Toothpaste Kisses

Chapter 31

CHAPTER 31

I thought Boxing Day morning would be awkward. Strangely, it was not.

The rest of the week went quickly with no fuss or bickering or awkward situations, it was nice. I mean, Kevin sent sly glances as well as comments but before he went too far – before I could start yelling or Noah could start throwing punches – Mrs Moore walked in guns blazing.

We spent most of our time at the beach but we went to the cinema once to watch something Disney and we went shopping on another day preferring to drink milkshakes than actually buy. But soon it was the end of the week and we were going back to New York in time for New Year’s Eve. The last day in California Noah took me to the beach again and we sat and talked; it was different to usual, we had a proper talk that was as close to a girly talk as you could get with Noah.

But five hours after we had left the beach we were also leaving California behind. It was funny; every time I had bordered a plane in the past I would be flying over tonnes of water. Here it was parched fields with cattle, thick clusters of city buildings and lakes bigger than the UK.

But then we descended and walking through the airport it finally hit in, the tranquillity of the holidays were far behind and we were back in the city where your coffee is your best friend, not your duvet. Everything was going to be harder, there would be so much more stress with this term. Nothing was going to be sugar coated, silver lined or anything. It would be eat, sleep, revise repeat.

Alfie dropped us off and with a deep breath I walked into the dorm, totally accepting the fact that the holidays were over; my hair will darken again, my tan would fade and the euphoria would diminish. Noah turned and with a small smile he took my hand and squeezed. We silently walked back into the dorm hands still clasped.

By the next day the boys filtered back into our lives. Marcus, Simon, Charlie, Jonah and finally Max who came in looking as resigned, resembling the boy I met the first day in Mr Johnson’s office. It was quiet the next two days as everyone went back to being comfortable around each other again. By the morning of New Year’s Eve Max was back to normal; smiling that small smile, making slightly sassy comments and blushing if anyone brought up a particular bottle red head.

And by one he wouldn’t stop jittering on the balls of his feet as we stood in the lounge – or the ‘crash room’ – of the girls’ dorm.

“Maxie, stop it,” I ordered in a whisper and with a sigh he kicked his feet out once, twice, three times before standing still.

Noah chuckled on the other side of me and running a hand through his hair he asked, again; “Do you think it would be better if we waited outside so you can do that corny ‘I got you a flower’ thing?” Max’s eyes opened wide – again – in alarm and he opened his mouth to protest but instead of a probably high squeak of horror, a wistful voice that would resemble a fairy’s cut across.

“Max!” Max whipped around, a smile transforming on his face as he did so and my head flew up to look for her. “…and Noah… and Jodi!” I found my target and smiled as she came skipping over in a shiny pleather parka. “What are you to doing here?” she asked as she gave Max a one armed hug and smiled.

“Uh… well,” Noah started actually sounding a little dubious. “We… Max thought it would be great to go on a double date kind of thing…”

“You two are dating?” Maddie asked, her eyes sprinting from Noah to me like she was following the ball in a Rafael Nadal – Andy Murray game.

“Uh… that’s why there’s the ‘kind of’ thing. We’re not going out, it was just we were going to go anyway and we thought why not make it a double ‘going to go out anyway’ date thing?” Maddie raised her eyebrows and compressed a laugh but otherwise brushed off our comments and grinned up at Max.