The Kissing Booth: New Love

Chapter 12

Elle's POV

It's been almost a week since Noah and I said I love you, and I'm still on cloud nine.  I did have to deal with some pointed questions from Dad at supper one night about my rides with Noah and Lee's comment about how late we were getting to school.  But, I was able to calm his worry with yet another lie, telling him I was with my soccer friends in another area of the school from where Lee hung out in order to give him time with Rachel. 

That was the first straight up lie I'd told my dad since this thing between me and Noah started.  Before that I had told some fibs and half truths, as far as why Noah was driving me to school and saying I was meeting friends when Noah and I would plan to hang out, but I never felt so guilty about those as I do this time.  And what I've told my Dad doesn't even compare to everything I've come up with to tell Lee.  There are too many of those to count.  I should take up juggling because that's what it feels like I'm doing these days, juggling one lie after another. 

My relationship with Noah was causing me to do things I wouldn't otherwise.  The lies definitely weren't Noah's fault, he's been trying to get me to tell everyone the truth since the beginning.  I'm not sure any of the rest is his fault either, I feel like my thoughts go out the window when he is around, plus I just have a hard time saying no to him.  I've always been somewhat of a goody two shoes.  Other than one detention for a dress code violation at the beginning of the school year, I never got in trouble at school and rarely did much to get in trouble at home.  But all of a sudden with Noah, I found myself doing things I never would have dreamed of.  Late for school, lying to the people I was closest to, and now, cutting class. 

Noah and I have a routine down now in the mornings.  He comes to my house as soon as everyone leaves his house.  He texts me when he gets here but doesn't come to the door, after I yelled at him that first day.  He drives as if we're on our way to school but after a block or so he backtracks so we end up making a stop at his house.  As soon as Noah stops at the first stop sign out of view of my house, he leans over to give me my morning kiss.  We usually have about 20 minutes to spend at his house. That 20 minutes is sometimes the only alone time we'll get in a day, the only time to reach out to hold hands or run my fingers through his hair.  If one of the Flynns is still home for one reason or other, we drive around holding hands and talking about whatever is going on in our lives until the last minute we need to make our way to school.

We got smart after the first day Noah drove me when we ended up late for class and now we set an alarm, so we leave for school on time. Sometimes we'll take our make out sessions a little too far and get pretty hot and heavy. Those days we both end up extremely frustrated when that alarm goes off. 

That's what happened today.  Once we got to school, Noah started sending me texts telling me exactly what he would have done, had I said we could skip first period like he had begged me to do.  The detail he included in those texts didn't help either of us cool down. Luckily we figured out that we both have a somewhat free period after lunch that we can occasionally get out of at the same time if we work things out right.  We've only done it a couple times so far.  Sometimes we use that time to walk a deserted hallway where we know no one will be around or try to find a secluded corner to steal a kiss or two.  Or even just have a chance to talk face to face, without having to be on our phones, which is how we have most of our conversations these days.

Noah started asking me to meet up with him on our way to school and continued in the pleading texts he sent me all morning, until he was practically begging by lunch.  I told him there was no way we could skip class again today since we had just done it the day before and I was worried my study hall teacher would get suspicious.  I don't want to use our free period too often to where we'll be found out. I can't help it, I can't stand the thought of getting in trouble, which Noah is always teasing me about. It obviously doesn't bother him to get in trouble at all. Plus, I've had this weird feeling that someone is going to find out about us all week, ever since we went to the party Saturday night and snuck out together, then had to deal with our parents' questions after lunch on Sunday.