I didn’t walk too quickly. I wondered if he would follow me.
I kept walking, slowing almost to a stop as I got back to the track.
I heard Noah’s heavy footsteps—but they were going in the other direction.
Fine. If that was how he was going to be, well, fine.
After I’d congratulated Levi, given him a hug, and mussed his matted hair, telling him he’d better take good care of my old trophy, Lee pulled me aside.
“Everything okay?”
I wasn’t so sure, but I beamed at him and grabbed his shoulders. “Okay? Lee, we just pulled off race day. Why wouldn’t everything be okay? We did it, Lee! We pulled it off!”
He gave in, grinning back at me before wrapping me into a hug and shaking me. “Hell yeah, we did! And you deserve full credit for this one, Shelly. The water park was your idea. I don’t know how we would’ve managed all this without that.”
“Hey, you two. Mario and Peach.”
We both turned to see Will approaching, beaming. He clapped us on the shoulders. “That was incredible, you guys! Totally epic. The footage we got was amazing. It’s already got a few thousand hits on Facebook Live!”
“Whoa!”
“And I’ll email you guys the video, as promised.”
“Thanks, Will.”
He sighed, looking around the track. A couple of staff had appeared to clean up the whipped cream and slime and collect the red blocks that had been thrown. One guy was pulling the karts back inside. The crowd was gradually filtering away, for regular business to resume on the go-kart track.
“I am so fucking glad nobody got hurt.” Will sighed, smiling as he walked off.
Lee laughed. When he looked back at me, he wrapped his arm around my shoulders. “Hey. I’ve got an idea. I promise it’ll cheer you up. It’s not a bucket-list thing, but I think you’re going to love it. How about we get out of here? Rachel and Amanda can meet us back at the beach house later. And…” He sighed, glancing toward the changing rooms. “And Noah, if he’s not off somewhere drinking himself into oblivion and trying to forget what a ginormous douchebag he is.”
I hated the idea that Lee might be right, that that might be exactly what Noah was doing.
But no, screw him. Let him wallow. Let him get over this whole stupid thing. Let him realize what a jackass he was being.
So I nodded. “That sounds great, Lee. Whatever it is, count me in.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“Where—”
Lee shushed me, and my confusion only grew as he led me down the boardwalk. The sun was still shining, but a couple of clouds had gathered now, so it wasn’t quite as sticky and sweltering as it had been a few hours ago at the water park. The breeze coming in off the sea was a welcome relief.
The smell of the boardwalk took me right back to my childhood. The smell of cheap hot dogs, cotton candy, and salt water. I breathed in deep. A Ferris wheel turned slowly up ahead. Bike bells rang out, children racing each other. A couple of kids on their skateboards swerved around the pedestrians, pulling stunts.
“So Noah seemed pretty upset,” Lee said lightly, with a breezy, conversational manner, like he was commenting on the weather. I cut him a look, but he kept up the pretense.
“It was stupid,” I muttered. “He’s being stupid.”
“Three guesses what it was about,” Lee said, snorting a little. I frowned at him until he sighed, his resolve breaking. “Well, obviously he was mad about Levi.”
It was obvious, I supposed: the way they’d been going at each other on the track, Noah refusing to shake his hand…
But then Lee said quietly, “I kinda don’t blame him. Don’t be too mad at him, Shelly.”
“Excuse me?” I choked, stopping to gawp at him.
Lee sighed. His mouth twisted up on one side and he shrugged helplessly. “I’m just saying. You know, I get where he’s coming from. I know he said he was cool with Levi, and he’s really been trying hard, Elle. I know he has. And it’s not like he doesn’t trust you. But I just…get where he’s coming from.”
“You don’t even know what he was mad about,” I scoffed. I did my best not to glare too much at my best friend right now. Wasn’t he always meant to take my side?
“I’d probably be pissed if Rachel was always hanging out with her ex.”
“Okay, first,” I snapped, ticking off one finger, “he’s not my ex. Second, if Noah really did trust me, he wouldn’t have gotten so mad. And—”
“Point taken,” Lee said gently, holding his hands up to me. “But I mean…I know you don’t have feelings for Levi anymore—”
“I’m not even really sure I ever did,” I pointed out.
“—but I see the way he is around you. And all I’m saying is, if he did still have a crush on you, it wouldn’t surprise me. You know you’d feel exactly the same if Noah had kissed Amanda or if she had a crush on him.”
“That’s totally different. She’s staying with us. Levi just took part in race day. Same as Rachel and Ashton and Jon Fletcher and Warren was going to…That doesn’t mean anything. He saw Levi at graduation! He’s been on FaceTime when I’ve been hanging out with him. They’ve been totally fine around each other. I don’t know why he’s suddenly lost it.”
Lee thought about it. “I guess he’s never really been there when you two have been hanging out. Graduation was a different thing.”
“He asked if I was always gonna go running back to Levi.”
He blinked at me. I gave Lee a second for that to sink in. “All right, well, that was out of line. But it’s gonna be hard for him, Elle. He thought you broke up with him for Levi for weeks before you two figured things out. I’m not saying he was right to be such a little bitch earlier, but don’t be too hard on him.”
I pursed my lips before my shoulders drooped and my expression relaxed. Hard as I wanted to cling to this frustration at Noah’s behavior and at what he’d said, Lee put forward a pretty good argument.
I didn’t think he’d have been so convincing if he hadn’t been so earnest. It was a rare occasion for him to take Noah’s side on something like this. Next to me, Lee was the first person to call Noah out on his bullshit.
“Besides,” Lee added, seeing my resolve fracture, “I don’t think I can handle having to be in the beach house if you two are going to be at each other’s throats and then have crazy makeup sex. That is not something any of us need to hear, Shelly.”