Page 74 of Call My Bluff
Noah raked both hands through his hair, which was already standing on end, and muttered a few choice words under his breath. “Olivia, I don’t know what I’m doing,” he admitted. “I don’t know what I’m doing, and I’m scared to death I’m going to get it wrong, but I can’t—” His voice cracked, and he shook his head as if to fix it. “I can’t not try. I can’t just play this game anymore.”
He took a step through the still-open doorway, and Olivia sucked in a surprised breath when he cupped his hands around her face and tilted it up to look at him—like he wanted to be sure she heard all the words that spilled out like water.
“I like you. A lot. I think I more than like you. You might be the best thing that’s ever happened to me, and if you’d told me six months ago I’d be saying that, I’d have said you were insane, but it’s true. The thought of not being with you, of not being yours, of not being able to tell the whole world you’re mine, scares me worse than anything else, and I’m begging you please,pleasedon’t throw this away. Not like this, not now.”
Olivia stood silent, her head spinning as she stared up at Noah’s face.
“That wasn’t what you think it was.”
If there was a legitimate reason for the compromising position she’d found him in, then he was serious when he’d said...
But did she want him to beserious?
Olivia tried to take a full breath and somehow found she couldn’t. Five seconds ago, she’d been angry, but now... now she didn’t know what she was.
“Liv?” he asked at last.
She shook her head, suddenly needing to put as much space between them as possible so she could think. She reached up and pulled his hands away from her face before stepping backwards. “You need to go,” she managed, though every word felt sharp in her throat.
“Go? But—”
“Just, go! Please!” She was desperate now—for space, for air, for clarity. Nothing seemed to make sense all of a sudden. Noah’s stricken expression clawed at her heart, and she felt a gash rip wide open when he stepped away.
“Liv,” he rasped as he reached the threshold. “Liv, please, just give me a real chance. That’s all I want—just one real chance.”
Olivia tried to shake her head as she shut the door in his face, though in hindsight she wasn’t sure if she was sayingyesorno.
19
Noah looked towardthe 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 ifwe 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 nearthe 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 caughtanything?” she griped.
“He was fine before you got here. Maybe he can feel you glaring at him,” Lexie replied dryly.
“Ormaybehe 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 butcomplaining 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 youheard?” 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.”
