Page 7 of The Beach House
Lee’s stomach growled.
“Shelly, are you coming or what?”
Do I have a choice?
“Sure. Sorry.” I forced a smile for him, but I knew he didn’t believe it for a second.
We went outside, where Noah and his parents were just sitting down. Plates were loaded with food. I was half expecting the table to collapse under the weight of it all.
“I hope you kids are hungry,” June said.
Lee’s stomach growled again in answer to his mom, and we all laughed. Lee and I sat down in our usual seats. And of course, my usual seat was between Noah and Lee—so they wouldn’t fight at the table, June had always said. I’d never had a problem with it, even when they were arguing across me.
Never had a problem with it until now, anyway. Because now, I felt kind of claustrophobic, sitting between my best friend and my boyfriend.
If anyone else felt as irrationally paranoid as I did, they didn’t show it. The boys were stuffing their faces on either side of me, and June and Matthew were discussing plans to visit an art gallery the next day. Noah must have noticed something was up, though, because he nudged my knee with his, catching my eye to give me a reassuring smile. I breathed a small sigh of relief, wanting to laugh at myself for being such a complete idiot, and dug into my food.
Once I did, the atmosphere was just as relaxed as it always had been, and I was glad that at least something was unchanged this year. Soon enough, I’d forgotten why I’d even been so worried in the first place.
“So, Rachel’s getting here at—”
“Don’t talk with your mouth full, Lee.”
He swallowed hard. “So Rachel’s getting here at one o’clock on Monday.”
“We know,” Noah said irritably. “You haven’t shut up about it since Mom said she could come down for a few days.”
“That’s because he’s inlove,” I said teasingly, bumping my shoulder into Lee’s and grinning at him.
“Have you kids got anything planned for tomorrow, then?” Matthew asked us, and I got the feeling he was trying to change the subject.
“Beach,” Lee said.
“Sunbathing,” I said. Then I added, “And Noah’s going to stomp around destroying kids’ sand castles again….”
“What?” June exclaimed, like she wasn’t sure whether to be shocked or to laugh.
“That,” Noah said, poking me in the ribs, “was an accident.”
I gave him a skeptical look, trying to keep my face straight. “Sure.”
“I didnotdo it on purpose,” he said, enunciating every word. “Besides, he shouldn’t have been building a sand castle with a giant moat round it anyway.”
“He fell in the moat,” Lee told his parents, snickering at the memory of Noah face-planting into the poor kid’s sand castle and completely wrecking all his hard work.
“But when you were gonna help him build it back up?” I said, a grin slipping onto my face. “That was cute. Reallycute.”
I had a flashback of Noah trying to mash handfuls of damp sand together to pacify the little kid whose castle he’d just flattened. The boy had thrown a tantrum and run off to get his mommy. Noah ran in the opposite direction, back to us, while we howled with laughter at the sight of Noah Flynn, school badass, running scared. Lee had pointed out that six-year-olds with angry moms in tow are pretty damn scary, which I didn’t argue with.
But still. It was cute that he’d tried to fix the sand castle.
“I’m sorry,” Noah said. “What was it?”
“Absolutely, insanelycute.”
“Right, that’s it!”
Next thing I knew, Noah had shot out of his seat, grabbed me round the waist, and tossed me over his shoulder. I shouted, but I was laughing too hard to wriggle out of his grip. He started marching away from the table.
