The Beach House (a The Kissing Booth novella)

11: The Beach House

I know, I know, but I've genuinely been so busy I haven't had time when I'm due an upload to proof-read quickly and then find a song, etc. But better late than never!

So if you appreciate the upload, voting for my book The Kissing Booth in the Watty Awards would be much appreciated... Under the Watty Awards tab, I mean. TKB is up for Most Popular (gaaah!) and Teen Fiction. Eep!!!!!!!

I think I'm going to write a short story for Christmas. Just to bring some more festive cheer to Wattpad. :) I started a story, and will let you guys know when I'm going to post it. But for now, enjoy!!!! xx

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Chapter 11

“Mm,” Lee said, “I just remembered!”

            Except he was talking with his mouth full, so it sounded more like, “Mmmph, ah jush muh-mem-phud.” I understood what he was saying though; after seventeen years of being around Lee, I got used to listening to him tell me things with his mouth so full of food, he looked kind of like a chipmunk.

            “What?” I said – after I’d swallowed my food.

            “Well,” he said, gulping down his burrito loudly, then belching even louder. “You know this morning when we were playing volleyball? Well after you guys left to have some stupid fight, I was talking to a couple of guys. There’s a party down on the beach tomorrow night. There’s gonna be a whole bunch of people there. And alcohol, of course. But no bonfire, they said.”

            “They haven’t had a bonfire for years,” Noah said, but he sounded uninterested – or distracted. “The police caught them a few years back. Something about a safety hazard.”

            “A safety hazard right by the sea?” I said.

            He shot me a flat look, but then turned back to Lee. “So? What’s your point?”

            Lee took another impossibly huge bite of his burrito. This time, he swallowed (most of it) before he answered. “Well… My point is, there’s a party tomorrow. So me and Shelly can go.”

            “Really?” I sounded hyper, and I was. My pulse picked up and I felt my eyebrows shooting up toward my hairline. We hadn’t been to a beach party, yet. They’d always been something that Noah would disappear to one or two nights, but Lee and I had always been too young. June and Matthew (and my dad, via phone call) hadn’t let us go when Noah was going. And Noah hadn’t wanted us there.

            There was that one year, when we were fourteen, and we snuck down to the party, even after my dad and Lee’s parents had told us we WERE NOT ALLOWED TO GO. Mostly, though, we snuck down to spy on Noah. It hadn’t been very successful, though. He’d caught us trailing after him and threatened to phone his mom and tell on us.

            Childish, but it worked.

            I supposed we could’ve gone to the parties at the beach at least since last year; but it just hadn’t been something we’d thought about. The parties were considered Noah’s World. Lee and I stayed at the house playing video games and joking about, like we always did.

            Now, though, adrenaline coursed through me.

            “Really?” I squealed. “We get to go to a beach party this year? We’re going to a party?”