Whooo, Christmas is coming up soon! :) As are the Watty Awards! Who's excited? I am. I'm also kind of nervous. As you may be able to tell. And I do have to ask you all (because I know you're all lovely and fab people) to please keep supporting The Kissing Booth when the Watty Award like, officially begin, and whatnot. Please :')
Sorry this is late... I was out last night and when I got in I was too tired to upload, in all honesty.
Alrighty! So here's the next chapter, and I think it may be a little short, but at least it's an upload for you guys, right? :) Hope you enjoy it! xx
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chapter 10
Slamming the mostly empty glass of the virgin cocktail I’d ordered back on the bar counter, I ran my fingertip around the glass, drawing abstract patterns in the condensation on it.
Alright, so maybe the guy had been a little on the flirty side, with his hand on my arm. But checking if I was okay just meant he was a nice human being. And maybe it had looked a bit strange to Noah that I hadn’t stood up straight away – but that didn’t mean he had a right to be mad at me like that.
He was my boyfriend. He was allowed to be jealous, and he was allowed to be mad if a guy tried to flirt with me – but not mad at me.
Yes, but this is Noah, the annoyingly rational voice in my head tried reasoning with me. He’s crude and impulsive and he gets mad easily, it’s what he’s always been like. Did you really expect him to morph into some perfect, all-around-nice guy just because you guys are dating now?
I sighed again, running a hand back through my damp hair. It felt crusty with seawater, and I could feel it had started to curl.
This was not how I’d pictured my last day at the beach house with both Flynn brothers to be.
We were supposed to mess around, to go body-boarding and swimming, and play volleyball and laugh at how bad I was, to eat way too many ice creams and pig out at the Saturday lunch buffet at the little restaurant near the bar on the beach. We were supposed to build a giant sandcastle, to bury whoever fell asleep first up to their neck in sand, to pig out again at the barbecue their dad would cook in the evening, and to stay up really late playing silly games and cards.
What wasn’t supposed to happen was me having a huge argument with Noah.
Plus, to top it all off, my leg was really starting to ache where the volleyball had hit me.
The stool beside mine scraped out and I looked up from my glass as someone sat down. But it still surprised me to see it was Noah.
“Hey,” he said quietly, mumbling.
“Hey,” I responded in pretty much the same way. I went back to looking at my glass and the condensation running down it.
“Listen, about before…” he started. He paused, almost like he was expecting me to cut in and say, ‘Forget about it, it’s all in the past. Let’s just move on.’
When I didn’t say anything, he carried on. “I’m sorry I was such a jerk. Alright? It was just – you know, you were practically all over this guy – and I know you didn’t mean it,” he added hastily, before I even opened my mouth, “but think about it from where I was standing. I was right there, and my girlfriend’s lying across some other guy who starts flirting with her, and you were blushing like – I don’t know, like his flirting was working.”
“I was blushing,” I said, “because I’d embarrassed myself epically in front of a whole load of people.”
“Yeah, I get that now,” he said. I stole a glance at him out of the corner of my eye; he looked so frustrated with himself, like he was still mad but didn’t want to be, like he didn’t want to talk about any of this stuff but wanted to tell me.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated.
I pushed my glass back a few centimeters. I leaned back a bit on my stool. I didn’t even know what I was waiting for. Of course I’d forgive Noah, I always did.
“Elle?”
“It’s fine,” I said, turning my head enough to give him a half-smile. “It’s okay. Forget it.”
“Elle,” he said again, this time sighing.
“What? I said, it’s fine.”
“No it’s not. If it was fine you’d be smiling, or you’d be teasing me about something that involved the word ‘cute’.”
Okay, so that much was true.
“It’s fine,” I repeated.
He sighed again. “Elle, come on, I don’t know what else to say. I said I was sorry. I explained why I was mad in the first place. I know I’m an idiot. C’mon, please? Look, I don’t want to go see Harvard and leave you here really mad at me. It’s gonna suck. You can be mad at me later. At least give me today.”
I could have just let my resolve melt away entirely at that. Noah wasn’t the kind of guy who liked expressing his emotions, so you knew for certain when he did say something sentimental like that, he was being honest. And it was so, so adorable!
But I was still mad.
But he had a good point.
But he’d been such a jerk.
There were so many conflicting thoughts running through my head right then. He was right about one thing though – how stupid it was to spend this last day at the beach house being mad at each other. I had plenty of time to be mad at him when we were both back home.
Then again, we only really had this summer. I still wasn’t a hundred percent sure what our plans were for the end of the summer, so it’d be stupid to spend time when we were back home being mad at each other then, too, but…
I really, really had to work on making my brain shut up.
Aloud, I said, “Fine. But this doesn’t mean you’re off the hook.”
He grinned. It was mostly that rare, infectious smile that showed his dimple and that I loved so much, but there was a hint of his trademark smirk to it, too. Before I knew it, a smile was on my face too.
“So what do you want to do now?” he asked. “We have all day.”
My smile grew wider. “I’m sure I can think of something…”
He seemed almost surprised when I went and bought eight sandcastle-shaped buckets and three plastic spades so we could join the sandcastle building competition. Lee was just as childishly excited about it as I was. And although Noah didn’t show it, I had a pretty good feeling he was enjoying it too.
***
We didn’t actually win the sandcastle competition. It was either because we used sand that was so dry our castles kept falling away, or because I tripped over Noah and totally faceplanted (again, in front of everyone, for the second time that day) into our messed-up-but-still-pretty-cool sandcastle.
We headed back to our usual spot, nearer to the beach house, after lunch.
Lee and Noah went body boarding again, but I stayed lying on my towel. Tipping my head back so the sun practically melted my face off, I closed my eyes against the glare of the sun that managed to burn through the crappy lenses of my five dollar sunglasses.
I didn’t mean to fall asleep. I wasn’t even all that tired.
I guess it was just the effect summer had on me; but either way, I fell asleep.
And when I woke up, someone was patting sand around my shoulder.
I shrieked out, “Lee!” and made to sit bolt upright – except I really couldn’t move. They’d managed to bury me so much, I couldn’t even wriggle my toes properly. And the sand came right up to my collarbone. I could move my head, and that was it.
I don’t think, in all the years we’ve been burying one of us who falls asleep, I’ve ever been the one to fall asleep first. I’ve always contributed to the burying.
“You guys!” I whined. “You buried my towel, too! Now my towel’s no good because it’s covered in sand!”
They just dusted the sand off their hands and laughed at me. Lee stood up and poked the mound of sand where my ribs were. “Jeez, Shelly, all that food is finally getting to you. I can’t feel your ribcage anymore.”
“Ha-ha.”
Noah laughed, though, and then he stood up too. “Man, that was thirsty work. I really need a drink now. Lee, are you thirsty?”
“You know what, I’m absolutely parched,” he said, grinning impishly at me but then pulling a serious face when he spoke to Noah. “We should go get a drink.”
“Yeah, good plan. Let’s go.”
“Guys!” I yelled as they started walking off. I knew they were just teasing me, trying to scare me – but I still thought that they might actually leave me here like this. “Guys!”
They actually got pretty far away before Lee burst out laughing and turned back.
“Don’t do that to me!” I wanted to throw sand at him or something, but all I could do was crane my neck and glare through my five dollar glasses. “Okay, you’ve had your fun, ha-ha, take a picture already, then unbury me.”
“Unbury you? You want us to help you out, after we spent so long burying you?” He looked like I’d just suggested he should go on a diet, gaping at me with his eyebrows together and his eyes bulging wide. I wanted to laugh so bad, but I was trying to keep a straight face to glare at him.
“Okay, okay,” Noah said, finally wandering back. “I’ll get the picture now.”
He picked up a camera that seemed to have appeared from nowhere. It was one we’d all pitched in to buy a couple of years ago, the kind that printed out polaroids straight away. It did mean that we ended up buying a hell of a lot of film to go in it the first summer we had it, though. I’d forgotten all about it.
“Where’d you magic that from?”
“I ran back to get it so we could take a picture of you finally buried in the sand, and laugh about it for years to come, while you were being buried.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Say cheese!” Noah cried, laughter in his voice. I was still giving him a look that definitely didn’t ‘say cheese’ when he snapped my photo.
“Noah! I wasn’t ready!”
“I said say cheese! That means I’m gonna take your photo!”
“No it doesn’t!”
“Um, it kinda does,” Lee put in.
“Shut up! Take another one!”
Noah chuckled at me, stubbing his toe into the sand somewhere near where my feet seemed to be. “Fine, but this time, when I say ‘Say cheese!’ it means I’m going to take your picture straight away, alright? You think you can follow that?”
I laughed sarcastically. “Yes.”
“Okay. Now…” He elaborately positioned himself, looking into the camera lens and then scooting across, like he was trying to find better lighting. I couldn’t help but laugh at him. So when Noah finally said, “Say cheese!” I said, “Cheese!” at the top of my lungs, laughing and smiling for this picture now, and looking at Noah instead of into the camera.
“Let me see,” I said at the same time as Lee said, “Let’s see!”
Noah shook the polaroid out and walked over to us with it. He smiled at the picture, and then turned it, holding it out for us to see.
And the first thing I saw was that they hadn’t just buried me in sand; they’d made a point to shape the sand so I looked like a mermaid. I had a tail and everything. It was probably Lee’s idea of a joke to make me a topless mermaid, too.
I wanted to be mad – just because. But I couldn’t be. It was just too funny.
I was like a giant sandy mermaid.
And they had a picture of it.
I laughed until I was gasping for breath, and kept on laughing even then.
“Okay,” I gasped at last, “you can dig me out now.”
And this time, at least, they did start to destroy the mermaid-masterpiece that was me buried in sand, and dig me out. (And, for the record, I was still shaking sand out of my hair the next day. After I’d rinsed-and-repeated with my shampoo in the shower at least three times.)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Vote/Comment if you liked :)
I think I may do some kind of one-off short story for Christmas... Just because I am rather a festive person (we decorated our sixth form common room in school, it's exceptionally cool!) but yes, may be a short story! I shall see if I can write one! :)
Next chapter will be up probably on Tuesday!
Ps. I have a fantastic surprise coming up in this book and I don't think any one of you are going to expect it... See if you can guess what it is ;) xx