The Missing Years - a kissing booth fan fiction

Bonus - One

A/N: This book is complete, and I like it so much the way it is, I actually got scared to write anything more and potentially ruin it. But this little thought came to me a while ago and it refused to be dismissed. And so, I did what I now do when that happens, I sat down and started writing. The words flowed quickly without much conscious thought on my part and so... here we are. A little glimpse of Noah and Elle, about eight years after The End. This is the first of two bonus chapters, one from each of their perspectives. I have no idea if I will ever write any more for this story after them, but if inspiration strikes at some point, who knows? In the meantime, consider this my little present to you all - Love, Jo xx

Elle

Nervously, I tap the tip of one fingernail on the screen of my phone, checking to see both the time and if I've somehow missed a message from Noah. With a sigh, I look up at Lee, shaking my head at his unspoken question. No message. It's now 7:14pm. We were supposed to be inside fourteen minutes ago. He's not that late, but with no sign that he's even on his way yet, there's no point waiting out here, stewing about it.

"Let's just go in," I tell Lee and Rachel with a forced smile. "I don't want to miss anything."

Rachel looks at me softly, sympathy just about oozing out of her and I have to look away before her kindness makes me feel like crying. By contrast, the expression on my best friend's face is anything but kind. He looks like a thundercloud in human form, brow creased, lips tight, jaw bunched, shoulders tense, the hand that isn't holding his wife's curled into a tight fist. But it isn't me he's angry at, I know that. He's angry at Noah. Again. For standing me up. Again. For not calling or sending a message to let me know he'll be late. Again. For having his phone switched off. Again.

It'd almost be comical, how familiar this all is, if it wasn't so incredibly draining. Noah made partner at his firm a couple of years ago, and we both thought things would start to settle down a little, but the truth is, it's just as bad as it ever was. He's out the door before seven every morning, and we're lucky if he makes it home for dinner more than once or twice a week. Don't get me wrong, when he's there, he's amazing, fully present in a way I rarely see with any of my friend's husbands.

Most of them are usually too distracted watching sport on tv or scrolling through their phones to pay much attention to their kids, let alone their wives. But Noah's never been like that, even when he was working 70-hour weeks. The early riser of the two of us, he naturally took on the morning shift with the kids as soon as he could. I've never been a morning person, and I was even less so as a sleep-deprived mother of an infant. When we heard Cody's cry through the monitor at some ungodly hour, I would groan, and Noah would chuckle, whispering, 'I've got it," rolling out of bed without complaint.

He'd change our son, give him a bottle and hang out with him in the living room until it was time to get ready for work. Then I'd be greeted with a cup of coffee and my two smiling guys. Yeah, Noah Flynn was as good at being a dad and a husband as he was at everything else, much to my disgust sometimes. When Ally arrived, he adapted to doing double-duty far more quickly than I did, as though the years of law school and practice since had taught him how to operate at a higher than normal level with little to no sleep.

But his long hours took a toll, especially in those early years. After being on my own with two screaming kids all day, and half the night, I just about had to stop myself from placing one of them in each of his arms as soon as he walked in the door and fleeing the house. But we were also lucky enough to have help from our families. June and Matthew, Dad and Linda, even Rachel and Lee, had all been godsends, especially when the inevitable happened and we all went down with the flu one year.

The four of us had turned into extras from the walking dead and the house had looked like we were losing a game of Jumanji. June and Linda had descended on about day four, after I sent out an SOS by text message to them both. June took the kids and bathed them after shooing Noah and I off to shower. Linda heated the homemade chicken soup she'd brought over and straightened up the living room, setting each of us up with a bowl and a blanket in front of the tv. And then they went to work.