The Kissing Booth: New Love

Chapter 10

Elle's POV

I'm rushing around my room, trying to ready myself for today's Flynn Evans family lunch. I know I'm spending more time than I normally would, trying to look nice for Noah.  Still nervous that our families will figure out our relationship, I've been texting back and forth with Noah as I'm getting ready and while we're on the way to the restaurant.  He swears we have nothing to worry about.  I'm not sure if he completely believes that or if he's only trying to help me calm my nerves.  I get that he thinks he can pull this off, but I don't feel like his normal reasoning, that no one would believe he would have a girlfriend, is going to work for our families.  Everyone at school may believe Noah's persona as Flynn, the bad boy jock who is a huge player, but I can't imagine June Flynn believes this about her son.  He did help me relax a little though, except for when he jokingly said that we should announce that we were together in front of everyone at lunch.

With all the back and forth we had this morning, I purposely have not brought up the fact that he told me he loved me the night before and I didn't answer.  As much as that admission had confused me and as much as thoughts of it had occupied my mind this morning, I would have to deal with it later, after we survived lunch with our families. 

Family lunches were usually either at our house or the Flynn's, although sometimes we would meet at a restaurant.  Today, we were at our favorite beach front restaurant.  We had literally been coming here as long as I could remember.  I told Noah I thought we were lucky to be at the restaurant this week, instead of one of our homes.  There are a lot of other things to focus on in a restaurant than at home, so I thought it might make Noah and I seem less obvious.  By the time my family made it to the restaurant, the Flynns were already seated.  That was nothing unusual, it seemed like they usually beat us there.  Our tardiness wasn't always my fault, although Lee would always give me crap for making everyone late, whether it was because of me or not.  He knew how often I tended to be running behind and especially how bad I was about getting up on time from his days of taking me to school and he was forever having to deal with my lateness. 

As we made our greetings around the table, I sat down in the open seat between Lee and Noah, after having to push my brother away to his seat next to my Dad across the table from us.  As the baby of the group, Brad always wanted to hang out with the big kids.  Well, really he was only interested in Noah and Lee, he could care less about spending more time with his big sis.  He was dying to steal my spot between the two older boys he idolized.  No matter how many times Brad tried, the spot in between Noah and Lee was mine.  It had been mine as long as I could remember and I wasn't going to give it up now.  Today, it seemed appropriate to be sitting between them.  My two guys, both of whom were so important to me but now I felt like a rift between them that was growing wider and wider.  I was worried about the break I would cause in their relationship when Lee eventually finds out about me and Noah.

When we were young, our parents would always sit us this way, whether at a meal or in the car, since it was harder for the boys to fight that way.  Not impossible because I was always tiny and they could still reach above or around me, but harder because neither wanted to hurt me.  Usually, me sitting in between them would keep them from fighting, but occasionally they were mad enough that even I didn't stop them from trying to reach each other, sometimes even clipping me on the way to their target.  If I took any of the blow, they would always both apologize and I knew they felt bad about it.  If it was Noah that did it, Lee would always tell June on him and he would usually get in trouble and be forced to apologize again, even though he had always already done it on his own.  I know Lee was looking out for me, but I think part of it was that his goal was almost always to get Noah in trouble.  Noah never told on Lee, though.  I'm sure he knew that Lee was always upset enough if he hurt me that getting in more trouble wouldn't affect him much.  By the time they grew out of fighting with their hands and started to put down each other with their words instead, my spot in between them had become habit and we would always gravitate that way.