The Kissing Booth: Road Trip! Read online

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  About the Author

  Beth Reekles penned her novel The Kissing Booth when she was fifteen. She continues to write exciting new novels, and regularly blogs about writing advice and being a twenty-something. She has been shortlisted for many awards, and in August 2014 was listed in the Times at No.6 on their ‘Top 20 under 25’ list.

  CELEBRATE STORIES. LOVE READING.

  This book has been specially created and published to celebrate World Book Day. World Book Day is a charity funded by publishers and booksellers in the UK and Ireland. Our mission is to offer every child and young person the opportunity to read and love books by giving you the chance to have a book of your own. To find out more, and for loads of fun activities and reading recommendations to help you to keep reading, visit worldbookday.com

  World Book Day in the UK and Ireland is also made possible by generous sponsorship from National Book Tokens and support from authors and illustrators.

  World Book Day works in partnership with a number of charities, who are all working to encourage a love of reading for pleasure.

  The National Literacy Trust is an independent charity that encourages children and young people to enjoy reading. Just 10 minutes of reading every day can make a big difference to how well you do at school and to how successful you could be in life. literacytrust.org.uk

  The Reading Agency inspires people of all ages and backgrounds to read for pleasure and empowerment. They run the Summer Reading Challenge in partnership with libraries; they also support reading groups in schools and libraries all year round. Find out more and join your local library. summerreadingchallenge.org.uk

  BookTrust is the UK’s largest children’s reading charity. Each year they reach 3.4 million children across the UK with books, resources and support to help develop a love of reading. booktrust.org.uk

  World Book Day also facilitates fundraising for:

  Book Aid International, an international book donation and library development charity. Every year, they provide one million books to libraries and schools in communities where children would otherwise have little or no opportunity to read. bookaid.org

  Read for Good, who motivate children in schools to read for fun through its sponsored read, which thousands of schools run on World Book Day and throughout the year. The money raised provides new books and resident storytellers in all the children’s hospitals in the UK. readforgood.org

  CHAPTER 1

  ‘You haven’t booked the tickets yet, have you?’

  I winced, hastily turning down the volume on my computer as Lee Flynn, frantic and frowning, popped up on FaceTime. I looked from him to the Google Chrome window on my computer screen. Two seats to JFK, baggage included, one for Mr Lee Flynn, one for Miss Rochelle Evans.

  ‘Dude, you don’t have to yell. I’m literally doing it right now. I’m just picking our seats. You’re getting the aisle seat. I know you said you like the window, but you’ll be getting up to pee, like, all the time, and I just can’t deal. You know it’s costing about twenty dollars extra each to add –’

  ‘Abort mission, Shelly,’ my best friend since forever shouted at me. Lee leaned closer to his phone until I could just see the top half of his face, his forehead creased and his eyebrows knitted together. His dark brown hair was stuck up at odd angles and his blue eyes pierced right through the screen. ‘Do not book the flights.’

  ‘What? But …’

  My mind rattled. Why didn’t he want me to book the flights? We’d been planning this trip for weeks. Spring break was coming up and we’d decided to mark the occasion with a trip across the country. It was our senior year of high school, we had been working our butts off to get good grades for college, and we deserved the break.

  Plus, Noah, my boyfriend and Lee’s older brother, was currently in his first year of college in Boston on the other side of the country, which I had to admit was a big factor in me wanting to visit the East Coast. I wasn’t entirely selfish, though: Lee’s girlfriend of about a year, Rachel, had just been accepted to Brown, which was only an hour’s drive from Harvard. Rachel and her parents were going out to take a look around the campus. While I spent time with Noah, Lee would head down to Rhode Island to meet up with Rachel.

  The plan had been to fly into JFK in New York and to drive to Boston from there, but not before spending a day in New York to visit a few of the tourist traps. I was so excited to see the Statue of Liberty. I’d never been to New York before. Actually, I hadn’t really left California much before.

  We had it all planned: an epic trip to celebrate our senior year.

  And suddenly Lee was yelling at me to ‘abort mission’?

  ‘Did you and Noah have a fight?’ I demanded, scowling at him. Lee and his brother had an unshakable bond – but they didn’t always see eye to eye. I should know. I’d watched them grow up together, and I knew both of them well. Lee and I were the same age (to the day) and we’d been best friends our entire lives. Our moms had been good friends, too, until my mom passed away in a car accident when I was younger.

  Lee and Noah never had big fights, though. The only time I’d really seen them fight properly was last summer, when Lee found out that Noah and I had been secretly dating. (I still felt guilty about not telling Lee, even though he’d forgiven me. It was the only time I’d ever lied to him.)

  ‘No, we didn’t.’ Lee hesitated.

  ‘Did you and Rachel have a fight? Lee, what the hell is –’

  ‘I screwed up,’ he blurted, holding his phone further away so I could see his whole face. I was hit with the full force of his puppy-dog expression – which didn’t always work on me. ‘You know how I was gonna sort out the car rental?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘So, it turns out nobody will rent to us because we’re not eighteen.’

  I groaned and leaned over my desk, pressing my hands to my face. The news shouldn’t have surprised me. I was usually the more organized of the two of us (something I attributed to having looked after my little brother, Brad, a lot). Lee could be much more spur-of-the-moment. Of course he hadn’t noticed the age restriction until the very last second.

  Exasperated, I cried, ‘Lee! You said you checked it all out!’

  ‘Well, yeah, I thought I did! You know, I googled and it said there were extra fees if you’re under twenty-five sometimes, but that’s fine. But … then I thought maybe I could rent it in Noah’s name –’

  ‘Lee!’

  ‘But my mom overheard me asking him about it on the phone –’

  ‘Oh my God,’ I huffed. I loved my best friend more than anything, but sometimes he could get a little too carried away. ‘Please tell me you weren’t actually planning on doing that. I’m pretty sure it’s, like, a crime.’

  ‘Spare me the lecture. My mom already yelled at me over it. I told her I was joking, but … it’s not like Noah was even going to go along with it, as it turns out. I mean, seriously. He was the resident bad boy at school, always getting into fights and skipping class. He used to smoke. A few months at Harvard and suddenly he’s Mr Goody Two-Shoes?’

  I rolled my eyes. Annoyed as I was that Lee had actually been considering that as our next-best option, I couldn’t help breaking into a smile as he talked about Noah like that. Despite being our high school’s resident bad boy, as Lee had put it, Noah had changed a lot since going to college. Everyone else used to find him totally intimidating, but Lee and I had known him better. I’d harbored a helpless crush on Noah since I was, like, twelve. It turned out to be not-so-helpless when we ended up dating last year, after making out at the charity kissing booth Lee and I had run at our school’s Spring Carnival.

  College might have tempered some of Noah’s bad-boy attitude, but he was still our Noah.

  Still my Noah, I thought, my stomach fizzing and warmth spreading through me.

  As soon as it crossed my mind, the worry started to seep in. I hadn’t seen Noah since Christmas break, and, well, he had changed a lot since going to college … I hoped he was still my Noah …

  I shook the thought away quickly. Everything would be just as it always was between us. It had to be.

  ‘Anyway,’ Lee said suddenly, tearing me away from thinking about my boyfriend. He had a bright smile on his face that I hadn’t been expecting. ‘Don’t book the flights. We’ll just drive the whole way instead!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, it was hardly a road trip, was it, Shelly?’ he wheedled, raising his eyebrows at me. ‘Just New York to Boston?’

  ‘It was five hours, Lee.’

  ‘Exactly. You couldn’t get out of Texas in five hours.’

  ‘Just how long is the drive from here to Boston?’ I asked, opening a new tab to look it up. I hadn’t even been driving for a year and I definitely hadn’t done a long drive – let alone cross-country.

  ‘Like two days,’ Lee told me so quickly I almost missed it. ‘And if we take turns driving and nap on the road, we’ll be there in no time. Plus, school’s shut for an extra week, because they have to fix all those busted pipes, remember, and get all the electrics fixed and stuff? We’d have plenty of time to drive there and back, and still hang out once we get there.’

  A sensible voice in the back of my head told me this was com
pletely ridiculous. Even if we did take turns driving and napping, it’d probably take us a week to get there. It was a crazy suggestion. We should just fly to Boston because, duh, of course that was the easiest thing to do.

  But Lee and I didn’t do easy.

  We did, however, do crazy.

  My dad would probably sigh and rub his eyes and ask us if we’d really thought this through. Noah would laugh at us and tell us we’d barely make it out of California before giving up, turning round and jumping on a plane. Lee’s parents would probably roll their eyes and throw their hands in the air, knowing they couldn’t talk us out of it, and give us plenty of gas money, and Lee’s mom would insist that we text at regular intervals so she’d know we were safe.

  As I ran it through in my head, the nagging, sensible voice got quieter and quieter until it disappeared entirely and Lee’s voice took over.

  He hadn’t noticed my wandering thoughts. He was too busy telling me he didn’t even mind me driving his precious ’65 Mustang convertible, how much more fun the whole thing would be than flying, and didn’t I want to drive cross-country? And we’d be doing the bucket-list item, the thing everyone wanted to do some day. We’d be free of our parents and responsibilities, and it’d just be us and the open road. It would be, like, a rite of passage. And totally grown-up – going all the way across the country to spend some time with our other halves and to hang out at college, no less. We could still go to New York, Lee promised, even if it was just to drive through …

  ‘Come on,’ Lee pleaded. ‘This is our senior year, Elle. This was supposed to be our year. Remember? Our grand finale to high school. This could be our last great adventure before the rest of our lives!’

  He finally stopped to draw breath. His eyes glittered and his mouth split into a beaming smile as he waited expectantly for my decision.

  ‘Lee,’ I said gravely.

  I heard him gulp, waiting to be shot down.

  ‘Pick me up in ten. We’ve got road trip snacks to buy.’

  CHAPTER 2

  June Flynn hugged her son tight, then turned to hug me just as closely. ‘Now, drive safe, okay? Stick within the speed limit. I swear to God, Lee, if you come back with a single speeding ticket, you’ll be grounded until your college graduation. And you, miss …’ She turned to me with one eyebrow arched and her arms crossed. ‘You keep him in check, Elle, do you hear me? And neither of you drive if you’re too tired.’

  ‘We know, Mom.’ Lee sighed.

  I’d just had pretty much the same conversation – for the dozenth time – with my dad before I’d come over to Lee’s. Brad, my eleven-year-old brother, had been sulking and complaining loudly for the last few days. Lee and I had only broken the news about our coast-to-coast road trip to our parents after we’d planned our route, decided where we wanted to stop and made a playlist. Brad was desperate to join us – he’d even given Lee the cold shoulder until we were leaving … which was a big deal. Brad idolized Lee.

  ‘Can’t I go with them, though?’ he’d begged Dad.

  Lee had crouched down and clapped a hand on Brad’s shoulder. ‘Hey, buddy,’ he whispered loudly. ‘Look, between you and me … it’s gonna be really boring. We’re gonna be stuck in a car for days. And there’ll be traffic. If you really want to get stuck in a car with your sister for almost a week …’

  Brad thought about it for a minute, pouting, before asking, ‘Will you send me pictures if you stop somewhere cool? And get me a souvenir from New York?’

  ‘Cross my heart,’ Lee promised.

  June’s lecture was carrying on in the same way my dad’s had – although she told Lee to listen to me and reminded me to look after Lee, whereas my dad had made Lee swear to watch out for me, and told me to listen to Lee.

  ‘And if you do get in an accident –’

  ‘I know the drill, Mom. Dad’s told me what to do a hundred times. I’ve got insurance, and Noah taught me how to change a tire. We’ve got this.’

  June pursed her lips for a long moment before throwing her arms round both of us. ‘I’ll be tracking you on Find My Friends.’

  ‘You never should’ve taught her how to use that,’ Lee muttered to me. I just shrugged. I wasn’t overly sorry. I’d had more than a few texts from June asking if I’d heard from Noah, she hadn’t heard from him in a while and was worried about him, she assumed I would have talked to him and, if I hadn’t, that she was right to worry. Eventually, I’d had enough, and showed her how to use Find My Friends so she’d stop worrying so much.

  We finished saying our goodbyes. Lee’s old ’65 Mustang convertible was already loaded up with our bags, plenty of snacks and drinks and some blankets. We’d put together a fifteen-hour, thirty-two-minute playlist for the trip, and Lee had replaced the stereo system in his car a while back, so we could plug in our phones.

  June waited on the porch to see us off, her cardigan wrapped round her and one hand up to block the sun from her eyes. Lee checked his mirrors and started the engine as I buckled my seatbelt. He had the roof down so I pulled my hair into a ponytail to save it from the wind. I unhooked my sunglasses from the neck of my tank top and put them on, then plugged in my cell. Spotify was open in one app, our route in another.

  My phone buzzed. It was a text from Noah. My heart skipped a beat and I cradled my phone as I read it.

  Can’t wait to see you in a few days. Got so much cool stuff planned for when you get here xxx

  Lee’s seatbelt clicked into place. The first song started up. It was Lee’s choice: Rihanna’s ‘Shut Up and Drive’. He beamed at me, his blue eyes glittering in the sunlight, his dark brown hair pushed back from his face, and his fingers flexing round the steering wheel. He revved the engine, his eyebrows waggling.

  ‘You ready, Shelly?’

  ‘Ready,’ I told him. My mind drifted to my reunion with Noah. ‘Now, shut up and drive.’

  When you think about it, driving almost nonstop across the country for four or five days doesn’t actually sound like much fun. I mean, sitting in a car all that time, getting stuck in traffic, grabbing quick bites to eat at fast-food restaurants. Plus, we actually had somewhere to be, so we weren’t stopping to look around every new town, or going to see the World’s Largest Ball of Twine, or visiting the Shoelace Museum or whatever it was we passed.

  Brad definitely would’ve hated it.

  But four hours in, we’d almost made it to Arizona, and I was loving every second.

  Ever since Lee and I had first talked about taking a mini road trip from New York to Boston, I had been picturing it in my head: a cute, mellow indie tune playing (probably featuring a banjo), Lee and I laughing, the windows down, and the sun shining on our faces. I’d told myself it was just a fantasy …

  But that was almost exactly how it was right now.

  Admittedly, the song playing wasn’t by some banjo-backed indie band. It was a duet from Les Mis, and Lee knew every word. Rachel was in the drama club and Les Mis was this year’s school production, and Lee, always the dutiful boyfriend, had practiced with her a bunch. He’d added a ton of show tunes to our playlist, actually.

  ‘Come on, Shelly,’ he cried out, his face creased with laughter. ‘You promised you’d sing the other parts!’

  ‘Why can’t I be what’s-her-name? Why do I have to be Eddie Redmayne?’

  ‘Because I’m always Marius. I never get to be Cosette. Just give me this, Shelly. Let’s start again. Hand me another Red Vine?’

  I passed him one. We’d rationed the snacks carefully before leaving, and I was on snack ration duty while Lee was behind the wheel. I was glad we’d thought ahead – otherwise we’d have easily blown through two days’ worth of snacks by now.

  It was the fifth time Lee had played this song, so I was starting to remember most of the lyrics. Lee was actually pretty good, but he sang with a terrible exaggerated French accent. I kept bursting into giggles, no matter how hard I tried to keep a straight face. We’d had to turn up the stereo really loud to hear it over the wind and the noise of other cars, but when Lee couldn’t keep it together any more and broke off halfway through a line, all I could hear was his laughter.