The Kissing Booth (28 page)

‘How was the dance?’

‘Good.’

He cleared his throat. ‘Did you figure out what you’re going to do about him?’

I bit the insides of my cheeks before answering. ‘Yeah. Yeah, I made up my mind.’

Dad sighed. ‘You’re going to stay with him, aren’t you.’ It was more of a statement than a question; he already knew.

‘Yeah,’ I admitted quietly. ‘I have to go now. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?’

‘All right.’

I took a few breaths just to calm myself down. I turned my cell off so we wouldn’t have any more interruptions. Then I dabbed on a little lip balm and fluffed my hair out before I went back into the bedroom.

Noah was lounging on the bed, his arms behind his head and one leg slightly bent. It wasn’t a pose, really, but right then he looked like a male model. He had his eyes half closed, totally relaxed. I didn’t think he’d noticed me come back.

I looked him up and down. He was so handsome, with his tousled dark hair and the tux – even his crooked nose. He was tall enough to make me feel dainty. And I loved his eyes, so bright and blue and piercing – and now they were wide open, looking me up and down in such a way that I blushed.

‘Beautiful as you look tonight in that dress, Elle, I have to say I prefer you without it.’

‘Oh really? And what makes you think that’s going to happen?’

He smirked. ‘I don’t think it’ll be a problem.’

I smiled flirtatiously back at him as he swung himself up off the bed and strolled toward me. I raised an eyebrow, wondering exactly what his plan was.

But he suddenly stopped short of me. ‘Come here,’ he said in a surprisingly soft voice, then pulled me into his arms and walked backward until he was sitting on the bed, with me on his lap. When he wrapped his arms around me tight, I snaked mine around his shoulders. It was such a tender, intimate moment.

‘We don’t have to do anything, you know. If you want to take things slow now, just say the word. I didn’t get this room for that. I just wanted to be alone with you – even if you choose to go home later.’

I was stunned – here I was, certain the one reason he’d booked us this suite was so we could have sex, and now he was saying he wouldn’t rush me if I didn’t want to. Flynn, giving up sex for me.

Jeez.

First he got down on one knee to ask me to the dance, then the whole song dedication, then the petals on the bed – now this?

Man. He really
had
changed.

‘I heard you saying to Lee earlier you thought we’d rushed into it before,’ he said then. ‘And we’re doing it right this time, so I thought . . .’

I did say that to Lee, because I could be brutally honest with him now and not feel so judged. I hadn’t even imagined Noah might’ve been there to hear though . . . Lately I had been worrying that we’d rushed into it, that I hadn’t been thinking straight, too caught up in the thrill of sneaking around.

This was how my first time
should’ve
been, I thought, looking at the suite, the flower petals; Noah . . .

I shook my head against his. ‘No, I want to.’

If this was a cheesy romance, now would be the time for us to say
I love you
.

As it was, he mumbled something I didn’t catch, and kissed me full on the lips, making me melt in his arms. He helped me pull off his jacket, and while I worked on his shirt buttons, he yanked at his tie, pulling away from me just long enough to tug it over his head.

I giggled helplessly when, in his haste, he managed to get the tie stuck in his mouth.

‘Don’t even,’ he threatened, a mouthful of tie muffling his words. I giggled even more, but he soon shut me up by kissing me. At that point I let myself stop thinking completely. There was no conscious thought behind any of my actions. Tonight was just . . . just
us
.

Chapter 25

BLINKING MY EYES
open, I yawned and rolled over, and found myself nose-to-nose with Noah. His lips were slightly parted, and his eyelashes looked unusually long lying against his cheek like that. He looked so peaceful, so innocent.

I wriggled in closer to him, and watched him sleep. I’d always wondered why people in relationships did that – why they just stared at someone who wasn’t even doing anything. But now I understood. It was like seeing them in their most vulnerable state.

After a while, though, when he still hadn’t moved and I was too wide awake to even think about going back to sleep, I decided to wake him up.

‘Noah,’ I said softly, close to his ear. ‘Noah . . . Wake up . . .’

He grumbled incoherently, and put an arm around me, pulling me in closer, but he didn’t open his eyes.

‘Noah,’ I said again.

No response.

I leaned forward and pressed my lips gently against his, and then he rubbed his eyes and ran his hands through his hair.

‘If that’s how you’re going to wake me up, I wouldn’t mind spending the night with you more often,’ Noah told me with a gleam in his eyes.

‘Ha-ha,’ I replied sarcastically, but I was smiling. I brushed some hair out of my face. ‘Good morning.’

He kissed the tip of my nose. ‘Good morning to you too.’ He stretched, and then tugged me back against him. Our legs wrapped together.

Immediately, I jerked my right leg away from him.

‘What?’

‘Your feet are really cold,’ I explained, and he laughed, rolling his eyes. Slowly, I eased my leg back to where it had been a moment ago, avoiding Noah’s feet.

We didn’t get up for at least an hour; we stayed wrapped around each other in bed, speaking in soft voices and exchanging kisses.

I couldn’t have been happier.

I got Noah to drop me at my house. I’d stop by to see Lee later. I was desperate to know if he’d finally said ‘I love you’ to Rachel (because even if
he
didn’t realize yet, I knew he was in love).

But he still wasn’t entirely comfortable with me and his big brother being together. And showing up with the remnants of last night’s make-up and my crinkled dress on would just be rubbing his face in it.

I would much rather face my father’s disapproving sigh at how I’d spent my night than face Lee looking like this.

‘Elle?’ Dad called out as I shut the door as silently as possible behind me.

I sighed. I’d have been a terrible rebellious child. I couldn’t sneak in or out of the house if my life depended on it. So I called back, ‘Yeah, it’s me!’

‘How was the dance?’ he asked, and with a sigh I smoothed my dress out and went into the lounge. Brad was hanging upside down, his feet up on the top of the couch, his head brushing the floor. He glanced over from the Nintendo and went back to playing his game.

‘The dance was great,’ I answered. ‘Except there was a bit of drama involving nuts in the vegetarian dish, and one of the guys is allergic to nuts . . .’

‘Boring,’ Brad said loudly in a sing-song voice, irritating me as only a little brother could.

‘Did you go to the after-party?’ my dad asked.

‘No . . .’ I said cautiously. ‘We, um – Noah booked us a room for the night . . .’ My voice faded into a mumble before trailing off completely.

‘Is that so.’ My dad’s words swelled with disapproval.

‘Nothing happened,’ I said quickly, not able to keep my cheeks from burning. Talk about embarrassing . . .

It was Brad who spoke: ‘
Noah and Elle, sitting in a tree, doing things they shouldn’t be . . 
.’ he sang mockingly.

‘Whatever,’ was my witty comeback, mimicking his voice. He scowled over the top of his Nintendo and I poked my tongue out at him.

‘Is it too late to take back what I said last night about my little girl being so grown up, Elle?’ Dad laughed, shaking his head at us. I gave him a sheepish smile. ‘So you had a good time at the dance.’

‘Yup. And you know what Noah did? He actually got the band to dedicate a song to me so he could ask me to be his girlfriend in front of everybody. That’s how serious he is about this. About me,’ I amended.

‘Aw, is ickle Ellie-belly in
luuurve
?’ Brad said in a soppy voice, making kissing sounds and pulling faces at me.

‘No!’ I said quickly. ‘No! Most definitely not.’

Dad could only look at me like he was torn between acceptance and disappointment. I was starting to shrug it off when the doorbell rang.

‘I’ll get it,’ I said quickly, shooting up to open the door.

‘I heard on the grapevine that you were back,’ Lee said, leaning on the porch fence and grinning at me. The smile went out of his eyes for a moment when he saw me – it was blatantly clear what I’d been up to last night – but he recovered quickly.

‘Plus I had to get out of the house,’ he went on. ‘My parents are going crazy at Noah.’

‘Why?’

‘Well, for starters, he’s been, quote, “God knows where doing God knows what this past week,” and he’s – again I quote – “going to get kicked out of college before he’s even started if he keeps acting as stupid and reckless as this”.’

I sighed, and ran a hand through my hair. Lee added, ‘It’ll blow over. But I’d rather not be around.’

‘How was the after-party?’

‘You missed some serious shit,’ he told me gravely, then cracked another huge smile. ‘It was freaking hilarious. Warren got wasted and was doing some major karaoke, complete with dancing and telling everyone he loved them. Funniest thing
ever
. No fights or anything though.’

‘That’s because there was no Noah,’ I said.

He laughed. ‘True, true . . .’ He cleared his throat. ‘Um, I’d ask how your night went and tease you to “tell me every single detail,
girlfriend
”’ – he put on a falsetto voice and pretended to flip his hair – ‘but I don’t really want to know all about you doing the nasty with my brother.’

I smiled. ‘I didn’t think you’d want to know, to be honest. But on that note, my chum, did you and Rachel . . .?’

‘No, we did not,’ he said, rather proudly, sticking his chin out.

‘Really? I thought you guys would’ve by now.’

‘So did I . . .’ He shrugged. ‘But she said she wasn’t ready, so, I don’t know, we’ll just wait till she is.’

‘Aw!’ I cooed. I tweaked his nose. ‘You’re whipped, my friend.’

Lee didn’t even argue. He just rolled his eyes at me. And he blushed under all his freckles. I giggled, but not in a mean way.

‘Does Rachel know how whipped you are?’

‘Well, uh . . .’

‘Oh my God! You said it, didn’t you? You totally did!
You said you loved her!
When did you say it? Was it when you were slow dancing? Were you under the stars at the after-party?’

Lee laughed, putting his hands firmly on my shoulders. ‘Calm down, Miss Romantic. If you give me the chance, I’ll tell you how it happened.’ I mimed zipping my lips shut. ‘When we were slow dancing, I just kind of blurted it out really quietly. She didn’t hear and said, “What?” so I had to say it louder, but she still didn’t get it, so I had to say it really loud, and then a few people looked over and she started blushing like crazy . . .’ He smiled and laughed. ‘It was really cute actually, ’cause then she said it back with this bright red blush – honestly, she was like a beetroot, and—’

I smacked his arm. ‘That’s so mean!’

‘It’s not mean, it was cute, I
said
it was cute! And stop interrupting! Anyway. She said it back, looking like a really
cute
beetroot,’ he said pointedly, ‘and I said, “What? I can’t hear you,” so she had to say it really loud too.’

I smiled. ‘Aw, that
is
cute.’

‘You’re rubbing off on me,’ he said, pushing my shoulder. ‘I’m turning all mushy, hanging around with you all these years.’

‘Did you kiss her then? After you guys said it?’

‘Duh.’

‘Aw . . .’

‘Are you going to stand here gushing and cooing all day or are we going to watch some
Judge Judy
? After you take a shower, of course. Your mascara is all smudged.’ He poked me under the eyes and then all but skipped past me into the house.

All I could do was laugh and shake my head as Lee made himself at home talking to Brad and my dad while I headed upstairs to clean up and change.

There was something nagging at my mind though: my stupid little brother teasing me about – about being in . . . in love with Noah . . .

I couldn’t be.

I mean, I knew at the start it wasn’t . . . well, it wasn’t anything serious until last night, officially. And even before last night, I couldn’t be . . . I wasn’t . . .

Was I?

Chapter 26

LEE AND I
were lounging in my back garden; the sun was shining and the weather was too nice to stay inside. We generally spent days like this relaxing around Lee’s pool. His garden was nicer than mine too: we had one of those swinging chairs with a canopy, but it was so old it creaked whenever it moved. And half the grass had died – Dad had been too busy lately to fix it up, and too stubborn to hire a gardener.

I had suggested we go to Lee’s, pointing out that the pool would be great right now. But Lee had wanted to wait a bit.

‘Shelly, my dad said he’d text me when it was safe to go back. Meaning when either Noah’s stormed off or they’re done arguing and telling him off for everything. And I haven’t heard anything yet.’

‘Was it really that bad?’

‘Trust me, you don’t even want to know.’

Just then, his cell phone rang and he fished it out of his pocket. He frowned and didn’t answer straight away, as I’d expected.

‘Who is it?’ I asked, getting up to see the screen.

‘Noah,’ he muttered as I saw the caller ID. ‘What the hell does he want?’

‘Here’s a thought: answer it and find out.’

He gave me a mock glare and clicked to answer. ‘What?’

I heard Noah’s voice on the other end, sounding equally unhappy, but I couldn’t make out what he was saying.

‘Sure,’ Lee said, then handed the phone to me. ‘Your cell’s still off. He wants to talk to you.’

‘Oh.’ I took the phone, and found I was smiling, even at the prospect of talking to him over the phone. And he hadn’t even said anything yet. What was up with me lately? ‘Hi.’

But I knew exactly why that was. It was the same reason I’d said I’d go to the dance with him – however much I tried to find a reason to prove otherwise.