What if living together made it all too much, for both of us?
What if we couldn’t even make it through thissummer? Being away from each other had driven a wedge between Noah and me before Thanksgiving, to the point where I’d broken up with him. What was to say that being so on top of each other all the time wouldn’t do the exact same thing?
Come on, Elle, you’re getting carried away. Chill out.
I did my best to shake it off and looked at Noah again, admiring the sunshine highlighting his cheekbones, the stubble lining his jaw, the striking bright blue of his eyes. He caught me staring, and his lips stretched into a grin, flashing the dimple on his left cheek.
“The best summer ever,” he repeated, picking up my hand to kiss it.
Chapter Eleven
It didn’t take us long to settle into the beach house, leaving pure chaos in our wake where just a couple of days before, we’d left everything so wonderfully neat and tidy.
So much for clearing the place out,I thought wryly.
After dumping our bags (and promptly wrecking the place), the four of us headed to the nearest Target.
“Don’t you think this is a little too much food?” Rachel asked, inspecting the overflowing cart as we got to the checkout.
“Have you seen these guys eat? Lee will eat that entire box of doughnuts in five minutes.”
“Please,” Noah scoffed. “I could do it in four.”
“Yeah?” Lee jabbed a finger in my direction. “Shelly could do it in three. That girl caneat.Rach, believe me, we’ll be back here in a couple of days having to do this all again.”
It was probably aslightexaggeration. Maybe in, like, four days.
Rachel placed herself in charge of putting away groceries. Lee was blowing up a pool raft outside—where she could keep an eye on him and stop him from digging into the snacks before she could even get them out of the grocery bags. Noah had set up some speakers, and a playlist began blasting through the entire house.
Meanwhile, I had taken myself and my suitcase down the hallway, past the wall of photos, to…Noah’s room. Well, I guessed it wasourroom now. Lee and Rachel were taking his parents’ room, since ours only had two single beds in it. They’d get their own bathroom that way, too, we’d figured. It made sense.
But it was still weird as hell to be unpacking my things into Noah’s room, not mine and Lee’s.
When Noah came back into the bedroom, his task done, he looked at me strangely. His eyebrows began to knit together, and his lower lip stuck out like he was deciding whether to say something.
“What?”
“It’s just…that’s my side of the bed.”
I looked back at the bedside cabinet I was filling up, frowning. “No, it’s not.”
“Uh, yeah, it is.”
I stepped back, scrutinizing the bed and comparing it to his back home. Huh. I guessed he was right. It was his side, but—
“But I don’t like to sleep by the window.”
His mouth worked like he was debating arguing over it, but he shrugged. “Sure.”
“Well, I…I can move, if—”
“No, no, it’s cool. You take that side.”
“You sure?”
He’d better be sure.
“Yeah.” He smiled at me. “Definitely.”
