Page 5 of The Beach House (The Kissing Booth)

On Monday morning, I woke up at what felt like the crack of dawn after a bad night’s sleep.

I groaned, tossing about and tumbling off the bed.

“Sorry,” Lee whispered loudly. “Did I wake you up?”

“A rampaging bull in a china shop is quieter than you, Lee.” I rubbed my eyes and yawned. “What’re you even doing up already?”

“Rachel’s coming today, and…” He trailed off, since that was explanation enough. Part of me thought it was adorable that Lee trying to tidy things so the room wouldn’t be a complete wreck when his girlfriend arrived, but I still narrowed my sleepy eyes at him.

“What time is it?”

“Seven.”

That was when I threw my pillow at him.

He laughed and caught it, tossing it back onto my bed. I shot him another glare for waking me up so early, grabbed my bikini and a pair of shorts, and went into the bathroom. I wasn’t going to be able to get back to sleep now, but maybe a shower would wake me up properly.

I checked that both doors to the bathroom were shut; the only lock was on Noah’s door, and it had never worked properly. We had a very simple system—if the doors were shut, the bathroom was occupied.

The bathroom wasn’t big anyway, but with Lee’s hair products scattered everywhere and my toiletries laid out neatly, plus Noah’s few things thrown down anywhere, it seemed very small and very cluttered. I shoved Lee’s stuff to the edge of a shelf to put my clothes down.

I had just lathered up my hair when I heard a door open. I sighed sharply through my nose and stuck my head round the shower curtain, shampoo trickling down the sides of my face. “Lee, I don’t care what time Rachel’s coming. Your hair gel can wait till I’m not in the—”

Noah took one look at me and started laughing.

“I so need to take a photo of that,” he chuckled, indicating my annoyed face and lathered-up hair.

“Oh, shut up.”

“What’s the matter, grumpy-pants? You don’t want me to join you?” He smirked, making a show of starting to take off his T-shirt.

“Noah! Stop it.”

We wanted some time alone together at the beach house, but it wasn’t easy. Sure, his room might be right there next to mine, but the walls in this place were thin. And that didn’t exactly scream romantic or sexy to me. Not with my best friend and his parents around.

“Stop what?” he asked, undoing his belt now, still grinning at me.

“You are not doing a striptease in the bathroom,” I hissed at him, blushing and disappearing back behind the shower curtain to rinse my hair. “So not fair. Remind me why we thought we could handle not having any time to ourselves here?”

“What’s the matter, Elle? Need a cold shower?”

I told him to shut up again, smiling when I heard him laugh.

It was maddening to be so close to him all the time and not really be able to…

do anything. It wasn’t even easy to find somewhere else to sneak off to.

And after our narrow escape near the pool the other day when his parents came back early, I was not about to risk getting caught again.

When I stepped out of the shower, towel wrapped round me, I found Noah finishing up cleaning his teeth, his hair looking tidier than it had a few minutes before. I knocked my hip into him to nudge him out of the way so I could get to my stuff.

Noah just kind of hovered by the side of the sink, though, arms folded lightly over his chest and his eyes on me.

“What?”

He shrugged. “Just thinking.”

“About what?”

“I love you” was his simple answer, accompanied by a small, genuine smile.

He leaned over to give me a quick kiss on the lips, only a light, little one. He made to leave, but I tugged on his T-shirt to pull him back.

“Hey, you don’t get away that easy, mister.” And I kissed him full on the mouth, a smile forming on my face. His arms curled round my waist and he squeezed me closer. God, he smelled so good. Had he always smelled this good? I dragged my fingers through his hair, probably messing it up again.

“Okay. I’m definitely going this time,” he said, drawing away and giving me one last peck on the lips, “before I’m the one who needs a cold shower.”

It turned out Rachel was arriving a few hours earlier than we’d expected, so Lee left to pick her up from the bus station. The beach house wasn’t really built for an extra person, but we’d make do having Rachel here too. Lee had an old airbed set up in Noah’s room he’d be sleeping on.

I was cuddled up on the sofa with Noah, the two of us watching TV with his parents, when we heard Lee’s car pull up outside.

“Sounds like the other pair of lovebirds are here,” June said, and she and Matthew got up to go and greet them. I listened to their conversation for a few minutes. Lee took Rachel’s bag through to the bedroom.

I’d been cool with Rachel coming—but now that she was actually here, it felt weird.

I shook myself. I couldn’t think like that. It’d be nice having another girl around for a change. And it might mean I didn’t feel so guilty about trying to get some time alone with Noah and not hanging out with Lee so much this year.

I looked at the TV and saw that Noah had switched the channel, settling on some NASCAR program. I watched it for about twenty seconds, then said, “No way are we watching this. There’s got to be something else on. Like cartoons.”

“Cartoons? You’re kidding me, right?”

I scowled at Noah and made to pick up the remote from the arm of the couch. He snatched it and held it above his head.

“Noah!” I complained, and scrambled up on the sofa, trying to make a grab—but he kept moving it out of my reach, and I ended up falling across him, almost straddling him, our noses very nearly touching.

We looked at each other for a long, long moment; I was biding my time, waiting to lunge for the remote again.

Noah reached up with his free hand to brush some hair behind my ear, and his fingertips lingered near the base of my neck. Then—

I shrieked, falling back onto the sofa and trying to scramble away. Noah was too fast, though, and was lying across me, pinning me down, tickling me ruthlessly. I gasped for air, I was laughing so hard. I wriggled, kicked, pushed his hands away. Nothing worked.

I was wriggling so much that I was right on the edge of the sofa, and Noah let the two of us tumble on to the floor with a loud thud.

“Noah!” I shrieked. “Noah, stop it!”

He chuckled, grinning mischievously, a devilish gleam in his electric blue eyes. But then his mom called from down the hallway, “Keep your clothes on!”

We both paused. Sometimes I could see where Lee got it from, when June wasn’t above embarrassing us like that.

My cheeks were turning red, I could tell, and Noah bit his lip, holding back a laugh.

I swatted his chest while my hand was free, because the look on his face was making me want to burst into giggles too. I bit the inside of my cheeks hard.

“Hey, you guys.”

We both looked over to the doorway, where Rachel had stuck her head in. She gave a small wave, which I would’ve returned if my hands hadn’t been pinned between my chest and Noah’s.

“Hey,” we responded.

I said, “Welcome to the madhouse. Sorry, sorry. Beach house.”

“Rach, come on, my parents want to show you the beach.”

I had never been so glad for Lee’s excitable nature as when he wrapped his arms round Rachel’s waist and pulled her away, out of the house. I heard the back door rattle closed behind them and, through the windows, saw them all heading down toward the beach.

I turned back to Noah, wiggling one of my hands free to run it through his hair, pushing it away from his face.

He shot me one of his rare smiles then. Not his trademark sexy smirk, or even half a smile. It was the one that flashed the dimple in his left cheek and was so infectious that I had to smile back at him, getting that warm fuzzy feeling in my stomach.

“So, tomorrow night.”

“Huh?” Did I miss something?

“I was thinking we could do something tonight,” he said, “but we can’t because we’re all going to this steakhouse, apparently, to welcome Rachel. But we’ll do something tomorrow. Just me and you.”

“Did you have anything in particular in mind?”

He tapped his nose. “I’ve got a few things up my sleeve.”

“It doesn’t involve a monster truck rally, though, right?”

He laughed and tweaked my nose, making me grimace and scrunch up my face. “No, it doesn’t. I know you, Elle. Trust me, you’ll love it. If it goes to plan.”

“To plan?”

He shrugged. “It’s a surprise.”

I groaned, frowning at him. “What’s with you and surprises?” I thought for a moment. “Please tell me you’ve done something unbearably cute and set up another kissing booth so we can, like, re-create all the magic of our first kiss.”

Noah laughed again. “Huh, that would have been an idea. Now I’m feeling like you’re going to be disappointed it’s not that.”

“Can’t you just tell me what we’re doing? It sucks not knowing. I feel like an idiot. I won’t be disappointed if I know what the surprise is. Tell me? Please?”

He grinned impishly, looking startlingly like Lee for a moment. “Now, where’s the fun in that?”

“You just like teasing me like this, don’t you?” I pouted.

“Yup, pretty much.” He dipped his head to give me a quick kiss on the lips before jumping to his feet and offering a hand to help me up. I sighed, still pouting at him, but took his hand and stood up too.

“Are you going to watch the rest of the race with me, Elle?” Noah taunted.

I looked from him to the car race still going on the TV and raised my eyebrows as if to say You’re kidding me.

Noah laughed and sat back down. I sat right down next to him, snuggling up, and even though I didn’t want to watch the race, I was really, really happy.

The others weren’t gone long. When they came back, Rachel unpacked a few of her essentials (namely, a swimsuit) and the four of us headed to the beach.

After setting down my towel, I yanked off my T-shirt and stepped out of the shorts I’d put on over my red polka-dot bikini. “I’m going swimming. Anyone else?”

“Um…maybe in ten minutes,” Rachel told me with a bright smile. Her eyes darted over to Lee, and I understood immediately. Right. Alone time. Gotcha.

I didn’t bother looking at Lee or waiting for him to answer. I turned straight to Noah, who was scrolling through his phone. I pulled on his elbow. “Come on. Race you.”

He looked at me with a smirk, one dark eyebrow going up. “Race? What do I get when I win?”

“ If you win,” I corrected him pointedly. “Hmm…”

“I’m sure I’ll think of something,” he told me, winking with that cocky arrogance I used to wonder why girls swooned over—it totally worked on me now too. He dropped his phone on his towel and threw his sunglasses down.

“Three,” he said, “two—”

We both took off, kicking up sand, on “two,” like we knew the other would. I was laughing, a massive smile plastered on my face and the sea breeze tangling my hair as I ran. Feet slipping on the dry, fine sand, I felt so childish, racing him down to the water.

I loved it.

And I loved Noah. But, man, I so wanted to beat him right then.

I was pulling ahead; he was about two steps behind me when I dared to glance back at him. The sand was becoming damper and more solid—I could win this race, easy. My feet were almost at the water’s edge now too…

…until Noah breezed past and spun to face me from the water, smirking, the sea around his ankles. I stopped in my tracks at the shore, shocked at losing at the very last second.

“No fair.” I pouted.

He laughed provokingly. “I won fair and square, Shelly,” he said teasingly. “You owe me.”

I took a couple of steps, the water licking my feet. “Ah, but we never agreed on a bet.”

He scoffed, still smirking. “We both know there’s a big fat IOU with your name signed at the bottom,” he teased. “Although we also both knew you were going to lose, so it wasn’t really much of a race.”

“I nearly won.”

“Sure,” he said, in such a way that I started to wonder if he’d let me pull ahead and think I could win.

I felt a scowl tugging at my forehead, but then I smoothed my expression to give him a small, flirty smile. I stepped closer until there was only about an inch of space between us, my arms slipping round his shoulders.

I saw the tiny twitch of his eyebrow going up expectantly, waiting for me to kiss him, and that trademark arrogant smirk of his slipped onto his face again. I went up on my toes, leaning in slowly…

…then shoved him as hard as I could.

It only worked because I managed to catch him so off guard. It was still like pushing a brick wall, though—a brick wall with some seriously hot abs. His eyes widened a little and his mouth formed a tiny circle as he toppled back, off balance, caught totally unaware.

He landed with a massive splash !

The cold water soaked him completely, and I cringed, shrieking a little, as it splattered me wet and cold too.

“That,” I told him, “is for throwing me in the pool on our first night here.”

Laughing, Noah pushed himself up and shook the water from his hair.

“Sounds fair.” And he pulled me into a kiss, one that sent sparks through me, giving me that mind-blowing fireworks feeling.