Page 129 of The Kissing Booth
‘I was thinking more along the lines of I might mess up my hair.’
‘Dude,’ Dixon said to him, ‘your sidekick sucks.’
I rolled my eyes at them and went off with Cam. Lee and Noah had purchased several sets of speakers that we could hook up to the big docking station in the lounge, but they were in a closet with a tangled mess of wires.
It didn’t take too long to set them up, though, and Dixon and Lee pushed all the furniture to the edges of the lounge and the game room, and the kitchen was cleared as much as possible. There was plenty of space for a crazy house party – all we were missing was the guests.
And they arrived thick and fast, right on time.
Soon enough, the Flynn household had music pounding through it, and swarms of teenagers – no, not teenagers: more like a menagerie of movie characters.
There were Disney princesses, fairies, and Candice made an amazing zombie version of Alice in Wonderland. Her boyfriend had turned up as the Mad Hatter, à la Johnny Depp (what was it with everyone dressing up as him? I think there was an Edward Scissorhands somewhere too). Karen embraced her ginger hair and was Ginny fromHarry Potter.
There were both male and female versions of superheroes, from Spider-Man to Wonder Woman to Captain America. Warren had come as Dumbledore, a tacky beard half hanging off where he hadn’t stuck it on properly.Harry Pottercharacters seemed like the default – I’d thought we’d be swarming with 007s, not half of Hogwarts.
My favorites had to be Tyrone and Jason.
Lee and I had opened the door to Tyrone. He stood there, topless, in a pair of denim cut-offs that looked like they’d been jeans before he hacked at them with scissors. I got who he was straight away – he had the short dark hair and the dark skin to pull off the character.
‘Happy birthday for Sunday, guys,’ he smiled.
‘Thanks. But, uh, what are you meant to be? A Calvin Klein model?’ asked Lee.
‘He’s the werewolf fromTwilight,’ I told him in a ‘duh’ tone of voice.
On cue, Tyrone turned to show us the tail duct-taped to the butt of his jeans. ‘I cut it off my sister’s old stuffed dog,’ he told us.
‘Right...’
Then there was a, ‘Hey guys! Happy birthday!’ and Jason came into the porch, wearing a pale blue shirt – unbuttoned to show his jock’s abs; his light brown hair stood up straight, and he was covered in glitter.
‘Who are you, the Glitter Monster?’ Tyrone jeered at him.
‘You’re one to talk,’ Jason scoffed. ‘I mean, whatareyou?’
‘I’m a werewolf.’
‘Yeah?’ he scoffed. ‘Well, I’m a vampire.Thevampire.’
‘Dude... that costumesucks,’ Lee quipped, making the two of us crack up completely.
Tyrone and Jason had come as Edward and Jacob fromTwilight. Their costumes were pretty good matches, aside from the fact that Jason wasn’t deathly pale – although he put in a pair of plastic fangs.
It was surreal, looking around the party. Ninjas and sailors were playing pool with Count Dracula and Rocky Balboa. Mermaids and fairies were making out with firemen and GI Joes.
I hadn’t seen Noah yet, though. And believe me, if he’d been there, I’d have known.
I did feel a little left out – all the couples were making out, and then people were randomly hooking up in the party spirit.
But I was okay. I was chatting with people and laughing and joking around. A few of the girls asked me where Noah was, but everyone was too busy talking about the costumes to be that bothered about the latest couple to grace the social scene.
I did want to know where he was... But honestly? I was having so much fun, I barely gave myself time to wonder why he wasn’t here with me.
‘Doesn’t Faith look so pretty in the Grecian dress? I heard it was her grandma’s.’
‘Oh my God, have you seen that thing Tammy’s wearing? I mean, what’s she even supposed to be? A Victoria’s Secret model?’
‘Joel looks so hot in that sailor outfit, don’t you think? Oh my God – I think he just looked over here. Is he looking? Oh my God, no, don’t look! Not so obviously! Oh God, he just saw me. Quick – pretend to say something funny.’
