Late, yes. Last chapter, yes. I'm sorry - on both occasions!

Quite seriously though, thanks to all of you for the support on The Kissing Booth (please remember to vote for it in the Watty Awards - Most Popular as well as Teen Fiction!) and for all your support on this novella too. There still won't be a sequel, so this really is where I end these characters' stories!

I will be writing something new - it may not be on Wattpad for a while but I will put something up when I have something written :) You know me - it'll be more teen fiction. Probably romance. Humour, too, if you think I can write humour ;)

Anyway. Here is the last chapter of The Beach House. Enjoy :) xx

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Chapter 15

“You kids got in pretty late,” Lee’s mom said as we all sat out by the pool eating French toast for breakfast. The sky was overcast, and we’d listened to the weather report on the radio that morning – they said there was ‘heavy rain due sometime later today’. We figured the pool was the best option, in case it started raining too badly.

            Plus, June didn’t want us going in the sea and drowning if there was a storm.

            In response to her statement now though, Lee grunted something that I think was, “Sorry,” through a mouthful, and I just shrugged.

            “So? How was it?”

            “Pretty good,” I said, shooting her a smile as I poured myself more OJ. “There was a bunch of really cool people we hung out with.”

            “Anything interesting happen?”

            My eyes flitted to Lee, and my hand stilled with the glass of orange juice almost to my lips. He’d looked at me too. Almost as soon as we made eye contact, we looked away and carried on having breakfast.

            “No,” Lee said, then swallowed. “Nothing much.”

            “Oh,” June said doubtfully, like she wasn’t sure if ‘nothing much’ had really happened, or if something had happened. She probably thought something had happened; she was just trying to decide how bad that something was, and whether it was worth pressing us to tell her more.

            Clearly, she thought she didn’t want to know, or it wasn’t worth knowing, since she said, “Anyone for more toast? I don’t know about you kids, but I’m starving!”

            “Sure,” we said simultaneously, “thanks.”

            Once she was back in the kitchen, and the clatter of her cooking French toast was loud enough for her not to overhear, Lee leaned over to me and said, “Do you think she guessed something’s up?”

            I just raised my eyebrows and gave him a look.

            “Yeah, I thought so too.” He scrunched up his mouth a little, wrinkling his nose, before chugging down some OJ.

            Last night, we hadn’t really said much about the kiss.

            Even though Noah’s room was empty, Lee and I still shared. We weren’t going to have separate rooms just because we could; it wouldn’t have felt right. But we’d both changed, and we’d both gone to bed, and we’d led in the dark. I hadn’t been able to get back to sleep for almost an hour, and I knew that Lee had been awake all that time, too. But we hadn’t said much. The occasional “Are you still awake?” was about the extent of conversation.

            But we hadn’t talked about the kiss.

            And we hadn’t mentioned it this morning, either.

            “One thing,” Lee whispered, still leaning toward me.

            “Never mention it to anyone else?”

            He nodded, his mouth curving up in a smile. “Exactly. Just, because, you know…”

            “Rachel and Noah are never gonna find out, don’t worry,” I promised, beginning to grin. Lee gave a breath of laughter.

            “It’s such a stupid thing to worry about,” he said. “’Cause, you know, no offence or anything, but it wasn’t… You know.”

            “I know.”

            “Is there enough juice out?” June appeared back in the doorway for a moment, and Lee sat back up from leaning on the table to me.

            “Unless Lee carries on drinking like a fish, then yes.”

            “Do fish actually even drink? I mean, really? It’s like saying, do fish take baths? They live in water, so how can they take a bath and clean themselves? They live in water, so how can they drink? I mean, maybe they just get their water to function from what they eat.”

            I blinked, trying to follow him. He spoke so rapidly and about such a random topic, I was barely following.

            “Um… Wait, what’s your point?”

            “That I’m not really drinking like a fish. Maybe more like a camel.”

            I rolled my eyes and shook my head. “Sorry, I didn’t know you were such an animal expert.”

            Lee laughed, and pulled a face at me. I got the impression he was making fun of me, so I poked my tongue out. We were both breathless with laughter when June brought out a fresh plate of French toast.

            And that was it. That was basically the most we ever said about the kiss.

            I figured it would probably be the kind of thing we’d tell as a funny story over Thanksgiving in years (like, a lot of years. When we were thirty or something) and everyone would laugh and it would be some random story that didn’t matter or make much difference to anybody.

            But for the next thirteen years or so, neither of us was going to say a word about it.

            I suppose it was just as well really; I already had enough on my mind, what with Noah leaving for college on the other side of America in a couple of weeks.

            He’d called me as they were picking up the hire car, and text me a couple of times, but I hadn’t spoken to him since. I wondered if he liked it there, if he loved it there, if he couldn’t wait for September. If he’d even really thought about us since he’d been there.

            I ran my fingertip around the side of my glass, leaving tracks in the condensation on it.

            “What’s up?”

            I shrugged. “Just thinking about Noah.”

            Lee rolled his eyes. “And you think I’m clingy.”

            “I never said you were – hey! I am not clingy!”

            “Mm-hmm, you tell yourself that.”

            I glared, but he grinned to let me know he was only joking, and my frown eased away, gradually becoming a smile.

That evening, June cooked up all the leftover food. There wasn’t actually that much, but there seemed to be a hell of a lot of cold drinks, salad and ice cream. It wasn’t the healthiest dinner, aside from the giant bowl of salad, but it was pretty damn awesome either way.

            We didn’t really bother to tidy up until the place sparkled; somehow, sand always seemed to get back into the house, so it seemed pointless to sweep the floors and vacuum every corner until we’d rid the house of every grain of sand. Sure, we cleaned up a little, but none of us cared too much, since we’d just have to clean everything again the next year.

            So after putting the house back in order and cleaning out as much food as we could eat at six in the evening, we started to pack our things.

            I’d always had trouble packing for the beach house.

            Always.

            But packing to leave the beach house?

            Yeah, not so much.

            When I packed up my things the night before we were due to leave, year after year, it wasn’t even remotely as hard as packing things to come to the beach house.

            Okay, okay, so I did have to sit on my suitcase and have Lee almost break the zipper trying to close my suitcase. But still – I basically just threw everything in there and the hardest part, aside from closing the thing, was finding the random lost shoes or a pair of shorts I could’ve sworn had gone in the laundry but had vanished from existence (only to turn up behind the dryer).

            And I had to admit, I hated the repacking the night before we left the beach house. It was always kind of a downer every year, but this year felt even worse than usual.

            Aside from the usual melancholy site of our bedroom without all our clutter and clothes, and the simple fact that it was our last night here for this year, I was sad because it was so lonely.

            It’d felt weird and wrong for Noah and his dad had left early. It felt the same now, knowing Noah wasn’t in the next room packing his stuff, and Matthew wasn’t helping June to collect up the random things like books and cell phone cables that were scattered around the lounge. It felt just as weird and wrong when I realized all of a sudden that next year, Noah really might not come back to the beach house.

            Lee and I were totally determined to come here every summer of our lives.

            But now, it hit me – and it hit me hard – that the others might not be coming back with us.

            And I really, really didn’t like that.

            Maybe it was just because I didn’t want things to change, because change meant growing up, and growing up was always going to be scary as hell, blah, blah, yadda, yadda. Or maybe it was just because the beach house was the one place where nothing really mattered, where we could hang out and act like five year olds and not give a damn.

            Whatever it was, it hit me all of a sudden, and it made tears well up in my eyes and a lump rise in my throat. I set down the t-shirt I was planning on wearing to travel home, and wiped the corner of my eye before a tear did leak out.

            It was a stupid thing to cry over, I guess. But I couldn’t help it. Was it really so terrible of me to want this one thing to stay with me forever?

            “I hate this,” Lee said quietly. He had his back to me, and was cramming shoes into nonexistent spaces in his suitcase. But he said it like he knew I was almost about to cry. “The leaving, I mean. I hate the leaving.”

            “Yeah…”

            “We’ll be back in a year. It’s stupid to miss it.”

            My mouth twitched up in a hint of laughter I couldn’t quite get out aloud. “Yeah, but it won’t be the same, will it? Especially if Noah doesn’t come. And we’ll be, like, off to colleges…”

            “What happened to our pact? We pinky promised to come here every year, and now you want to break that promise? Shelly, you of all people should know how tightly the pinky promise binds you.”

            I giggled. “You know what I mean.”

            “Kinda.” Then he sighed. “It sucks, huh?”

            “Definitely.”

            After a few minutes passed, Lee’s arms curled around me as he hugged me from behind. His chin was on my shoulder. After a couple of seconds, I turned around and wrapped my arms around him, burying my face in his shoulder. We stood there like that, totally silent and holding each other.

            I think Lee was just as upset as me, really, but he wasn’t going to show it. I knew him too well, though, and I knew that he hated the whole growing up/not-acting-like-five-year-olds-every-summer thing.

            But we both needed the hug.

            What is it about hugs that instantly helps you feel better? It was like the world felt a little brighter and a little warmer after a hug. And, after the hug, I didn’t feel quite so sad about the fact that this year could be the last we were all here for summers at the beach house together.

            Because yeah, things changed.

            And yeah, I still had a lot of growing up to do.

            But right then, after the hug made everything a bit brighter and warmer, all those things I was worried about – from what would happen with me and Noah to the stuff deeper down, like college – they just didn’t really matter anymore.

            I’d have to deal with those things at some point, but not right now. Not when I could still act like a five year old who didn’t have a care in the world if only for a little while longer.

            “Where are we going?” Lee asked as I started tugging him wordlessly out of the bedroom. I didn’t answer him at first though. June was in her bedroom, so she didn’t question me as I pulled Lee out through the kitchen and outside.

            “Shelly,” Lee asked again.

            “Just wait,” I said, a grin spreading so wide over my face, I probably looked like I was doing an impression of the Cheshire Cat. I kicked off my flip flops and Lee followed my lead. He was in old sweatpants and a t-shirt, and I was in some thin shorts and a tank top.

            “Ready?” I asked.

            He’d caught on by now, his toes curling over the tiling at the edge of the pool. He was beaming almost as widely as I was, and his eyes were lit up like Christmas trees. I looked back down, curling my toes back when the water from the swimming pool tickled them as it slopped against the sides of the pool. The water was freezing!

            “Ready,” he told me, winking, and grabbing my hand. I linked my fingers through his tightly.

            “Three… Two…”

            Then, at the same time, laughing and smiling like we really didn’t have a care in the world, we both yelled at the top of our lungs, “Cannonball!” and, with a huge splash, jumped in at the deep end.

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Gaah, I could not resist the somewhat cheesy ending with the big ol' metaphor... I'm sorry :L

But in all seriousness, I hope you liked this chapter and the rest of this book! If you have read this without reading TKB... Please read that, too ;) and vote for it in the Watty Awards, please!!!!

Keep your eye out for a new story! It may be a while but there will be something, I promise you! Check my tumblr, my twitter, my facebook page, my Wattpad. I'm under 'Reekles' on all of it, all the links are in my profile. I'm not that hard to find :') and I will put various updates across those social networks!!

'Kay. I think I am done.

You know what I can't believe? 1st January, I had 183 fans, a few thousand reads at best. It's the 31st December as I'm uploading and I have a book with over 8million reads and I have nearly 18,000 fans and... Wow. Just... wow. THANK YOU. HUGS FOR YOU ALL!!!! And a happy new year :P xx