Page 2 of The Beach House (The Kissing Booth)

Well, that—or Lee was speeding.

We arrived after the others, though they couldn’t have been there for very long; Matthew, Lee’s dad, was only just shutting the trunk and locking the car. He gave us a smile and a wave.

“Roads okay?”

I swung out of the car and put my huge straw bag up on my shoulder. “Yeah.”

Lee was still in the driver’s seat, clearing up the jumble of candy-bar wrappers and empty bottles. He was normally messy, but he was way too proud of his car to leave trash in there.

I opened up the trunk and tried to get a good grip on my suitcase. I started to hoist it out, and wondered what the hell I’d packed for the next ten days that made it so heavy.

“Need to borrow some muscle?”

I let go of my bag with a surprised huff and it slid back into the car with a heavy thunk. I looked over my shoulder, hair falling in my face, to see Noah, as sexy and handsome as ever, arching a dark eyebrow with his trademark smug look on his face.

My heart somersaulted in my chest and I couldn’t hold back my smile—even if I’d only just seen him two days ago.

Noah grinned as I stepped toward him for a kiss, his arms wrapping round my waist to hold me closer.

He smelled so good. And looked good too, in his board shorts and a fitted white T-shirt.

“Hey, you.”

“Hey, yourself,” he murmured, his mouth smiling against mine. “So—want a hand with your bag?”

“It’s all yours, Superman.”

I couldn’t resist making that dig—just before we got together, I’d caught him wearing Superman boxers. And he’d actually been embarrassed about it! Noah Flynn, the school badass, the jerk who I always argued with…wearing Superman boxers.

He hated it whenever I brought it up. But teasing him was irresistible sometimes.

He dropped a kiss on my cheek before lugging my suitcase out of the trunk and following me up the steps of the porch.

The white paint was always flaking, no matter how many times Lee’s parents gave us twenty bucks to spend an afternoon painting it.

The bench on the porch creaked like it was about to snap in half every time you sat down; I ran a hand over one of its arms as I passed to go inside.

The beach house had a lot of rooms, but they were all small, packed tightly together.

The furniture hadn’t been replaced in years; some of it was from when we were little kids.

There was a pool outside and a table we usually ate at in the evenings if it wasn’t raining, and a path that was always overgrown with rough plants leading down to the beach.

The whole thing was the polar opposite of the immaculately put-together Flynn home in the city with its modern decor.

We loved it exactly as it was—a little shabby, lived-in, and homey.

In my eyes, it was perfect.

“I’m just going to run and get some food,” June announced, walking out of the kitchen as I was coming down the hallway. She smiled when she saw me. “Hey, Elle, sweetie.”

I said hello and hugged her while Noah squeezed past to drop my suitcase in my room.

“Do you want some company to the store?” I offered.

“No, no, that’s okay. You stay here and unpack.”

Then, holding me at a little distance and looking at me with that gentle, motherly smile she always wore, June said something that caught me totally off guard, because it was so out of the blue.

“Look at you, Elle. You suddenly seem so grown-up.”

“Why? Because I had to use that special zipper that makes my suitcase expand?”

“No.” She laughed. “I don’t know—I can’t quite pinpoint it.

You just seem like you’ve become a real young woman recently.

Anyway—listen to me rambling on like this!

I’m getting out of here before I find myself looking for any baby photos lying around!

Oh, and tell the boys we’re having steak for dinner. ”

“Sure thing,” I called as June headed back toward the kitchen.

I started down the hallway in the direction of the bedrooms. Lee and I had ours side by side with Noah’s, separated by a bathroom in the middle that we all shared.

It might’ve made more sense for the boys to have a room together, but they’d always bickered so much when we were little, it had been Lee and me who’d shared—and we’d just never changed that.

(And despite how cool June and Matthew were, they’d made a point of drawing the line at me sharing a room with Noah.)

Noah was on his way back outside, and stopped in the kitchen doorway.

“Thanks for the help with my suitcase.”

“What, that’s it? I don’t get a tip?”

I laughed as if to tell him No chance. He caught my wrist and stepped in front of me in the doorframe to pin me there.

“Hey, I’m an awesome bellboy and you know it,” he said, his voice as serious as his expression.

I bit back a laugh, but a grin spread over my face.

“You tell yourself that.” I went up on my toes to give him a peck on the lips.

Instead of letting me pull away, though, Noah drew me in for a soft, sweet kiss, more intimate than the one we’d just shared outside.

His fingers dropped from round my wrist to link themselves with mine.

A throat cleared—we both jumped.

I turned my head, ready to stare meaningfully at Lee, make a comment about how I’d interrupt him every time he kissed Rachel once she got here, but the opportunity never came and the words stuck in my throat.

“Can I get through?” Matthew said. Noah stepped back and tugged me round the doorframe to let his dad through. I was so mortified that for a moment all I could do was bite my tongue and make a mental note to never, ever kiss in a doorway again.

I was jerked out of my thoughts by a gentle tug on my ponytail. Noah chuckled. “Shelly, anyone would think you’re not used to being seen with your boyfriend.”

“Anyone would think we dated in secret for months,” I deadpanned, rolling my eyes, still embarrassed. “Are you sure your parents don’t mind me coming this year?”

I sounded like Lee, asking yet again if it was cool that Rachel was coming for a few days.

I searched Noah’s face for a hint that maybe his parents had said something to him they wouldn’t say to me, that maybe they’d had some debate about whether I should come along this year, after all the drama I’d caused.

Noah squeezed my hand, which had suddenly turned clammy, and his touch seemed to undo all the knots in my stomach. “Totally sure. Hey, why don’t you go unpack? I told my dad I’d clean up outside.”

I let him kiss me again, feeling a little better as we parted, and I went into my room, where Lee was already stuffing clothes into his drawer of the dresser.

He smiled at me and I relaxed further. Of course Matthew and June wanted me here.

If they didn’t, Lee would have told me. He wouldn’t be able to hide something like that.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have brought so much stuff,” I panted, after hauling my bag from the floor onto the bed to sort through it.

“That might just about be the smartest thing you’ve said yet, Elle.”

“Ha-ha.”

“See,” Lee said, “if this was last summer, I’d be making a joke about how you have an excuse to see my brother flex his muscles and actually talk to him, since you’re so in love with him, except…well, you are in love with him. So it kind of loses all effect.”

I laughed. “It’s still funny, Lee, don’t worry.”

“Yeah, but that’s because I am a comedian extraordinaire. ” He laughed. “It’s not the same, though.”

I sighed, suddenly annoyed. “What do you want me to say? Sorry?”

Lee frowned. “I didn’t mean it like that, Shelly.”

He turned away, shoving one last T-shirt into the drawer. Something crackled in the air between us—something I still wasn’t used to. A tension we liked to ignore because Lee was still hurt by the fact I’d lied to him for so long, and had made him feel like I’d picked Noah over him somehow.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he told me again, more softly this time.

“I know.”

Lee sucked in a sharp breath and grinned at me to defuse the mood. “Now hurry up, find your bikini, and go change. I want to get down to the beach already.”

Living in California, the past few weeks at home had been sun, sun, sun—but there was something special about the beach. Summer just seemed a lot brighter when we were only minutes away from the sea.

Twenty minutes later, Lee and I were making our way down the beaten sandy track between the shrubbery and onto the beach, ignoring Noah’s shout when we passed that we could help him tidy up a little.

I spread my towel out carefully before flopping down onto it, putting in my earbuds, and finding a playlist on my phone.

I put on the red plastic five-dollars-from-a-gas-station sunglasses I’d made Lee stop to buy on the way here.

I still couldn’t believe I’d forgotten mine.

I heard Lee clear his throat loudly, and I twisted my head up to look at him.

Pushing his Ray-Bans into his hair, messing it up, he said, “What are you doing?”

“Um…sunbathing?”

He sighed irritably, frowning. Then he actually wagged a finger at me, like I was a misbehaving puppy. “You’re such a girl sometimes, Rochelle Evans.”

I raised my eyebrows at him briefly, especially at his using my full name, then looked down at myself. I dropped my jaw melodramatically. “What do you know? I am a girl!”

He laughed and kicked some sand over my legs. “You know what I mean. Let’s go get the bodyboards.”

“Tell you what. You go get the bodyboards, and I will stay here soaking up some sunshine.”

“Um, let me think about that…ah— no. ”

“Yes!”

“Fine. But I won’t be held responsible for which board you end up with.”

Before I could say anything, he’d taken off, spraying sand behind him. I sighed and shook my head, settling down on my towel and wriggling around a little to get comfortable.

Something poked my leg, and a voice said, “Hey, lazy.”

“Can’t I have, like, two seconds of peace?” I joked, sitting up and pulling off my glasses to give Noah a mock glare so he would know I was joking. He just chuckled, throwing his towel in a heap next to me.

I put my glasses back on and couldn’t help it when my gaze accidentally went to Noah’s abs.

It occurred to me how weird it was that in all the years we’d been coming here, I’d never used it as an excuse to check him out.

I mean, I guess I’d been having too much fun or joking around to really pay attention to him.

And then, when I did have a crush on him, when I was, like, twelve, I’d gone through a stage of barely being able to talk around him, let alone bring myself to see if he had abs.

I shook myself and glanced up to see if he’d caught me ogling him. I just knew he’d have that sexy smirk on his face that made me blush for no real reason—and I did blush, but not because he was smirking; he was checking me out.

I pushed my glasses up again, and his eyes snapped back to my face. This time, it was my turn to smirk.

He said innocently, “What, I can’t appreciate how gorgeous my girlfriend is?”

I laughed. “If only I could appreciate how cheesy my boyfriend is.”

“Aw, come on. You love the cheesy stuff.”

My smile turned sheepish. “Kinda.”

He chuckled again and offered me his hand. I took it, letting him help me to my feet. Noah pulled me into his arms and planted a kiss on my forehead. I started to lift my head so I could kiss him properly when—

“Ew, cooties.”

“Lee…,” I complained, turning slightly in Noah’s arms. I rolled my eyes at him, but my best friend just gave an impish grin and swung round the bodyboards he was holding.

He tossed a black one with a white logo to Noah, kept a blue bodyboard in his own hand, and then tossed me a bright pink one. I fumbled to catch it before it hit me in the face, and then I saw the big Barbie logo on it, and all the pink flowers and hearts.

“Lee!”

“What? I told you I wouldn’t be held responsible for—”

“Yeah, yeah,” I muttered, but I was smiling. “Come on, then. Let’s get this party started.”

Lee sighed and clapped a hand on my shoulder, and Noah’s laugh turned into a cough.

“Shelly…please, promise me one thing,” Lee said.

“What?”

“Never say that again.”