After talking to Lee, I left his room and made my way to Noah's room for probably the first time when I wasn't trying to sneak into it. I was surprised to hear that Noah sounded exactly like Lee when he answered my knock with a "Come in."
When I pushed open the door and saw his annoyed expression replaced with surprise, I started laughing. He jumped out of bed, coming towards me asking, "What are you doing here, Elle? I wasn't expecting you," before crashing his lips to mine.
After our kiss, Noah took my hand, as he sat down on his bed and pulled me onto his lap. As Noah put his arm around me like he wasn't going to let me go, I answered, "I came to talk to Lee. To make sure he was okay with us making our relationship public tomorrow at school. And to see if he was still mad at me."
"And how did it go? I don't need to go over there and kick his ass, do I?" Before I answered, Noah started to get up as if he was going to go to Lee's room.
Laughing, I pushed him back down on the bed. He fell back on the bed, pulling me down with him, putting his arms around me so I couldn't get up. I fought him for a minute, not sure I wanted to lay on his bed with him when his whole family was home and knew I was in here. But, once I realized there was no way I could get up, I gave up and cuddled into his side. Still giggling, I replied, "No, you don't need to kick his ass! He actually took it really well. We had a good talk and I think things finally feel back to normal with us now."
"That's awesome. I know how worried you were about that."
"Have you two talked at all?" In my worry over my friendship with Lee and then my relief of Lee's forgiveness, I hadn't thought much about Noah and Lee's relationship. Lee said that he thought they had been getting along better than ever lately but I wondered if that would continue now that Lee knew about us. I hoped it wouldn't make things complicated between them again.
"I've pretty much been avoiding him. I didn't want to piss him off more, just by being around him. I feel like that's how he feels about me sometimes."
"He mentioned that things have been better between you guys lately." I said hopefully.
"Yeah, he's right, they really have been. I just figured, once he found out that I was with "his Shelly" that would all go away. I thought he would go back to hating me." I smiled at Noah's reference. Lee called me "my Shelly" the whole summer before we started kindergarten. Noah used to get so mad at him, telling Lee that I couldn't belong to anyone. Of course that would make Lee mad and they would start yelling at each other until I went to get June to break them up.
I had my head on Noah's chest now, enjoying the feeling of his fingers running through my hair. I looked up at him when I answered, "I don't think Lee has ever hated you. Maybe jealous of his big brother but not hate. You should go talk to him."
"Yeah, maybe I will."
"I should probably get going pretty soon. Once your Mom figures out I'm in your room with the door shut, she'll probably stop by to check on us. I'm not sure I'm ready for that again." I said remembering the rules June laid down during our talk.
"No, don't leave yet. You just got here." Noah said pulling me closer to him and planting a kiss on my lips before continuing. "I think she just said a lot of that stuff to scare us a little. I wouldn't worry about it."
I rolled my eyes, knowing that it wouldn't bother Noah at all to have his Mom come in to interrupt us again. "So, are you ready for everyone at school to find out about us tomorrow?"
"Shell, I've been ready for this, since the day after you agreed to date me in the first place. I can't wait for everyone to find out that you're my girlfriend."
The next morning, Noah picked me up for school early like usual but instead of heading back to his house, we went straight to school. As soon as we got out of the car, Noah grabbed my hand and smirked before pulling me in for a long kiss. I was embarrassed at first, not knowing how many people were around to see us, but I forgot all about it the longer the kiss lasted.
Between kisses he told me, "By the end of today, everyone is going to know we're together."
Noah and I walked into the school together holding hands. He walked me to my locker, then we walked to his. There weren't a ton of people in the halls but we were still getting plenty of stares. Noah even walked me to my first class, leaning in for another kiss before he walked to his own class, telling me he would see me at lunch.
Noah didn't miss any chances that day to make it obvious to anyone around that we were together. I had never been a big fan of PDA at school, but honestly every time Noah kissed me during the day I lost myself, forgetting we were even in public. We were so used to keeping our secret from everyone, it felt great to finally be able to stop hiding.
When it was time for lunch, I went through the lunch line with Lee and Rachel like always but I couldn't stop myself from looking around for Noah. He should be around here somewhere and I was hoping he was going to sit with us today. Lee and I, and now Rachel, had been sitting with a group of our friends all year and we always sat in the same seats. So I thought it was funny today when Lee stole my seat and left me to sit on the other side of the table. I didn't think anything of it, though, and had stopped looking around for Noah now that my back was to most of the rest of the cafeteria. I started to eat my sandwich until I began to hear the whispers of people at the tables behind me. I saw Rachel's eyes widen in shock and Dixon started to laugh. I turned around to see what was going on. That's when I saw Noah Flynn standing in front of me holding roses and a sign that simply read "PROM?". I put my hands over over my mouth in surprise. This is a sight I never in a million years could have imagined.
Before I even had a chance to react, Noah started talking, "I'm in love with you Elle Evans. Will you go to prom with me?"
I hesitated for a second, looking around at all the shocked faces around us, embarrassed to have the eyes of everyone in the cafeteria on us. But, once I looked into Noah's eyes, I realized I didn't really care about anyone else in the room. I ran to put my arms around him and kiss him, nodding as I moved towards him. As soon as we started kissing, I could hear the whoops and cheers of our friends. If there was anyone that didn't know about our relationship at this point, they would all hear about it by the end of the day. I glanced around the room, laughing to myself at the surprise and jealous looks on the faces of the OMG girls and many of the other girls in the room. Noah raised a hand and nodded to acknowledge the cheers from his football buddies before everyone finally started to quiet down. When all the commotion died down, we sat down at our table, Noah squeezing into the spot next to me, putting his arm around me.
I was still giggling. "I can't believe you just did that."
"Me either, Shelly." He said before kissing my temple. "Only for you."
As everyone around us started talking again, I relaxed into Noah's chest. Glancing over at Noah, seeing the smile on his face as he pulls me in a little closer, makes me so happy. I look down at the sign he had been holding and started to notice the details. The paint on the sign was the same colors Lee and I had used when we painted the Kissing Booth signs. Then I thought of the fact that Noah wouldn't have been able to surprise me if I had been sitting in my normal spot today and facing the entrance to the cafeteria. I wasn't sitting in my normal spot because Lee had taken my seat. I glanced over at Lee in surprise. He still had a smile on his face like everyone else did when they watched us. Noah must have asked Lee for help with all of this. To be a fly on the wall for that conversation. I mouthed "Thank you" to Lee, who only nodded. I couldn't believe I hadn't trusted my best friend enough to stop lying to him long ago.
Tuppen and Jayden walked up to our table, Tuppen lightly punching Noah on the shoulder as he said, "I can't believe it, man. I mean, I always figured you had a thing for Evans with all the times you threatened us to stay away from her, but I never thought she'd give you a chance. When did this happen?"
Jayden piped in, "They've been together since they kissed at the Kissing Booth. They never could have kept it a secret if I wouldn't have covered for Noah all the time. You can totally tell how he feels about her anytime he looks at her and he acts like an idiot whenever he's around her." Noah glared at the smirking Jayden who ignored him.
Tuppen continued, "Hmm, it was obvious something was going on with you but I never would have guessed you had a girlfriend. I haven't seen you at a party in ages. One of the last parties I saw you at was when I caught you making out with that chick at Chris' party." Tuppen's eyes got big and he looked back and forth between me and Noah. "Wait a second, Evans was the chick, wasn't she?"
Noah's only answer was his smirk.
I was pulled away from their conversation when Allie came over to pull me into a hug. "I'm so glad you guys finally came clean! That secret was killing me to keep."
"I am too, I should have listened to you when you first told me to put on my big girl panties and tell Lee everything. It was stupid to wait so long."
I was shocked by the number of people who came up to me to talk about Noah that day. People I didn't even know stopped me in the hall or in class to say they were happy for us or to congratulate me. Even Kendra told me we made a cute couple during Biology. Everyone was so positive, well almost everyone. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when Mia said, "You must be so happy you landed Flynn. Hope you can hold on to him," in her sugary sweet voice that almost made her rude comment sound like a compliment. I wasn't going to let anything she said bother me. Not when everything felt almost perfect between me and Noah right now. It's hard to believe that we finally get to act like a real couple at school. I was an idiot to have waited so long for this.
A/N – My original outline for this story was to write Elle and Noah's relationship up until they told Lee. But now I think there is so much more that would be fun to add to this story – Prom (where they actually go together), Noah's graduation, their summer at the beach house, and maybe I'll even go on to the TKB2 time period and their long distance relationship. It will take me a little time to work through these ideas before I'll have the chapters ready to post. While I'm working on those, I'm going to post a few AU chapters within this story. I look forward to seeing what you think of them! Thanks for being awesome readers! As always, I love to hear what you think of the story and please vote if you're enjoying it!