The Kissing Booth: Unavoidable

Part 2 - Chapter 4

4 months before the Mexico trip

Elle's POV

I hate being stuck in the airport after the holidays.  I love to be in LA and visit our families but now Noah and I are sitting in a crowded airport waiting for our flight to board.  We got here early knowing it would be crazy with the holiday crowd and I feel as if we've been sitting here forever.  I'm starting to go through my work emails on my phone.  Now that the holiday is over, I decided I might as well get caught up on some of the work I missed, since Noah and I spent a full week in California.  I'm always in a weird mood when we're leaving LA.  I never want to leave our families but on the other hand, once it's time to head home, I just want to be there already and get back in the swing of things in Chicago.

Lee usually flies back with us after Christmas.  Not this year, though.  He and Ashley left LA early to spend some time with Ashley's family.  We had a wonderful Christmas with our families.  Brad is in high school now and seems so grown up these days.  I don't think he sees me as the chill big sister, like he used to.  I've lost some of my coolness to him, since I'm out of college and now just a regular adult, on par with our parents.  He still idolizes Noah, though.  Brad seemed to be by his side the entire time, talking to him about football and asking for advice on all sorts of things.

Holidays bring back so many memories of Noah, Lee, and I growing up together.  We would open our stockings and our gifts from Santa at our own houses on Christmas morning and as soon as we were done would go to the Flynns to open our remaining gifts and spend the day playing with all our new things all together.  I love that our families have that history together, long before Noah and I were married.  This year, I started thinking about how much fun it will be someday to pass on those traditions in our own family and have kids and all their toys at our family Christmas again.

Noah seems to be especially wound up this morning.  I don't think he drank more than his normal coffee, but he seems wired for some reason.  Maybe nervous energy, although I have no idea why.  He's sitting next to me but can't sit still.  Also, he won't stop touching me.  Noah has been keeping his hands on some part of my body since we sat down, playing with my hair, moving his hand to my knee, then around my shoulders.  It's sweet, but I'm not in the mood right now.  He seems very snuggly, which isn't an easy thing to do considering we're sitting on these airport chairs with an armrest in-between us and all of our luggage around us.  I delete another email I don't need to respond to and look over at him as he shifts in his seat again.  I send him a questioning look and I guess he takes that as an invitation since he puts his arm around me and pulls me in close to him.

As much as I love to cuddle with my guy, I'm not feeling it in middle of the crowded airport.  "Do you want to get up and walk around or something?  You know how long you'll have to sit once we get on the plane."  I'm not sure what his problem is but I'm having a hard time concentrating on my emails with him moving around next to me. 

"No, I'm fine."  Noah leaned back in close to me and kissed me on my forehead.  As he pulled back, he looked at me straight into my eyes, pulling my focus more away from my phone.  "Elle, I want to talk to you about something, something important."

"Here in the airport?"  Years earlier, Noah saying something like this probably would have freaked me out.  I would have worried that he found someone new and wanted to break-up or some other horrible news about our relationship.  I was over that.  Ever since the weekend Noah flew back to Chicago with me, I knew that we belonged to each other.  However, there were people everywhere around us and I don't know what kind of serious conversation he wanted to have while the teenager sitting about 4 inches away from me kept bumping my leg as he tried to beat the latest game on his phone or the two toddlers with the family sitting across from us who keep running up and down the aisle in protest of our long wait.