Page 68 of Call My Bluff
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 everythinghe could think of... everything short of actually laying his cards on the table.
But maybe that was the only thing left to do.
18
Olivia hung upthe phone and did another happy-scream into the empty air of her apartment. A familiar blue-and-gold crest stared up at her from the envelope on her bedspread, and she snatched the letter from its resting place to read it for the fourteenth time.
Ms. Olivia Cohen,
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted into the UT Chattanooga Master of Social Work program, beginning in the fall...
She stomped her feet like a child and laughed out loud, the sound conveying both excitement and relief. She’d done it. She’d gotten in! Her parents were thrilled, of course. She’d had to hold the phone away from her ear while her mother had done her own happy screaming, and her daddy actually sounded like he might have teared up. They were probably notifying the rest of the Cohen clan at that very moment.
Olivia fired off a quick text to Lexie, who was spending spring break with Jake’s family in Copper Hill, and then grabbed her car keys from the top of her dresser. She didn’t second-guess herselfas she headed for the door. She didn’t try to analyze her motives as she thundered down the stairs and slipped behind the wheel of her Mustang. She didn’t even make excuses as she left the parking lot and made the turn toward the highway. She simply let herself accept the unbelievable fact that the person she wanted to see the most just then was Noah.
Noah, who had been leaving random flowers on the hood of her car after work all week; who had beaten her soundly in mini-golf and then let her drag him onstage at a karaoke bar; who had eaten the seafood alfredo she’d made without mentioning that it was terribly oversalted. Noah, who had somehow become her go-to person on heavy days and the first one she texted in the mornings.
She raced down the almost-empty streets of a college town that had been temporarily abandoned by half its inhabitants, leaving only those students who had to work or who simply had nowhere else to go. Olivia and Noah both fell into the first category, a fact that had brought them together for part of every day that week.
Olivia laid down on the horn as she pulled into his driveway. It was after ten in the morning; if Noah wasn’t awake, then he should be. Sure enough, his tall frame appeared in the garage moments after she came to a stop, his T-shirt and sweatpants still rumpled from sleep.
“Are we under siege?!” he yelled from the gloomy interior, but Olivia barely let him finish.
“I GOT INTO UT!” she screamed, bailing out of the car with her letter in hand.
“You’re kidding!” he replied. He might have had more to say, but Olivia launched herself into the air and wrapped herself around him like a monkey in a tree. Noah staggered back a step but didn’t fall.
“I got into UT! In Chattanooga!” she shouted again. She shoved the sheet of paper in his face, and he took it with the hand that wasn’t holding her up.
“For this fall?” he asked, his eyes scanning across the words.
“Yes!”
Noah’s face woke up all at once, and a blazing smile coursed across it like wildfire. He let out a whoop that lacked words but spoke volumes, and Olivia clutched his neck as he whirled her around in circles. “That’s amazing, Pix!” he gushed when he came to a stop. “I have bad news, though.”
Olivia leaned back for a better look at his face. “Oh? And what’s that?” she asked.
“I’m gonna be in Chattanooga’s physical therapy program in August,” he answered.
Now it was Olivia’s turn to be dumbstruck. “You’re kidding!” she cried, echoing his words from a minute before, but Noah shook his head.
“No. Not kidding.”
“You’refollowingme?” she exclaimed, finally disentangling herself and letting her feet fall to the concrete floor. She tried to act dismayed but failed miserably.
