The Kissing Booth: Unavoidable

Chapter 9 - Another Family Lunch

Elle's POV

Almost a month has gone by since I saw Noah at the wedding. I had spent time with Lexi and Darren a few times since telling them everything about Noah. They know all about my Noah drama now, but Darren wasn't able to give me much more insight on what happened after our break-up. Not surprisingly, Noah never opened up to his guy friends about our relationship or much of anything very personal. I knew he had always kept his feelings pretty bottled up with most everyone else, except for me. Darren did feel the same way as Lexi, though, that Noah wouldn't have cheated on me or moved on so quickly like I thought he did after we ended things.

I flew back to LA the Saturday before Thanksgiving. I took some extra time off work, since I had a longer break from school and I was missing my family and Lee. Lee and I hung out on Saturday night. He was still my bestie and we were as close as always, but I hated living so far away from him. I was happy we had gotten through the weirdness in our relationship after I first moved to Chicago. We still didn't get to see each other as often as I would like, I still wanted to live next door to him, like we always planned when we were kids.  But we talked in some form or another pretty much every day now and made plans to see each other whenever we could.

Sunday came and I was surprised when Dad said we would be having a family lunch. I knew the Flynns were going to Seattle for Thanksgiving to visit extended family this year, so I thought maybe we would skip out on all getting together. Lee had told me they were leaving early Monday morning. Dad said that they felt bad that they were missing Thanksgiving with us, so June had insisted that we still meet for lunch. I know I had told myself that I would talk to Noah this time, but I was nervous about seeing him again. I felt guilty for taking off on him after our night together without talking to him and I was confused after hearing about his conversation with Lee. I told myself I only had to get through this lunch, then he would be out of the city for the rest of the week.

Seeing everyone sitting here at our favorite restaurant made me think back to the weekly lunches from when I was younger. They were always happy occasions, of course we were also little kids and Lee and I had fun wherever we were, as long as we were together. We played a lot with Noah at that point too, so the three of us were always playing around during lunch. By the time Noah went to junior high, he was ignoring me and Lee most of the time, but Lee and I really didn't care. Lee and I still had fun on our own and spent a lot of our lunch time trying to annoy Noah. Lunches were difficult during the time when my Mom got sick and when she passed away. Our families still got together, but there was always this sadness hanging over us. I liked our get togethers once I was older and had a big crush on Noah because I got a chance to be around him every week. He was quiet at those, it wasn't cool for the bad boy to be hanging out with us younger kids and our parents, but I could still watch him and listen to him answer questions from the parents.

Then, there were the lunches during the couple months that Noah and I were dating in secret. Those could be enjoyable, but also frustrating. Both of us had a really hard time not showing how we felt about each other in front of everyone. I wanted to reach out and hold his hand when we were sitting so close. We had a tough time not just staring at each other the whole time or talking to each other too much. Sometimes we would figure out a way to sneak off at the same time or to end up sitting next to each other and touch hands or legs under the table, but we had to be so careful. We were so worried that someone would catch on and I wasn't ready for Lee to find out yet.

Once everyone knew we were dating everything was so much better. It was fun to be able to be ourselves and not have to hide anything. Sure, it took some members of our family longer than others to approve of our relationship – Lee and both of our Dads, mine especially. June and Brad were always on board with Noah and I being together. But once everyone was happy for us, I loved that our families were so close and we could spend this time all together. I missed these family get togethers a lot during the time my family lived in Chicago.