The Beach House

Look! It's me again! I'm baaaaackkkk!

So hi there everyone! I've got lots of lovely new fans since my last upload - hello! - and welcome back to those of you who've been with me for a long time! So this is the novella to The Kissing Booth I promised you all! And it's not entirely edited or anything so far, but I hope it's good enough!

Warning: This story is a novella (but not a sequel) to my book, The Kissing Booth. It will contain some spoilers, but if you don't mind and want to read this anyway, then I've tried to explain some things so you're not too confused, but I couldn't explain everything. I recommend you read The Kissing Booth first, but I don't suppose it's entirely necessary.

Right! On with the show! xx

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Chapter 1

I always had trouble packing for the beach house.

Always.

It never used to be so bad when my mom was packing for me, and I was a little girl who didn’t really know what I needed to pack. But the past few years, when I packed for myself… It was like a nightmare.

I would pack. And then upturn my case and start again.

Mid-morning on Wednesday, the day before we left, Dad came in to my room with a glass of soda for me.

“It looks like a bomb’s gone off in here,” he said, laughing.

“I hate packing.”

“Don’t forget to take after-sun.”

“Okay, okay, okay!” I said, huffing. No way was I going to forget that after last year; I’d burnt the top of my legs so bad, it had been painful to sit down.

In the end, I packed the same as always: plenty of swimwear and flip-flops and sunhats, some shorts and t-shirts, and I ended up throwing in a yellow sundress that the girls had convinced me to buy on our girls’ day out shopping. Just in case.

Actually, part of the reason I had so much more trouble packing this year was because I had a boyfriend, and he’d be there with us. Which meant that we might end up going on a date, especially since we weren’t sneaking around anymore…

I smiled at that. No more sneaking around. No more hiding it from my best friend. We were officially dating.

Much as it made me smile, it did make me want to yank at my hair in frustration. My case wasn’t that big anyway, which didn’t usually matter since I didn’t need to take too much to the beach house. But what if I did need to dress nicer to go out places with Noah? Now we were dating and he wasn’t just my best friend’s older brother, wasn’t there some kind of rule that meant you couldn’t slouch around in threadbare pajama shorts and a shapeless tank top around your boyfriend?

I picked up the pajamas I’d worn for the past few months.

Definitely not the kind you want your boyfriend to see you in…

I sighed, and said to myself, “To hell with it,” and threw them in my case.

My bedroom door opened. “To hell with what?”

“Hi, Lee,” I greeted him, not even having to turn around to know Lee, my best friend since forever, was standing in my doorway.

“What did you do in here, blow up your closet?”

“Yeah. We had a fight. I think it wants to file for divorce.”

He laughed, and I heard the sound of him dropping clothes onto the floor from my bed, and as I turned around to tell him to be careful and not crease my stuff, he dropped face first onto my bed.

“What were you grumbling to yourself about?” he asked.

“Nothing, just…” He raised an eyebrow, giving me that skeptical look that told me he knew exactly what was up but just wanted to hear me say it.

“Bikini not skimpy enough for my brother?”

I threw a tank top at him. “No, it’s not that.”

“Then what? Oh, man, no, don’t tell me you’re gonna make me go shopping for lingerie or something? Please, Shelly, anything but that! Tampons, I can do, but not – not lingerie!”

I laughed. “No that either. You know my pajamas?”

“Oh, that’s all you’re worried about?” Lee laughed. He rolled on my bed and leaned over the edge to look into my case. “They’re fine, don’t worry! You’ll look fine whatever you’re wearing.”

I smiled at Lee. No matter what it was that was getting me down, he could always brighten me back up in an instant.