Page 42 of Going the Distance
Friday afternoon after school, my dad had taken Brad to a soccer tournament and wouldn’t be back until later on in the evening. Lee was going to the movies and dinner with Rachel—after checking I was cool with it first; the rest of the guys were having a guys’ night in (playing video games, eating too much pizza, and drinking a few cans of beer they’d managed to persuade someone’s dad to buy for them), and I was relishing some me time.
I’d been invited to the guys’ night in, but I said I’d give it a miss.
My “me time” involved me pasting on a thick green tea tree–oil face mask, painting my toenails and waxing my legs while lying across the couch watching an old season ofRuPaul’s Drag Racethat was being marathoned on one of the TV channels.
I had my laptop out in front of me, too, a YouTube page open with a video of some guys from school playing a Mumford & Sons cover. Actually, they weren’t too bad. One of the best I’d seen so far. I forwarded the link to Ethan with the message “/10?”
That done, I closed my laptop. I was determined to put the stress of school and colleges and even my doubts about my relationship with Noah out of my mind and relax properly for the first time in weeks.
Until the doorbell rang.
I froze. No way could I answer the door like this! My hair was scraped back. Green goop covered my whole face. There were waxing strips still on my legs (just three minutes until they came off) and I had toe dividers in to stop my nail polish smudging.
And I was in Winnie-the-Pooh pajama pants rolled up to my knees and the T-shirt of Noah’s I wore to bed.
Crap.
I figured I should probably see who it was, though, in case it was important. Or Lee. Lee had seen me like this too often to find it funny anymore. He’d join me in the face mask and pedicure fun, sometimes. If it was Levi, I got the feeling he’d take a picture to send to all the guys.
I waddled to the window, pulling back the corner of the drapes to look out and see who it was. They were mostly hidden from view, but it couldn’t be anyone other than Lee. Maybe his movie night got canceled? Maybe Rachel got sick.
I was way too happy at the thought of something happening to spoil his night with Rachel and hanging out with him for the night.
So I waddled a little farther out to the doorway, desperate not to ruin my carefully applied nail polish, and opened the door, saying, “Hey, dude, what happenedto—”
And slammed it back shut again.
A hand caught it, laughter drifting in through the crack in the door. I stumbled back a few steps as it opened, and Noah walked in, laughing, a smile splitting his face. He was in the leather jacket and big black boots I knew so well, a white T-shirt hugging his torso.
“What are you doing here?” I cried. If it weren’t for the mask all around them, I’d have rubbed my eyes. I had to be seeing things. All the fumes from the nail polish were making me hallucinate.
Because Noah couldn’t be here, inside my house. He was across the country at college.
And yet here he was, laughing at me, practically doubled over.
“It’s nice to see you, too,” he said when he managed to stop laughing.
“What are you doing here?” I repeated, too shocked to say anything else.
He grinned, the dimple in his left cheek showing. “After weeks of not seeing me,that’show you greet me? I mean, come on, Elle. Where’s theFifty Shadeslingerie? Where’s the rose petals on the floor, the candlelit dinner?”
“I—”
And then his arms were wrapped around me and his lips were on mine, and I melted. The tension, the anxiety aboutus,it all vanished. Instinctively, my arms curled around his shoulders, fingers toying with the ends of his hair. It was shorter than when he left. He tasted like coffee. His body against mine felt exactly like I remembered. He kissed just the same.
And, God, he kissed sogood.
“That,” he said, breaking the kiss but not moving away, noticeably breathless, “is how you should’ve said hello.”
I drew back, my hands still on his shoulders. “You have stuff all over your face now,” I said, running a fingertip over his cheek, just below where my face mask had smeared. It was in his stubble, too. He hadn’t shaved in a couple of days. He looked so cute like this—way more so in real life than he had on camera.
He just smiled again. “God, I missed you.”
In reply, I pulled myself up closer and kissed him.
• • •
Once I was a little more presentable—still in pajamas but without the various skincare and beauty products—we lay down facing each other on the couch in the living room, my back to the TV and my nose touching Noah’s, his arms holding me in close, and I was right where I wanted to be. The few days’ scruff that Noah hadn’t shaved off suited him, and I liked it even though it was a little itchy against my cheek and neck. His eyes were impossibly bright, and even more electric blue than I remembered, and he didn’t take them off mine for a second as we lay there withBrooklyn Nine-Nineplaying in the background.
