Page 20 of One Last Time

“You guys are the best!” Lee shouted, bent over in the headlock. “Aside from selling our family summer home, which we’ll never forgive you for, you’re the best!”

Awhole summer,here, with Lee and Noah and Rachel…

Last year we’d been worried that everything would change. We’d been worried that Noah wouldn’t be around over the summer, and when Rachel had come for a few days it had created a weird, new dynamic.

But after this year, things really would change. Matthew and June would sell the beach house and there really would be no more summers here, andof coursethings between us were going to change.

We needed this. This one final hurrah, a chance to properly say goodbye to the beach house—and to our childhoods.

Chapter Eight

It had been a long, exhausting day, but my mood was significantly improved now that Lee’s parents had agreed to let us spend all summer at the beach house. I even kind ofenjoyedthe ride home on the back of Noah’s bike.

Noah killed the engine, and I clung to him for a minute before pressing a kiss into his shoulder and peeling myself away. I handed the helmet back and waited for him to get my purse for me.

He took the hint, a smirk playing at the corners of his mouth.

“Not gonna invite me in?”

I shook my head. “I kinda want to spend some quality time with Brad tonight.”

His eyebrows shot up. It wasn’t that I didn’tlikemy brother, or didn’t spend time with him, but we didn’t exactly do “quality time.” And it wasn’t atotallie…

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s good.”

Noah knew me better, though, his hand coming up to cup my cheek, his palm warm and rough against my skin. His blue eyes bored into mine. “You sure? You know you can talk to me—about anything.”

Not about this.

I could do with a little alone time to consider what I was going to do about college—or at least, as “alone” as babysitting got. But I also didn’t really feel like getting into the whole Linda thing with Noah right now either. Today had been consumed with the beach house, so I hadn’t had a chance to talk to anybody about it.

And I couldn’t just drop the bombshellnowthat I had to babysit this evening because Dad had a date.

So I took a breath and smiled and kissed him and said, “I know. Maybe tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Love you.”

“Love you, too, Elle.”

He caught my wrist as I made to leave, pulling me back into him. My hands braced against his chest, the familiar leather of his jacket under my fingers, and Noah’s lips moved over mine—slowly, passionately, making me weak at the knees.

“I hate when you do that,” I mumbled against his mouth.

I felt him smirk.

“Do what?” he asked, all innocence.

“Kiss me and make me want to spend the rest of my life kissing you and forget about everything else.”

He chuckled, the sound vibrating through his chest, against my hands, and kissed me once more, tender and light and lingering until finally, we broke apart.

Once I was inside, my dad called, “Elle? How’d it go today?”

I dumped my stuff and dug out the baseball glove I’d brought home for Brad.