Inside, the lights were low and something orange flickered from the direction of the kitchen.
Following the flickering, I found several tea lights and saw more on the table outside. A bowl of salad waited outdoors, too. And then Noah stood up from the oven, pulling out a casserole.
“Hey! You’re here.” He beamed at me, dimple showing, eyes sparkling.
“What’s…” I stared around at the candles, the food. “What’s all this?”
“I wanted to make it up to you, for yesterday. And you’ve been so busy, I thought you could use a night in.”
“You did all this yourself?”
“Of course,” he declared, puffing out his chest, then smirking and saying, “No. Amanda totally helped me prep the casserole.”
“Where is she?”
Mixed as my feelings could be about Amanda, I would feel terrible if she had to shut herself up in Lee’s and my old room all evening so Noah and I could have a romantic dinner.
“She headed back to the hotel to have dinner with her parents. They said they had some stuff to talk to her about. I think she’s staying there tonight.” He set down the dish and shook off the oven mitts before coming over, putting his hands on my hips and bending to kiss me.
“Noah, this…” Despite myself, tears sprang to my eyes and I had to gulp to keep my voice steady. “This looks amazing. It’s so sweet, but…”
I pulled back, feeling my shoulders hunch and my head bow. My hands fidgeted in front of me.
I could feel Noah’s eyes roaming over me, taking in my guilty expression, the frown on my face, the sigh I was barely managing to hold back. Even though I was staring determinedly at the floor and trying to block out the delicious aroma of the casserole and the romantic glow of the candles, out of the corner of my eye I saw his excited smile fade away.
“Elle? What’s up?”
What’s up?
That was such a loaded question. Between an exhausting double shift, complete with some grabby jackass, the panic over Brad not being at camp, and the whole ordeal with Linda, now Noah had made a romantic meal for us to spend the evening together and I had to say…
“I’m sorry,” I told him, my dejected sigh finally escaping now as I fell back another step. “Noah, I’m sorry, because this is all so amazing and honestly it’s exactly what I need tonight, but I can’t. I have somewhere I need to be.”
I saw it dawn on him, and he let out a sharp, frustrated noise. “Please tell me this isn’t another bucket-list thing.”
“I’m sorry!” I cried. I felt genuinely awful, especially given how much trouble he’d gone to. “I promised Lee, and I already missed one thing this week. I’m trying really hard not to make a habit of that.”
I was already backing away through the door.
“You’re seriously gonna leave?” he asked, gawping incredulously.
“It’s not like I have a choice! I promised Lee. It’s not like this is something we can just rearrange. I’m gonna be with you all next year. I need to make that up to him this summer. I’m sorry, Noah, but I have to go.”
He followed me through to our bedroom. I pulled the flash-mob clothes out of my bag and started to get changed. Noah scoffed again.
“So just because you picked Harvard over Berkeley, I don’t get to spend any time with you this summer?”
“That’s not what I said. Don’t blow it out of proportion.”
“You keep saying this summer is all about you and Lee, all about the bucket list. I didn’t think I was reaching for the stars by hoping for an evening in with my girlfriend.”
He’d picked up my shirt, and I snatched it back from him. “You’re not! But not tonight, Noah. That’s all.”
“Then when? Tomorrow?”
Tomorrow, Lee, the guys, and I all had plans to go to the movies.
He sensed me faltering.
“The next day?”
“I’m on the late shift.”
“How about August eighteenth? Two years from now? How does that work for you, Elle?”
I’d put the T-shirt on backward. Huffing, I wriggled my arms back out of it, working it around to put it on properly. “Noah, come on. Don’t be like this. I’m sorry I ruined your surprise dinner and already had plans that I can’t bail on now. Okay? But right now, I’ve gotta go.”
“Fine,” he snapped. “Have fun with Lee.”
I hated that I’d upset him. I hated that I couldn’t stay, because I really, honestly did want to—but I also knew I couldn’t let Lee down. Not again. I hated that I had to leave in the middle of a fight and I hated that we were fighting again.
So I told him, “I love you.”
Noah gave a noncommittal mutter as he left the room, but then said, “Yeah. You too.”
Which was about as good as I was going to get tonight, so I’d take it.
Maybe I’d crash in my old bed tonight and we could clear the air tomorrow.
I passed Rachel on my way out the door. She didn’t look overly happy either. There had to be something in the air tonight.
“Bucket list?” she said to me in a way that told me she already knew.
“Uh-huh. Catch you later!”
She huffed, muttering, “Have fun, I guess.”
Maybe I wasn’t the only one whose relationship was taking second place to the bucket list.
As I shut the door behind me, I heard Rachel asking Noah, “What’s all this?” and him muttering, “It’s nothing,” and blowing out the candles.
* * *
• • •
“You’ve got such a stick up your ass tonight, Shelly,” Lee told me. “Come on! Flash mob! This is supposed to be fun!”
“Sorry. I promise I’m having fun. And I’ll be smiling when it starts.”
We’d taken up a perch on a bench by a fountain in the mall near the food court. The flash mob was eight minutes from starting. So far, we’d been playing a game of “Are they shopping or are they with the flash mob?”—a game that I, apparently, wasn’t engaged enough with.
Lee scooted closer to me. “What’s up?”
I was so close to telling him. It had been such a horrible shitshow of a day that I was three seconds from bursting into tears, and I knew I would if I told him.