Page 74 of It Was Always You

I turned the cap back on my soda after taking a long pull on it. "How about I take Brielle sledding tomorrow?"

Mom's face brightened. "She'd love that, Noah. That's a great idea!"

I lifted my bag back onto my shoulder, ready to head up to my room and get everything put away. But just before I turned the corner, my mom stopped me.

"And Noah," she said. I turned to her, my heart splitting at the look of pain on her face. "I really am sorry that you had to sleep in your car this week. I had no idea. If I'd known, I would have brought you back home myself."

I nodded, feeling a wave of emotion about to comeover me. I cleared my throat, hoping my voice wouldn't come out sounding too wobbly. "It's okay, Mom. I survived."

"I know. I just feel bad that it happened in the first place."

I adjusted the shoulder strap on my bag. "It's okay. Just promise me there won't be a reason for it to happen again, okay?"

She looked down at her hands. "Okay."

25

LEXI

"Noah and I broke up today,"I spoke into the computer screen as I video-called Juliette after school.

"Already? That was only, like, five days," she said.

The best five days of my life. But it was all over now. Whatever Noah and I had had together ended the moment Easton came to take him away from me. It was fate making the world balanced again—in a way. Easton had always been there. Always the one Noah had chosen.

"At least I got to kiss him once."

"You kissed Noah? How did I not know about this?" Juliette pretty much shouted at me through the screen.

I'd been so busy with Noah the past twenty-four hours that I hadn't even thought to tell my best friend about it. "Sorry, it all happened so fast."

She scowled, like she wasn't going to accept my apology,but then she grinned. "I guess I can forgive you, but only if you tell me every little detail."

"Everydetail?" My cheeks heated further as memories of Noah pressing himself against me under the bleachers came to my mind.

"Yes, Lexi. It isn't fair that I'm the one who goes to Paris, and you're the one who gets this big adventure."

I rolled my eyes. "You are so overdramatic sometimes. I saw those photos you posted on Instagram this week. You can't tell me that you're not having fun when I can see the hot guy you've been hanging out with."

She laughed. "Um, don't believe everything you see on the Internet these days." When she saw my confused look, she continued, "That was just Evan. He was helping me make someone jealous."

"Who are you trying to make jealous?" I asked. Juliette was always up to something, it seemed.

She waved her hand. "No one important. Anyway, you still need to give me details of your epic kiss with Mr. Hottie McHot Hot, Noah Taylor."

I laughed at her use of our old nickname for Noah. "It was good."

"Good?" She shook her blondish-gray hair on the screen. "You cannot just tell me that you kissed Noah and say it was good. This was your first kiss. Were you nervous?"

Nervous would be an understatement. "Yeah, I was pretty nervous. But, I don't know, Noah somehow made it okay. At least it was way less awkward than I imagined it would be." Yes, even in my past daydreams of kissing Noah, I still failed at the kissing thing. Apparently, my subconscious really didn't think much about our chances, either.

"So, was it just like a peck or a full-on make-out?”

I laughed. Juliette was going to get all the details out of me that she could. "Probably somewhere in the middle."

Her eyes went wide, and her jaw dropped. "You practically made out with him! This is huge, Lexi!"

I smiled, unable to keep the goofy grin off my face. Itwaskind of surreal. "And you want to know one of the best parts?"

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