Page 46 of Going the Distance
Chapter 12
I slept better that night than I had in weeks. When I woke up the next morning, sometime after ten, Noah was sat up, awake, watching YouTube videos, and I was snuggled into his side.
It was a good way to wake up.
“Morning, sleepyhead,” he said, dipping his head toward mine as I went to kiss him. He tasted like toothpaste, so I guessed he’d already gotten out of bed, and I probably had morning breath, but neither of us really cared. I smiled against his lips.
“I’ve missed you—” I told him, then broke off to yawn. “I missedthis.”
“Watching videos in bed first thing on a Saturday?” he joked.
“Waking up with you.”
His smile stretched wider, and so did mine. Noah paused the video and set his phone aside, rolling on top of me and holding his weight on his elbows. I slipped my arms up his toned chest and over his muscular arms, pulling myself closer against him and pressing my lips to his. Whenever we kissed, it filled me with the same euphoria it had the first time.
Why did I ever doubt this relationship? I must’ve been crazy. I’d thought I’d missed Noah a lot over the last few weeks, but now that I was here with him, I realized just how lonely I’d been without him. There wasnothingwrong between us. We weren’t just good—we wereperfect.We’d just needed some time together, that was all.
The rest of the morning was lazy, cozy, and completely idyllic.
At some point, I worked up the courage to ask him about the dance.
“Noah…”
“Yeah?”
I gulped, wet my lips. My mouth had turned dry. “It’s…There’s a dance soon. At school. The Sadie Hawkins dance. And I was wondering if you’d come home for the weekend to go with me?”
Noah sighed, looking away from me. My stomach sank; he didn’t need to answer me. The sigh was answer enough.
This was exactly why I’d been avoiding asking him. Because I’d been dreading this reaction.
“I would,” he told me, voice full of apology. “You know I would, Elle. But this weekend was a one-off. I can’t keep coming back here, especially for a high school dance. It’s too much time out of studying, and football, and it’s not exactly cheap to keep flying back and forth.”
“But…” I took a breath and sat up slightly. “I really want to go to the dance with you. And I hate going so long without seeing you. It’s hard, you know?”
“I know,” he said, scowling. “It’s hard for me, too. I miss you. But I can’t just come back every time you guys have some dance, or a party, or whatever. And Sadie Hawkins—it’s in November, right? I’ll be coming back just after that for Thanksgiving.”
I was about to argue again but bit my tongue and sank back onto the bed beside him. Both of us were stiff, the silence awkward, bordering on tense. It was just a dance, I tried to tell myself. It was no big deal. It made a lot of sense why Noah wouldn’t come home for it.
But was it so bad of me to want to spend more time with him, or go to a dance with him?
Noah leaned over to kiss my temple, arm wrapping around me. “Maybe I’ll be home around the Summer Dance.”
It was a peace offering and I took it, nodding and turning to kiss him again. Even if all I wanted to do was wriggle out of his arms and pull on a hoodie to hide my face in, his rejection sitting like a stone in the pit of my stomach.
• • •
Lunchtime, we headed downstairs for something to eat, and Lee was in the kitchen making a sandwich.
“Hey,” he said. “Did you know he was coming home this weekend?”
“No.”
“I’m right here, you know,” Noah said.
“Did you hear something, Shelly?” Lee looked around melodramatically, and I bit back a laugh.
“Just the wind. I think your mom left a window open.”
