He couldn’t. Not really. We were still in his truck. Only a couple hundred feet from where the town—and I used that word loosely—started. Technically, anyone could drive by, although traffic was never really an issue in Hope’s Point.
“You have to stop,” he muttered. “I won’t be able to keep my shit together.”
That’s right. Because I made Noah lose his shit. The sense of power was nearly overwhelming. I pulled away from him and sat back demurely in the passenger seat. I realized I lost my cap as I tried to fix my hair. I started to squirm around when I saw that Noah was holding it in his hand.
I reached for it, and he snatched his hand away to keep it from me. Like it was instinctual. Like he was Lucy and he just couldn’t leave the football on the field. His lips twisted into a smile as if he realized it himself.
He dropped the hat in my lap, then started the truck and took us into town. There were a few trucks parked outside but it didn’t look nearly as crowded as a Friday night.
“That’s Jenny’s ride,” Noah said, pointing to the truck he pulled up adjacent to. “You’ll get to meet her.”
That made me slightly nervous. I believed Noah when he told me they were just friends, but I also believed he liked the idea of me thinking she was something more to him.
Which meant I was probably going to have my back up when I spoke with her, which meant she probably was going to think I was a bitch.
I didn’t want Noah’s woman friend to think I was a bitch. I was pretty sure the guys were cool with me. But now the guys had girlfriends and I wanted those women to be cool with me, too.
As a woman who worked in a predominantly male industry, sometimes I wasn’t as comfortable around women as I should have been. I knew I didn’t have enough women friends, and I knew that, because I really didn’t have any.
What if Jenny could be a friend? And Shelby and Kate? I’d also heard about Vivienne but had yet to meet her. Four women, around my age, all living in Hope’s Point.
Surely one of them had to like me.
There were still a fair number of folks inside Bud’s, especially for a weeknight. I followed Noah through a maze of tables until he stopped at one where Jenny, who I recalled from our flight together, was sitting.
She was small and blonde. I remember thinking at the time of the flight that she was the absolute opposite of me. Now I wondered if Noah had done that on purpose. Picked a date who wouldn’t remind him of me at all.
“Jenny, this is Olivia,” he said once we reached the table. “Olivia, Jenny.”
I reached my hand out to her, but she looked at it, then at me, and shook her head.
I pulled it back as casually as I could, trying not to feel mortified.
“Uh, Jenny…doesn’t like touching people she doesn’t know real well. Germaphobe thing. Don’t take offense.”
I nodded.
“Vivienne here tonight?” Noah asked even as he craned his neck looking around the bar.
“No. You have to get food and drinks yourself,” Jenny told him.
“Damn. I’ll tell you what, she’s spoiling us. I’ll be right back. Burger and fries good?”
I nodded. “No beer for me, though.”
His mouth turned into a flat line. “Right. No beer.”
Then he turned and wove through the maze of tables toward the bar.
Gingerly, I sat down and tried to think of something to say that would break the tension I now felt with this woman. Only nothing came to mind as she continued to look at me like I was a science experiment.
“You’re nervous,” she said bluntly.
“I am.”
“Why?”
She’d been blunt so I figured I might as well be, too. “Because you’re Noah’s friend and I want you to like me, only I’m afraid you already don’t.”
