Look! It's me again! I'm baaaaackkkk!

So hi there everyone! I've got lots of lovely new fans since my last upload - hello! - and welcome back to those of you who've been with me for a long time! So this is the novella to The Kissing Booth I promised you all! And it's not entirely edited or anything so far, but I hope it's good enough!

Warning: This story is a novella (but not a sequel) to my book, The Kissing Booth. It will contain some spoilers, but if you don't mind and want to read this anyway, then I've tried to explain some things so you're not too confused, but I couldn't explain everything. I recommend you read The Kissing Booth first, but I don't suppose it's entirely necessary.

Right! On with the show! xx

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Chapter 1

I always had trouble packing for the beach house.

Always.

It never used to be so bad when my mom was packing for me, and I was a little girl who didn’t really know what I needed to pack. But the past few years, when I packed for myself… It was like a nightmare.

I would pack. And then upturn my case and start again.

Mid-morning on Wednesday, the day before we left, Dad came in to my room with a glass of soda for me.

“It looks like a bomb’s gone off in here,” he said, laughing.

“I hate packing.”

“Don’t forget to take after-sun.”

“Okay, okay, okay!” I said, huffing. No way was I going to forget that after last year; I’d burnt the top of my legs so bad, it had been painful to sit down.

In the end, I packed the same as always: plenty of swimwear and flip-flops and sunhats, some shorts and t-shirts, and I ended up throwing in a yellow sundress that the girls had convinced me to buy on our girls’ day out shopping. Just in case.

Actually, part of the reason I had so much more trouble packing this year was because I had a boyfriend, and he’d be there with us. Which meant that we might end up going on a date, especially since we weren’t sneaking around anymore…

I smiled at that. No more sneaking around. No more hiding it from my best friend. We were officially dating.

Much as it made me smile, it did make me want to yank at my hair in frustration. My case wasn’t that big anyway, which didn’t usually matter since I didn’t need to take too much to the beach house. But what if I did need to dress nicer to go out places with Noah? Now we were dating and he wasn’t just my best friend’s older brother, wasn’t there some kind of rule that meant you couldn’t slouch around in threadbare pajama shorts and a shapeless tank top around your boyfriend?

I picked up the pajamas I’d worn for the past few months.

Definitely not the kind you want your boyfriend to see you in…

I sighed, and said to myself, “To hell with it,” and threw them in my case.

My bedroom door opened. “To hell with what?”

“Hi, Lee,” I greeted him, not even having to turn around to know Lee, my best friend since forever, was standing in my doorway.

“What did you do in here, blow up your closet?”

“Yeah. We had a fight. I think it wants to file for divorce.”

He laughed, and I heard the sound of him dropping clothes onto the floor from my bed, and as I turned around to tell him to be careful and not crease my stuff, he dropped face first onto my bed.

“What were you grumbling to yourself about?” he asked.

“Nothing, just…” He raised an eyebrow, giving me that skeptical look that told me he knew exactly what was up but just wanted to hear me say it.

“Bikini not skimpy enough for my brother?”

I threw a tank top at him. “No, it’s not that.”

“Then what? Oh, man, no, don’t tell me you’re gonna make me go shopping for lingerie or something? Please, Shelly, anything but that! Tampons, I can do, but not – not lingerie!”

I laughed. “No that either. You know my pajamas?”

“Oh, that’s all you’re worried about?” Lee laughed. He rolled on my bed and leaned over the edge to look into my case. “They’re fine, don’t worry! You’ll look fine whatever you’re wearing.”

I smiled at Lee. No matter what it was that was getting me down, he could always brighten me back up in an instant.

“How long have you been packing now anyway?” he asked. “Eighteen hours?”

I wavered. “Eight.”

My best friend gave me a long, flat look, and then we both burst out laughing.

“I’m going to take a wild guess and say that you” – I pointed an accusing finger at him – “haven’t even started packing yet.”

“You,” he told me, pointing a finger back at me, “would be totally right.”

It didn’t even surprise me in the slightest. Every year, Lee never packed until the evening before we left. He didn’t really care if he forgot something. He was just that kind of person. And it didn’t surprise him that I’d been packing for eight hours and still wasn’t done. We were like this every year.

Lee cleared his throat and picked up my pillow, tweaking at the pillowcase.

“So… I told you Rachel’s coming, right?”

Only about a billion times…

It was like he was worried I’d act like a five year old and throw a tantrum, tell him he couldn’t change things this year and bring his girlfriend!

In a way, yeah, I wanted to tell him that I didn’t want Rachel there. I wanted it to be the same as it always was and always had been.

But how selfish would that be?

For one thing, I was dating Noah now, his older brother. He was coming with us anyway but now, I could hardly tell Lee I didn’t want him to bring his girlfriend along when I’d have my boyfriend there. That was beyond selfish.

Besides, even if I wasn’t with Noah, things were always going to be different this year anyway.

Noah couldn’t stay the whole time. He’d gone to check out a couple of college campuses already, like San Diego, but he was leaving two days earlier than the rest of us with his Dad to check out Harvard campus. They were flying to Massachusetts while we stayed at the beach house, and they were supposed to be back the same day as us.

I hated that things had to change. Growing up, I’d always thought that we’d always have the beach house. That no matter what, every summer we’d go to the beach house.

Despite growing apart as we all grew up, the three of us – Noah, Lee, and me – we were always together at the beach house. For just a couple of days, we could all act like kids and we could all hang out. Even when we got older, and Noah drifted away from us to go to parties on the beach in the night or to go make out with random girls who fawned over him, he’d still come back to hang out with us. Because there, with the sea and the sand and nobody else around, none of us cared what anybody thought. It was like summer at the beach house meant everything was different, but different in the best kind of way.

Except this year… things were going to be different, and not in a good way.

I blinked, looking at Lee, pulling myself out of my thoughts.

“Yeah, you might’ve mentioned it a couple of times,” I answered him. “When did you say she’s coming down?”

“Monday,” he told me. “And her family is getting her on Thursday afternoon, on their way to visit some relatives.”

“Okay.” I nodded, and picked up a pair of pants from the floor, folding them up.

“Elle, are you sure you’re okay about –”

“Yes,” I told him, laughing to reinforce my words. “Yes, I’m okay about it, Lee, for the billionth time already! Besides, it’ll be nice to have some female company other than your mom for a change. You know, there’s only so much of you I can handle, you know.”

“I did catch on to that,” he said with a smirk. “Given how little time we’ve spent together over the past few years.”

Both of us laughed, and I grinned at Lee.

“Go on, get your butt back home and start packing!” I told him, shoving him off my bed. “Oh, no, wait a second!” I lunged for my bag of toiletries, pulling out a small travel-sized bottle and thrusting it at him.

“What’s that?”

“Do you think I’m going to need volumizing shampoo?”

“No.”

I put it back into my bag of toiletries, and knew that Lee was rolling his eyes at me; but the thought just made me smile and want to laugh.

***

Half past six the next morning, I was at the top of the staircase, ready to haul my suitcase down to the front door just as a knock sounded on the door and Lee opened it, stepping inside.

“Whoa, watch it!” he exclaimed, and was suddenly leaping up the stairs to take the case from me before I got past the third step. I’d been gripping the banister hard to keep myself from toppling over.

When Lee reached the bottom, he turned to me to say, “What the hell did you pack in there, anyway? A hippo?”

“It’s a zebra, actually.”

“Right. Of course it is. I’m sorry, I should’ve known.”

I laughed and heard movement from behind, near the kitchen. Lee looked past me and I turned to see my dad standing there in his pajamas and old burgundy robe, his glasses sat a little askew on his face and too far down his nose. He pushed them back up.

“You kids ready to set off, then?”

“Yup,” the two of us answered in unison.

“You know the drill: no mad parties drinking tequila, don’t swim out too far, be nice to the other kids…” He was smiling though.

“We know,” we chorused.

Dad laughed tiredly, but it broke off with a yawn. I knew he’d already had a cup of coffee but it hadn’t helped much. I’d had two. It was a miracle I was awake. Last year I’d ended up sleeping in late.

“I know, I know, same parental spiel as every year, right? Come on then, Elle, let’s have a hug before you go.”

I went over and gave my dad a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

“Be careful.”

I rolled my eyes. What did he think I was going to do, see if I could beat up a shark and live to tell the tale? Honestly…

“You know what I mean, Elle.”

Did I?

I heard Lee cough back by the door, and Dad shifted from foot to foot, crossing his arms. He clenched his jaw briefly, looking uncomfortable, then said, “With Noah.”

Somehow, I managed to keep my cheeks from flaming. So instead I sighed and rolled my eyes elaborately.

On the bright side, Lee didn’t make any ‘humorous’ comments.

It was bad enough that he’d bought me a pack of condoms for our birthday (we were that much like twins, we were even born on the same day), which he’d given me in front of not only his parents and Noah, or my ten year old brother, but my dad too.

You can just imagine how much it had made me laugh. Ha-ha-ha.

I said, “I’ll be fine, Dad, stop worrying. I’ll call you when we get there.”

“Alright, bud.” He smiled and for a second, he looked more like a forty-eight year old man than he usually did. But it was only for a moment, and by then I’d already started to go back to the front door. Lee picked up my suitcase before I had the chance to.

“Lee?”

He half-turned back to my dad. “Yeah?”

“Look after my little girl.”

It wasn’t Dad I was looking at though, it was my best friend. And he was looking back at me with a soft, friendly smile on his face. His blue eyes were warm and familiar, and the freckles spattered across his nose were embedded in my memory as they had been for over a decade. I had the urge to hug him, I don’t know why. I just wanted to hug him tight and be glad that whatever else went on, however much things changed with me getting boyfriends and growing up, I always had Lee.

A small part of me, a voice that sounded oddly like Lee’s in my mind, told me to stop being so cheesy.

“Don’t worry,” he said, watching me, and I could tell his thoughts were on the same wavelength as mine. “I will.”

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Okay, so what did you all think? :) I hope you liked it! It was fun to write, at least...

Word of warning: I will not be uploading this as often because I am busy and I also don't know when I'll have something else to post. I will upload maybe once every five days, once a week? Please be patient with me :)

Vote if you want more, comment with what you thought, everyone!  Facebook in the external link, and don't forget you can find me on Twitter @Reekles now, too!

Until next time!! :) xx