The Kissing Booth: New Love

Chapter 3

Elle's POV

As great as my plan worked yesterday, it went equally bad on day two. I honestly was as excited to see Noah as I had been the day before, but this morning I couldn't get my butt out of bed. I blamed Noah. Since he had a group project to work on after school yesterday and we didn't get a chance to see each other, he kept me up late on FaceTime last night. And of course, since I was running late, it was the one day Brad didn't lose anything he needed for school, so Dad was sitting in the kitchen when Noah rang the doorbell to pick me up for school. Even though I sprinted to the door, Dad still got there before me.

I could hear the hesitancy in my Dad's voice from the across the room as he answered the door. "Noah, hi, what are you doing here this morning?"

"Noah!" Brad yelled excitedly from the kitchen table where he was eating a bowl of Fruit Loops for breakfast. I was honestly surprised Brad didn't run and hug Noah. He idolized Noah and was always so excited to see him. I think the only thing that kept him in his seat was that he was trying to play it cool.

Dad, in his confusion, was still standing right at the door, essentially blocking Noah from coming in the room. I saw Noah glance around my Dad and smile at me, a flash of his reserved for me smile, before he sidestepped Dad, walking towards me as he answered nonchalantly, "Oh, hey, Mike. Brad, my man! I'm here to take Elle to school." Noah said this smoothly, with confidence, like it was something we did all the time – hang out just the two of us.

My Dad turned to look at me with his eyebrows raised in question. I walked into the kitchen first, grabbing a granola bar from the cabinet and giving myself a second to figure out the best way to answer. "Yeah, I was gonna tell you. Noah's going to take me to school for the next couple weeks, so Lee can have some time with his new girlfriend. I got tired of third wheeling it with them."

Dad shot me an understanding look, he had heard me complain about Lee ditching me for Rachel a few times in the weeks that Lee and Rachel had been dating. "You should have said something. You know, I could drop you off before I take Brad to school. You don't need to have Noah drive you."

"I really don't mind. I'm going there anyway, plus Elle is taking care of my chore of cleaning the pool now, so it's not a bad deal for me." Noah answered easily, smirking towards me. Noah and I hadn't discussed who would be handling the cleaning of the Flynn's pool after our initial conversation, but Noah kept talking about it like I was actually going to do his chore for him. I'll have to deal with that issue with Noah later, for now, I needed to get him out of my house and away from my dad.

"See Dad, it's no problem. Thanks for offering, though. We have to run, I need to be at school early this morning. Love you." I responded, talking quickly and giving him a side armed hug before sliding by him and walking as fast as I could towards Noah's car, before Dad asked anymore questions. I didn't really need to be at school early this morning but I did need to be done with this conversation.

As Noah and I walked towards the car, Noah started to walk towards my side and for a second I was worried he was going to open the car door for me. He seemed to realize better of it and switched to his side and got into the car. "Do you really need to be at school early this morning?" Noah asked me as he started the car and started to pull out of our driveway.

I knew my Dad would be keeping an eye on us as Noah pulled away from the house. I could tell Noah was getting ready to turn back towards his house as he pulled out of the driveway. I yelled at him just in time and told him to turn towards the school, since my Dad was watching. I finally sat back and relaxed in the car as Noah started driving the opposite way of where we wanted to be.

As soon as we were heading in the direction of the school, I answered his question, "No, I don't have to be at school early, I just didn't want to have to explain anything more to Dad."