We Make Mayhem [boyxboy]

Chapter Thirty-Six

Noah arrived promptly at noon on the first day of fall break to pick me up. Mom was at work, but he still came to the door like some kind of gentleman or something.

I flung the door open and walked back inside. "Good. You're here. You can help me decide what to pack."

Noah closed the door behind himself. "Are your parents home?"

"No, why?"

"Then I'm not sure it's a good idea. You, me, alone in your room... not the best recipe for us getting out of here on time."

I laughed. He was right, but it didn't seem to stop him following me to my room.

"Are you really not packed yet?" He saw my empty suitcase open on the bed. "Oh, shit, you really aren't."

"In my defence, you still haven't told me where we're going," I said, sitting down. "What's the weather going to be like?"

Noah started opening my dresser drawers and grabbing clothes: shorts, t-shirts, swim trunks, and the khakis he liked on me because they were really tight through the thigh. "It's... it's varied."

"Can't you just tell me where it is?"

"I told you, it's a secret. There, that's probably a good assortment."

I really did have no idea where we were going. He kept skirting my questions, as if it was really weird to want to know what part of the world we were going to, and using generic if we told people where it was, it wouldn't be a private island anymore logic. My new tactic had been a kind of childish whining—partly because it was irritating enough to be persuasive, and partly because it was a flirting tactic that worked well with him.

"Come on, Noahhhhh." I nudged his leg with my toes. "I wanna know where you're taking me. I'm a poor boy who's never left the continent—I wanna know where I can say I've been."

He shot me a faux-annoyed look, but he smiled.

"It's part of this continent," he said. "There, I told you something."

I pouted. "Hardly anything."

"Why does it matter? You'll be there soon."

"I'm just teasing," I said, but that wasn't it.

Really, I was suspicious. Of course Decker Lord had a private island—of course. What would a billionaire be without his island? But the fact that Noah was cagey about not only the location, but the weather on said private island... it was weird.

"You'll know everything when we get there," he said, sighing as he shoved my clothes into my suitcase.

That was what I was sort of nervous about. I wasn't overly bothered about the island's location at first, but when I told Ms. Warren I was going there, she was adamant that I get the coordinates before we leave and give them to her. But with Noah not even giving up the general climate of the island, coordinates were impossible.

She told me in an encrypted message last night that if I still didn't know where I was going, that I shouldn't go. That I should make up some excuse and give them my regrets.

Ms. Warren: I'm afraid that if you go, you won't come back and no one will be able to find you.

Reading that had jolted me and hadn't been able to stop thinking about it ever since. Even as Noah packed my clothes, even as I was dying to go to some private island getaway with him—even if his dad didn't give us a minute alone—the idea of not coming back lurked at the back of my mind.

I wanted to talk it out with Noah, but I had a feeling "hey, any chance your dad is going to murder me on this island?" wouldn't go over well.

"Do you have your toothbrush and stuff ready?" Noah asked.