Page 33 of Kiss the Girl
A text chimed on my phone, and I checked it and snorted. “Hey, did you see this text from Brooke?”
“No. Do I need to?”
“She can’t make it tonight after all.”
“Did she say why?”
“Nope. She didn’t even have the decency to think of a pretend excuse.”
A baking sheet clattered on the stove top, then Noah walked back into the living room. “It’s night-night, Evie,” he said, leaning down to scoop her up. She held her arms up without objection. “And don’t worry,” he said to me over her head as he straightened. “This is still not a date.”
“What’s a date, Noah?” Evie asked.
“Not this,” he said, and whisked her down the hall. “Help yourself to some food,” he called over his shoulder as he went. “It’ll be a few minutes.”
I responded to Brooke’s group text.
Grace:You’re the worst and you’re not fooling anyone.
I heard Noah laugh from the end of the hall as Brooke responded with a halo emoji.
Yeah, right.
I investigated the kitchen, which led me to some potato skins and a condiment bar of crumbled bacon, chopped green onions, and bleu cheese dressing for dipping. There was also a heaping bowl of popcorn. That more than covered the savory, but I didn’t see anything to cover the sweet. Which was fine. He was playing to his strengths, obviously, because the baked potato skins looked good.
I served myself two with some topping and dip, then went back to the sofa, surfing the channels while I waited for Noah.
He was back in ten minutes. “How was everything?” he asked, eyeing my empty plate.
“Delicious.”
“I told you I was good at popcorn.”
“I didn’t try it. The potato skins covered the savory.”
He rolled his eyes. “Hang on.” He was back in a minute with the popcorn. “Try a bite.”
I did to be polite. “Oh,” I said, as the sweetness hit my tongue. “Kettle corn.”
“Uh huh. Popped in coconut oil for extra sweetness.”
“Awesome.” I took another handful and munched. “What are we playing?”
“A movie,” he said. “That’s why I popped popcorn.”
“The Bob one?”
“Definitely the Bob one. Friends don’t neglect friends’ cultural educations.” He pulled up the movie and we settled in to watch.
Maybe it should have felt weird to suddenly be alone with him without Brooke as a buffer. But it wasn’t. I curled up in the corner of the sectional and he stretched out on his end, his feet up on the coffee table.
“You were right about this movie,” I conceded a half hour in when I’d laughed for at least the tenth time.
“It’s good, right?” He sounded smug, so I gave a lazy kick in his direction that failed to connect.
“It’s good.”
We watched the rest of it, but when it got to the escalating absurdity of the last fifteen minutes, I didn’t hear an answering laugh from Noah, and I glanced over to see that he’d fallen asleep. Within a couple of minutes, he was snoring softly. So softly that it was kind of cute.
