The Kissing Booth: Noah's Story

Ugh, no.

Bad idea. I definitely shouldn't have been thinking about that night. The whole thing was... messy, but even 'messy' felt like an understatement. From the moment she asked me to do their kissing booth, that group of girls giggling over her shoulder, which, man, I really wished she hadn't done.

(Like I needed anyone putting the idea of kissing Elle Evans in my head.)

Then she'd tried to strip off to jump in the pool, and I'd had to hold her hair while she threw up... Not her finest moment, but she did look kind of cute when she was asking me not to tell either of our parents about it and then babbling on about dolphins for some reason.

It was cool though, because it wasn't my finest moment when she caught me in my Superman boxers and laughed at me for it, so we were pretty even on that front.

But yeah, thinking about that whole thing was a bad idea.

There was no way I was ever going to sign up to be a kisser at their booth. It was a horrible idea. Besides, she hadn't even meant it. I knew everyone had built up this impression I was some kind of womanizer just because I kissed girls at parties and never had 'official' girlfriends, but the fact that Elle seemed to see through that felt kinda good.

The school's annual Spring Carnival was bright, loud, busy. The grass was trampled into the ground and the smell of cotton candy was thick in the air. Coach always expected us to make an appearance at these things, but I had to admit: the Spring Carnival was something I secretly loved.

It really wasn't that complicated. It just made me feel like a kid who didn't have to worry about college applications or grades or anything like that. I could hang out, play some dorky games, eat a bunch of hot dogs, and because everyone else was doing it too, nobody cared that 'badass Noah Flynn' was getting a little too competitive at the dunk tank.

Hanging out with the football guys took my mind off Elle for a while, but it didn't last for very long: everyone was talking about the kissing booth. It had drawn in a huge crowd, and I let myself get dragged along with the other guys on the team, only half-listening to the conversation. They were talking about one of the hot girls running the booth. Someone cracked a joke about one of the guys on the booth – although it got shot down pretty quickly, because the others didn't think getting to kiss a bunch of cute girls sounded so bad.

It wasn't like I planned to get in the queue for the kissing booth.

I planned to avoid it completely.

Now I was here, I figured it'd be weirder if I left. I would just hang out with the guys, laugh at their jokes, find something to rib Elle and Lee about later.

But then I noticed Elle peeking out from the edge of the booth, assessing the crowd. She bit her lip, looking a little nervous and a lot excited. Lee must've been hanging around somewhere back there, too.

Everyone always thought she and Lee would end up together. Our families would make light-hearted comments about it at Thanksgivings and Christmases, their friends would joke about it from time to time. People at school had made a bunch of comments about it for as long as I could remember.

Elle and Lee always thought it was hilarious, whenever someone said it to their face. I had to wonder what other people were seeing – apart from two dorks goofing around, practically attached at the hip.

They didn't seem so attached at the hip now. The queue kept moving along and Lee was still nowhere to be seen. The girls at the booth switched, and one of the football guys groaned, doing the math.