Maybe I’d been wrong earlier. It wasn’t that I’d rushed into the choice between colleges or didn’t think it through, and it wasn’t that I’d been too eager to suggest the bucket list. Maybe this was allexactlyhow it should be. Maybe everything was working out perfectly.
I felt weightless. Exhilarated. Exactly like I’d felt when I launched myself into the air from the cliffs a few hours ago. Everythingwasworking out perfectly. And I would make sure it stayed that way.
Chapter Thirteen
Noah caught me doing Wonder Woman poses in the bathroom later that evening.
“What are you doing?” he asked, a smirk creeping onto his face to find me standing there in my pajamas, legs planted shoulder width apart, hands firmly on my hips, shoulders back, chin up, and, to top it off, a confident “you got this” stare at my reflection.
I kept the pose but broke into a smile and caught his eye in the mirror. “I’m power-posing.”
“Riiiiiiight…”
“Amanda told me about it,” I said, twisting now to face him. “She sent me all these videos on Instagram about it. She said she was going through, like, a phase or something, so I thought I’d try it. See, you do this”—I demonstrated for him, re-creating the pose with deliberate actions—“and it makes you feel like your best self, like you could take on anything.”
Noah raised an eyebrow at me. His lips pressed into a thin line and a muscle jumped in his jaw—but not because he was annoyed; he was trying not tolaugh.
“I’m serious!” I said. I grabbed each of his hands in turn and placed them on his hips, then used my feet to nudge his legs apart. I pressed on his shoulders and tilted his chin up. “Noah Flynn,tell meyou do not feel more confident.”
Once I stepped back to admire the effect and prove my point, I immediately cracked up. The sight of my tall, broad-shouldered boyfriend, with his shirt off, showing a set of defined abs (although, admittedly, rather less well-defined since his freshman year of college) and his muscled arms…
Yeah, it was pretty hilarious.
“You’re right,” he told me, deadly serious. “I am a confident, independent young woman who got into Harvard. I’m basically Legally Blonde.”
I laughed, swatting at his arm as he dropped the pose. “Hernamewas Elle Woods, which I know you know, because your momlovesthat movie, so don’t pretend you don’t.”
“Guilty.” He held up his hands and then leaned in the doorway, crossing his arms. “You looked totally confident, for the record. Especially in that Mickey Mouse shirt I’m pretty sure you’ve had since you were, like, thirteen.”
He probably wasn’t wrong. It used to be a nightie, once upon a time.
“So why are you power-posing in the bathroom mirror?”
“Because Icantake on anything. I mean, I got ajobtoday. An actual job. Do you know how many jobs I applied for last year? And then I just walk into Dunes and, bam, May gives me one, just like that. This ismy summer.I mean—it’soursummer. Plus, you know, the whole ‘getting into Harvard, making my dad proud’ thing. It just feels like everything’s coming together, you know?”
Noah wasn’t an easy guy to read, but I liked to think I knew him better than most people, and I got the distinct impression that he was doing his best not to tell me that May only gave me the job because she liked me or felt bad for me or something.
“You’re right,” he told me instead after a moment, his voice soft. “Everything’s coming together.”
Noah straightened up from the doorway to pull me into his arms. I loved the way his arms wrapped around me, the way he smelled—always like that citrus bodywash he used. My heart fluttered and I was already moving onto my tiptoes to kiss him, my lips finding his so easily.
The first time we kissed, Noah had sent me spinning. The second time we’d kissed, back at his house in the kitchen, it had been clumsy and awkward and our teeth had knocked together. The first time we had sex, it was fumbling and eager and sweet.
There was a familiarity to being with Noah now. I knew the feel of his arms around me, of his tongue running across my lower lip, of his skin against mine. He knew the spot on my neck that made me melt, and the one that tickled and made me squirm and giggle. I knew he liked it when I stood behind him and hooked my arms around him, because he secretly kinda liked being the little spoon sometimes; he thought it was funny and cute.
There was a familiarity to it, but my pulse still raced and the rest of the world still disappeared around us, just like that first time we kissed.
We stumbled out of the bathroom, back toward the bed, tangled up in each other and barely even breaking apart long enough to catch our breath.
I wouldneverget tired of this, I thought.
I would never get tired of lying snuggled into his side either. My head nestled into the crook of his neck, my hand tracing patterns on his chest. Noah’s fingers dragged slowly through my hair.
“This is nice,” I told him. It was only day two of our summer at the beach house, but: “I could do this all summer. Or longer. No going home in the morning to get a change of clothes or do chores, no ‘only for the weekend’ while you’re home from college, just…”
I trailed off with a sigh.
“I guess it is longer than only this summer, though,” I carried on. “You know, like you said about us maybe living together next year.”
