Page 57 of Call My Bluff
Noah shrugged and leaned one shoulder against the doorframe, his arms crossed over his chest. “It wasn’t that bad, actually; he didn’t even show me his gun collection. I’ve been led to believe that was pretty standard when meeting a girl’s dad.”
Olivia half laughed. “That’s surprising, actually. There’s basically a bunker in the basement.” She unwound a long ringlet from the wand and turned her head from side to side, examining her handiwork. Then she picked up a curl from near the edge of her face and pulled it around to the back of her head before securing it with a bobby pin from the dresser top.
Noah watched as one pin joined another, and whatever Olivia was creating began to take shape. His mind drifted back to the conversation in the yard.
“You’re a curiosity, son,” Mr. Cohen said. “You’re the first friend from school Livvy’s ever brought home who didn’t have both X chromosomes. You must have done something right to get this far, and I’d be doing you a disservice if I wasn’t up front with you from the beginning.
“That girl in there deserves the best, and not just because she’s my little girl, but because she’s a good person. She’s sassy, sure, and probably too stubborn for her own good, but she’s also fiercely loyalto those she cares about. She has the biggest, deepest, purest heart of anyone I’ve ever known, and whoever she chooses to give it to will be one of the luckiest men alive.
“But don’t be mistaken—she doesn’tneedyou. She doesn’tneedanyone; her mother and I raised her that way on purpose. So, if she ever does choose you, it’s because shewantsyou—and that’s an honor you cannot imagine. It’s an honor that should be respected and protected with your life. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir, I do.”
“Do you feel you deserve an honor like that?”
“No, sir, I don’t.”
Mr. Cohen studied him hard, his mouth in a firm line that never wavered. “Good, because you don’t now, and you won’t fifty years from now, either. But that’s how we know we’re the lucky ones.”
“There,” Olivia proclaimed, breaking Noah from his reverie. She rose to stand. “What do you think?”
He blinked a few times and realized that while he’d been distracted, she’d swapped from regular pins to clips with tiny white flowers on them. They were tucked here and there among the loose curls that made a crown-like loop around the back of her head. He cleared his throat, suddenly aware that he hadn’t actually said anything the whole time he’d been preoccupied. Normally, he would have been uncomfortable with such a silence, but this time he hadn’t even noticed it.
“You look great!” he said. Then he pushed off the doorframe and ventured a few steps into the room. “One thing, though?” he added, stopping when they were toe-to-toe. He raised one hand and hesitated, waiting for a green light, and when she nodded, he gently freed one small curl near her face. He twirled it around his index finger before letting it lay softly against her temple. “Ilike it like this,” he murmured, and without having planned it, the backs of his fingers drifted down across her cheek—almost like they’d chosen to do so of their own accord.
Her gaze held his, and something electric passed between them.
Noah’s mouth went dry, and he automatically wet his lips. He could kiss her. Right there, in her room, he could do it again. Memories flashed through his mind like picture slides: Olivia’s hair sliding through his fingers on New Year’s Eve, the flush in her cheeks before she’d pulled him in for a second kiss, the way he’d been able to feel her in his blood.
But he hesitated a moment too long.
“Livvy!” Issa called from downstairs. “Hurry! Your mom’s turning into the driveway!”
Olivia’s eyes went wide, and she turned away all at once. “Come on!” she urged, hurrying into the hall. “I don’t want to miss her face when she sees the yard!”
Noah followed slowly, turning a strange feeling over and over in his mind. It wasn’t the disappointment of a moment missed; it was... something else. Something that felt too big to describe. Something that seemed... new.
The party wasa success! Olivia looked around the crowded yard with pride as her mother’s friends and family served themselves from a catered buffet table and talked in animated groups. The playlist she’d created of all her mom’s favorite songs played through Bluetooth speakers that were placed strategically around the yard, and several of their guests had found enough space on the grass to dance.
“This song reminds me of you,” Noah said, and Olivia met his eye as he took an empty Chinet plate from her hands and dumped it into an outdoor garbage can. Her ears tuned in to a familiar set of chords, and she felt her brows rise.
“‘Thunderstruck’?” she asked.
Noah chuckled and drained the last of his drink before throwing the cup away. “Yeah. It was playing in your car the day we met,” he explained.
“How do you remember that?” she asked incredulously.
He raised one shoulder in a shrug. “I don’t know. I guess it’s hard to forget when a beautiful woman actually leaves you in her dust.”
She laughed and tucked a wayward curl behind her ear—the one he’d pulled out earlier. “I didn’t do that. Did I?”
“Yes, ma’am, you did!” he confirmed. “You put on your sunglasses like some kind of Hollywood starlet, said ‘good luck with your snake problem’ and then hit the gas like you were joining the Indy 500. Dust everywhere; my uniform was a whole different color, and I couldn’t breathe for weeks!”
“Oh, that’s an exaggeration!”
“Not much of one,” he replied.
Olivia turned back toward the table where they’d been sitting with her family, but their empty seats had been claimed by someone else.
