice exactly as he remembered it—teasing and playful with a hint of mischief underneath.
“Hey, Pixie,” he replied, and the grin he’d been holding at bay slipped out. “Looks like you’re gonna buy me dinner after all.”
The girl huffed out a laugh and rose to stand, but not before Lexie voiced the obvious question. “Do you two know each other?” she asked from her place on the couch.
“Sort of. He stole my groceries once,” her friend answered airily. She pulled the cushion she’d been sitting on from the love seat and leaned it against the brick of the house. Lexie pushed to her feet and did the same.
“I wouldn’t call itstealing,” Noah replied.
“You ran off with a cart full of stuff I’d already paid for! That’s stealing,” Pixie countered.
He twisted his mouth to one side and bent to test the weight of the couch at one end. “I wasn’t running; I was walking with purpose.”
“You wereescaping,” she pointed out.
“Why did you call her Pixie?” Lexie interrupted, moving out of the way so Jake could grab the opposite end of the sofa.
Noah braced himself, his hands under the edge of the couch as his friend got into position. With a nod of Jake’s head, they both lifted, and the four wooden legs left the cement. “Because she wouldn’t tell me her name,” Noah said with a grunt, focused on not toppling a nearby table. “So I had to think of something.”
“To your left,” Jake called, directing Noah as they maneuvered along the edge of the driveway.
From the corner of his eye, Noah saw the girls grab their respective couch cushions and start hauling them toward the truck.
“It’s Olivia!” Lexie called, and Noah smirked as the other girl shoved her with the cushion. Lexie giggled. “What?” she asked loudly, the words obviously directed at her friend. “He’s carrying acouch, for goodness’ sake! He deserves to know!”
Within minutes, everything was loaded and ready for the ride. Noah gave one of the rachet straps a final yank and looked over to where Olivia was sitting on the corner of the open tailgate.
“I’m Noah, by the way,” he said. “Moving man by day, grocery boy by night and Jake’s best friend by unfortunate circumstance.”
“Unfortunate forhim, you mean,” she quipped, and Noah chuckled.
“Exactly.”
Olivia leaned in closer, and he could see the way the colors in her hazel eyes rolled together like clouds before a storm. “You do remember I live on the third floor, right?” she asked, her voice almost a whisper, and he felt a rush of adrenaline that had nothing to do with the forced labor in his future.
“Well, I do now,” he replied, and Olivia laughed.
She pushed herself off the tailgate with a little hop and landed squarely on her feet. Then she turned without another word and wandered down the street toward where her Mustang waited along the curb.
