I know, I know, but I've genuinely been so busy I haven't had time when I'm due an upload to proof-read quickly and then find a song, etc. But better late than never!

So if you appreciate the upload, voting for my book The Kissing Booth in the Watty Awards would be much appreciated... Under the Watty Awards tab, I mean. TKB is up for Most Popular (gaaah!) and Teen Fiction. Eep!!!!!!!

I think I'm going to write a short story for Christmas. Just to bring some more festive cheer to Wattpad. :) I started a story, and will let you guys know when I'm going to post it. But for now, enjoy!!!! xx

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 11

“Mm,” Lee said, “I just remembered!”

            Except he was talking with his mouth full, so it sounded more like, “Mmmph, ah jush muh-mem-phud.” I understood what he was saying though; after seventeen years of being around Lee, I got used to listening to him tell me things with his mouth so full of food, he looked kind of like a chipmunk.

            “What?” I said – after I’d swallowed my food.

            “Well,” he said, gulping down his burrito loudly, then belching even louder. “You know this morning when we were playing volleyball? Well after you guys left to have some stupid fight, I was talking to a couple of guys. There’s a party down on the beach tomorrow night. There’s gonna be a whole bunch of people there. And alcohol, of course. But no bonfire, they said.”

            “They haven’t had a bonfire for years,” Noah said, but he sounded uninterested – or distracted. “The police caught them a few years back. Something about a safety hazard.”

            “A safety hazard right by the sea?” I said.

            He shot me a flat look, but then turned back to Lee. “So? What’s your point?”

            Lee took another impossibly huge bite of his burrito. This time, he swallowed (most of it) before he answered. “Well… My point is, there’s a party tomorrow. So me and Shelly can go.”

            “Really?” I sounded hyper, and I was. My pulse picked up and I felt my eyebrows shooting up toward my hairline. We hadn’t been to a beach party, yet. They’d always been something that Noah would disappear to one or two nights, but Lee and I had always been too young. June and Matthew (and my dad, via phone call) hadn’t let us go when Noah was going. And Noah hadn’t wanted us there.

            There was that one year, when we were fourteen, and we snuck down to the party, even after my dad and Lee’s parents had told us we WERE NOT ALLOWED TO GO. Mostly, though, we snuck down to spy on Noah. It hadn’t been very successful, though. He’d caught us trailing after him and threatened to phone his mom and tell on us.

            Childish, but it worked.

            I supposed we could’ve gone to the parties at the beach at least since last year; but it just hadn’t been something we’d thought about. The parties were considered Noah’s World. Lee and I stayed at the house playing video games and joking about, like we always did.

            Now, though, adrenaline coursed through me.

            “Really?” I squealed. “We get to go to a beach party this year? We’re going to a party?”

            “Um,” Noah interrupted. “I don’t think so.”

            “What?” Lee and I both turned on him, wide-eyed with pure confusion.

            “Do you even know what goes on at these things?” he said. My expression turned stone. Like, I practically felt my face turning to stone, freezing in place with annoyance as I glared at him. I knew where this was going – he was going to go all overprotective and jerky and then we’d have another fight, and I’d feel bad about going to the party…

            “We’re going,” I told him.

            “Elle,” he sighed, with a look on his face that I completely ignored.

            “No, she’s right,” Lee interrupted. “I’m going. And Shelly can’t not go if I go. Therefore, we are both going.” I was so tempted to make a comment like, ‘Therefore? Wow, that’s a pretty big word for you, Lee,’ but I was too interested in what he had to say. “Besides, you can’t keep track of where she’s going and what she’s doing every single day.”

            “Well, the beauty of social networking means I kind of can,” he joked.

            “Whatever. But I’ll be there. It’ll be fine. Chill. What’s the worst that can happen?”

            “She could get really drunk and try to go swimming in the sea and drown?”

            “Alright, but we’re not going to get that drunk. I’ll keep an eye on her. We’re not idiots, Noah, and you’re not the boss of her.”

            “I’m still here, you know,” I interrupted; neither of them seemed to notice I was even there anymore, though.

            “Yeah, well neither are you.”

            “I’m her best friend,” Lee snapped. “I’ll take care of her just fine.”

            “And I’m her boyfriend,” Noah retorted. The muscle in his jaw was jumping. “I’m trying to look out for her.”

            I stood up and walked off.

            That got their attention. Lee called, “Shelly!” and Noah said, “Elle…”

            But I carried on stalking away from our little evening picnic on the beach. I didn’t walk very far, only a few feet away, before I spun back around.

            “Okay,” I said. “Look, Lee and I are going to go to that party tomorrow, and neither of us are going to get very drunk because that’s just not a smart thing to do when you’re close to the sea. And I appreciate you – both of you – looking out for me, but newsflash, I don’t need either of you cataloguing my every move and babysitting me, got that?”

            It was hard to tell who looked more stunned by my outburst – Lee or Noah. I was pretty stunned myself, since I didn’t expect to rant at them like that when I’d opened my mouth.

            Lee recovered first, though. “Sorry.”

            I smiled at him, to let him know I wasn’t mad; because I wasn’t really mad at them, it just annoyed me that both of them seemed to think I was this naïve little girl who constantly needed a babysitter to take care of her. Admittedly, maybe I was naïve, in a lot of ways – I still had a lot of growing up left to do. But I wasn’t entirely stupid, and if they were going to be so damn overbearing, how was I ever going to stop being naïve?

            Because that’s what people do, they make mistakes. And sometimes, they make those mistakes because they’re naïve, and they genuinely don’t know any better. But that was all part of growing up. Making mistakes. You did something wrong, you learned from it, and the next time, you tried to do it better.

            Like, when Lee first found out I was with Noah behind his back, he flipped, which was a totally understandable reaction. But when Noah asked me to the Summer Dance, I said yes even though I knew Lee would be mad – except the second time, I made sure to tell Lee, and I didn’t keep it a secret.

            “Fine,” Noah said then, oblivious to my little internal monologue. “But just promise me you’ll be careful.”

            “I swear,” I told him with a completely straight face. That seemed to pacify him, because after a moment or two of him searching my face and his eyes boring into mine, the three of us went back to our picnic dinner of burritos on the beach, and talked about nothing in particular with smiles on our faces.

 **

“I’ll be there when you guys get back,” Noah told me, his arms tightening around me. “Time’s going to fly by.”

            It sounded kind of like he was trying to convince himself of that as well as me, so I just squeezed my hold on him tighter and rested my head against his shoulder. I heard the clunk-click sound of the trunk of the car closing as Matthew finished loading his and Noah’s luggage.

            Lee and June were still stood on the doorstep, waiting for Matthew and Noah to leave. They’d been waiting there at least ten minutes to wave him off, since they’d already said their goodbyes. And besides, we’d be home in a couple of days, and by then, Noah and his dad would be home too. It wasn’t like they’d be gone for long.

            I’d have been on the doorstep waiting with them, not really giving much thought to Noah jumping across the country for a couple of days, if things hadn’t been so different this year.

            “I bet I’ll hate it there,” he said, still trying to cheer me up, make me feel better about him leaving to look at the campus for Harvard. I knew that really, it didn’t make much different whether or not he liked the campus; this was Harvard. Even if the grass was dead and the dorms were drafty, the university was too good an opportunity for him to pass up.

            “I doubt it,” I mumbled into his shirt.

            “Oh, come on. A bunch of preppy guys in sweater vests and tweed? Not my kind of crowd.”

            I laughed at his attempt at humor, but it felt fake and I had a good feeling it sounded fake. So I tried to smile instead, but it felt a bit more like a grimace.

            “Shut up,” I told him. “You’ll love it there.”

            “Sure. I’ll just love being surrounded by a bunch of do-gooders.”

            I leaned away just far enough to swat at his chest, this time the smile on my face genuine, if only a small one. “Yeah, yeah. Because you’re so ruthless and villainous, now, aren’t you?”

            “Love does wonders to hurt a guy’s rep, huh?” He gave me a kiss on the forehead for what must been the billionth time that morning.

            If things hadn’t been so different this year, if I hadn’t been dating Noah, I wouldn’t care much that he was going away for a few days. And it wasn’t even so much that he was leaving for a few days. I could handle spending a little while without my boyfriend; that wasn’t the problem.

            The thing was, it was all so wrong. Even though Rachel had been here this summer, even though I was dating Noah this summer, the fact that Noah and his dad were leaving us early was just not right.

            Summers at the beach house were supposed to be all of us together, spending a while without worrying about our lives back home, just having fun. Summers at the beach house weren’t supposed to be cut short by trips to college campuses. It just felt so wrong, too grown up.

            And that was another part of the problem: Noah and I had mostly put off talking about him going to college. We both knew it was coming, and we both knew we’d have to really think about it and talk about it at some point, but now he was actually going to see the campus, it felt so much more real. Like, the expiration date on our relationship suddenly seemed at the forefront of my mind. He was actually going, actually doing this.

            My gut twisted. There was a lump in the back of my throat. I had that prickly feeling behind my eyes like you get when you’re about to cry. My palms got all clammy. My breath shuddered when I exhaled.

            If this was what I felt like just to think of him really leaving for college, how was I ever going to cope when the time came for him to go for real?

            Almost as though he was able to read my thoughts as well as Lee for once, Noah smoothed my hair back off my face, and left his hand lingering on my face, his thumb stroking my cheek lightly. His electric blue eyes bored into mine with a look so intense and unfathomable I could only stare back and wonder what he was thinking.

            “Be careful at this party, okay?” he murmured.

            I nodded. “Don’t worry about me.”

            “I do. A lot. You’re the kind of person who needs to be worried about. Especially being so clumsy as you are.”

            I laughed, and when I met his eyes again, the corner of his mouth twitched up in a smile. “I’ll be careful, don’t worry.”

            “Good.” He kissed my forehead again.

            “Have fun in Massachusetts.”

            “Mm,” he said skeptically, but smiled. “I’ll try.”

            Then, he gave me a kiss on the lips. But I think we were both hyper-aware of the fact that both his parents and his brother were waiting for us to finish up saying goodbye so he could go, and watching us, so it was only a brief kiss. But it was still enough of a kiss to send the thrill of fireworks through me.

            I scuttled back up to the porch then, where Lee and his mom were waiting, before I ended up spending another few melancholy moments standing with Noah saying goodbye.

            I’d always thought it was kind of pathetic how couples took forever to say goodbye – and then started the whole thing over again. It seemed like some big, sappy, over exaggerated thing that even the hopeless romantic in me didn’t really appreciate too much. But now it was happening to me, I understood. You did it because you wanted to delay them leaving you as long as possible. You did it to try and stall the future. Buy a few more seconds with them.

            As soon as I stepped foot on the porch, Lee grabbed my hand and squeezed it hard. I wasn’t crying, but he seemed to know how heavy my heart felt without the need for tears pouring down my face. I glanced sideways at him, catching his eye and giving him a small, grateful smile. Ii was good to know – like, really know, that whatever happened, I always had Lee.

            And I just hoped that whatever Noah and I decided to do when he left for college, I’d have Lee there with me.

            “Call me when you get there!” June yelled after them as her husband reversed off the sand-covered driveway. He held up a hand – a gesture that said, ‘Yeah, sure thing!’ but the look on his face was one that said, ‘I didn’t hear you, but whatever!’

            Once we couldn’t hear the car engine moving away from the beach house around the bend of the street that led toward the highway, June let out a sigh and went back inside. Lee let go of my hand.

            “Forget about you,” my best friend said in mock-horror, “how am I going to cope when he goes off to college and leaves you behind?”

            His expression, which was bug-eyed and aghast, made me laugh a little. “I won’t be all heartbroken and depressed, don’t worry. Besides, we have a party to go to tonight!”

            “Yeah!” His hand went up for a high five – and then he dropped his arm just before I could slap my hand against his. “Aw, man! Shelly, please tell me this doesn’t mean I have to take you shopping!”

            “Well…”

            “Aw!” he groaned, and kicked his foot at the creaky floor of the porch. “Do we have to go?”

            This time, I laughed a lot louder. “No, I was joking! I’ll just wear some shorts or something, I guess. We don’t have to go shopping.”

            “Thank God! I get enough of it at home. This is the beach house. It’s for skinny dipping, not buying lots of clothes. Or, I guess, in your case it’d be chunky dunking.”

            “Hey!”

            He laughed, grinning impishly. “See, I’ve already brightened you up, my heartbroken little friend.”

            “I’m not heartbroken.”

            “Not yet, because you’re in denial.”

            “What?” I laughed. “I’m not in denial, and I’m not heartbroken. I’ll see him in a couple of days, there’s nothing to be heartbroken over right now.”

            He gave me a skeptical look.

            Then, “Let’s go swimming.”

 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Vote, comment, and please fan me, too :)

Also, a reminder that TKB is in the Watty Awards... ;)

I really hope you guys are all enjoying this novella :) I mean, there isn't much left of it now. I wrote it for fun because these characters and Elle's story was too much fun to give up on just yet. I just hope you guys like it as much as I do :)

I will try to upload Sunday! Fingers crossed I will have time then! Facebook in the external link xx