Once I stepped back to admire the effect and prove my point, I immediately cracked up. The sight of my tall, broad-shouldered boyfriend, with his shirt off, showing a set of defined abs (although, admittedly, rather less well-defined since his freshman year of college) and his muscled arms…
Yeah, it was pretty hilarious.
“You’re right,” he told me, deadly serious. “I am a confident, independent young woman who got into Harvard. I’m basically Legally Blonde.”
I laughed, swatting at his arm as he dropped the pose. “Her name was Elle Woods, which I know you know, because your mom loves that movie, so don’t pretend you don’t.”
“Guilty.” He held up his hands and then leaned in the doorway, crossing his arms. “You looked totally confident, for the record. Especially in that Mickey Mouse shirt I’m pretty sure you’ve had since you were, like, thirteen.”
He probably wasn’t wrong. It used to be a nightie, once upon a time.
“So why are you power-posing in the bathroom mirror?”
“Because I can take on anything. I mean, I got a job today. An actual job. Do you know how many jobs I applied for last year? And then I just walk into Dunes and, bam, May gives me one, just like that. This is my summer. I mean—it’s our summer. Plus, you know, the whole ‘getting into Harvard, making my dad proud’ thing. It just feels like everything’s coming together, you know?”
Noah wasn’t an easy guy to read, but I liked to think I knew him better than most people, and I got the distinct impression that he was doing his best not to tell me that May only gave me the job because she liked me or felt bad for me or something.
“You’re right,” he told me instead after a moment, his voice soft. “Everything’s coming together.”
Noah straightened up from the doorway to pull me into his arms. I loved the way his arms wrapped around me, the way he smelled—always like that citrus bodywash he used. My heart fluttered and I was already moving onto my tiptoes to kiss him, my lips finding his so easily.
The first time we kissed, Noah had sent me spinning. The second time we’d kissed, back at his house in the kitchen, it had been clumsy and awkward and our teeth had knocked together. The first time we had sex, it was fumbling and eager and sweet.
There was a familiarity to being with Noah now. I knew the feel of his arms around me, of his tongue running across my lower lip, of his skin against mine. He knew the spot on my neck that made me melt, and the one that tickled and made me squirm and giggle. I knew he liked it when I stood behind him and hooked my arms around him, because he secretly kinda liked being the little spoon sometimes; he thought it was funny and cute.
There was a familiarity to it, but my pulse still raced and the rest of the world still disappeared around us, just like that first time we kissed.
We stumbled out of the bathroom, back toward the bed, tangled up in each other and barely even breaking apart long enough to catch our breath.
I would never get tired of this, I thought.
I would never get tired of lying snuggled into his side either. My head nestled into the crook of his neck, my hand tracing patterns on his chest. Noah’s fingers dragged slowly through my hair.
“This is nice,” I told him. It was only day two of our summer at the beach house, but: “I could do this all summer. Or longer. No going home in the morning to get a change of clothes or do chores, no ‘only for the weekend’ while you’re home from college, just…”
I trailed off with a sigh.
“I guess it is longer than only this summer, though,” I carried on. “You know, like you said about us maybe living together next year.”
Noah was quiet.
Maybe a little too quiet.
My hand stilled against his chest. Hadn’t he been talking about us maybe living together just a couple of days ago? Had I gotten it completely wrong somehow? Was it because I’d taken his side of the bed?
“Elle?”
“Yeah?”
“You didn’t…I mean, you didn’t pick Harvard just because of me, right?”
“Someone’s full of himself,” I said, trying to joke and desperately trying to ignore the uneasiness gnawing at the back of my mind. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s obviously an added bonus that you’re there, but…no, Noah. I maybe applied because you were there, but I didn’t pick it because of you.”
He let out a long, deep sigh. “Okay. Yeah. I mean, obviously. Sure.”
“Let me guess,” I said, tilting my head back to raise my eyebrows at him. “Amanda?”
“Rachel, actually. We were talking about you and Lee doing this whole bucket-list thing and you not going to Berkeley, and…I don’t know, I guess she just got me thinking that…”
“That my life revolves around you?”
“That maybe you put me and Lee and your brother and your dad in front of yourself sometimes,” he said quietly, unusually serious, sounding so at odds with my chilled-out mood from a moment ago.
Now it was my turn to be quiet for a little too long.
“I don’t do that.”
“Well, yeah, I…I know, and I’m not trying to say…”
“So what are you trying to say, Noah?” I snapped, sitting up now, resting back on my ankles and fixing him with a hard look.
Noah sighed again, but this time he was more exasperated. He kept his eyes on the opposite wall, and I saw him clench his jaw before taking a deep, quiet breath and looking back at me again. He reached to squeeze my hand, and even though he smiled, it looked a little forced. “Nothing, Elle. It doesn’t matter.”
It felt like it so obviously did matter, but…
Honestly, I didn’t want to fight with him right now.
So I let it go and snuggled back into his side, and he kissed the top of my head.
“I was thinking we could go to the beach tomorrow,” he said softly, almost cautiously. “Hang out for a couple hours before we have to get started on some of Mom and Dad’s chores. Have you seen the list my mom emailed us? And I thought this summer was gonna be relaxing.”
“Yeah, tell me about it. And sure, beach sounds good.”
I knew it was an olive branch, but I was willing to take it. After all, we were only on day two of our summer living together at the beach house. No way was I going to pick a fight so soon, especially when it sounded like he was just trying to look out for me—in his own weird way.
“I really am looking forward to you being at Harvard, Elle,” he told me.