Page 18 of The Beach House
“Hmm, maybe. But not when it’s you. When it’s you, it’s just cute.”
Suddenly his lips were pressed against mine, finding their target this time, and I curled my arms round his shoulders, trying to draw him closer. Noah’s arms went round me too, pulling me into him, until we were lying on our sides facing each other, our legs tangled up of their own accord.
“Your feet are freezing,” he commented.
“Maybe your feet are abnormally warm.”
“No, it’s just you.”
I laughed again, trying not to be too loud. Then, in that ominous tone that told me he actually wanted to talk about something serious, he said, “Elle.”
I had a feeling I knew what this was going to be about. I half hoped I was right, because we really did need to talk about it, to try to sort something out, but the rest of me wanted it to be something else, because there were so many things he might say that would break my heart.
“What?” I whispered back eventually.
“What…whatarewe gonna do? When I go to college?”
He was waiting for me to answer him now. Even though it was dark enough that he probably couldn’t really see my expression, I composed my face. I shrugged in his embrace. “I don’t know. I don’t want you to—” I bit my tongue momentarily. “I’m going to miss you.”
“I’m going to miss you too. But we should talk about what we’re going to do when summer’s over.”
Now was my chance—to say that we could at leasttrylong distance, that we shouldn’t call it off after summer just in case things didn’t work out, kind of like his mom had said to me. But I was so afraid that he might not want to, that it might spoil the rest of the time we did have.
But before I’d made up my mind about what I should say, my mouth was already blurting out, “We could try long distance. We could at least give it a shot.”
I stopped talking before I said something really stupid, likeUnless you’d rather break up.Luckily for me, Noah didn’t seem to notice that my mind was freaking out more than a little bit.
“That’s really what you want?” he asked.
“Yeah. I mean, is…isn’t it what you want too?”
Great work, Elle. Now he’s going to say no, it’s not what he wants, and the rest of the summer will be ruined. Good job.
“Of course it is! But—I mean, I feel like I’m being selfish, if that’s not what you want. You’ll be waiting around for me to come back for Thanksgiving and Christmas break. It’s not fair to you that I’m all the way across the country in Massachusetts. That feels like a huge commitment, and I don’t want to ask you to do that if you’re…not…like, if you don’t…”
My heart skipped a beat.
He was more worried about me waiting for him to come back home than the fact he might meet someone who was prettier, smarter, all-around better than me? He was worried thatIwas the one who wouldn’t want to give a long-distance relationship a fair shot?
“What I don’t want,” I said, propping myself up on my elbows and giving him a stern look he probably couldn’t see, “is to just break up and make things easy. Hell, Noah. When have we ever made things easy for ourselves?”
I could just about make out his smile. “So…”
“You know,Iwas the one thinkingyouwouldn’t want to do long distance,” I groaned, pressing my head into the crook of his neck. “I think we should get better at talking to each other.”
“Talking is going to be pretty important when I’m on the other side of the country,” Noah agreed. His voice had taken on a low, husky quality, and he pulled me closer, his lips finding my neck. “But I can think of something pretty important for right now.”
“That so?” I teased.
Noah flipped us round so he was leaning over me, and I guessed it didn’t matter how old my pajamas were when Noah was busy running a hand under my tank top, the two of us moving slowly, quietly, whispering in the dark, glad to finally have some time alone.
Chapter 7
The next day we ventured out to a more public part of the beach, and the boys joined in a game of volleyball that Rachel and I decided to sit out. Volleyball had never been my sport, but it really wasn’t so bad when you were sitting on the side, watching. Especially when Noah looked even sexier than usual, what with the thin film of sweat on his broad shoulders, his dark hair flopping in his eyes, his abs…
He happened to glance over when I was staring at him through my gas-station sunglasses (which weren’t dark enough to hide the fact that I was checking him out). He winked.
“Oh my gosh, did you see that?” some girl squealed all of a sudden from behind me. “He totally just winked at me, right? I mean, that was so obvious, right? Hetotallywinked at me.”
