Kate in Waiting by Becky Albertalli (ereader with android txt) 📕

dad’s house for years. But this is actually the first time I’ve been inside it. It’s an old Ford Fusion, inherited from his sisters, and it’s cluttered but not smelly. Hardly an f-boy car at all. I kind of love it. “So is it weird to be driving again?”

“Nah, not really. It’s like—”

“Don’t say riding a bike.”

“What are you, the cliché police?”

“Something like that.” I turn toward him. “I can’t believe you got out. I totally thought Zhao was going to keep you for like an hour.”

“No, she and Mr. D just wanted me to change a few things now that I have my hand back. It’s so weird. It feels like—I don’t know. Kind of like when I got my braces off. Oh! Shit. Oops!” He shoots me a sheepish smile. “Forgot to turn my headlights on.”

“How do you forget to turn your headlights on when it’s dark out?”

“Because I’m out of practice.” He swallows. “And I’m nervous.”

I lose every ounce of air in my lungs. I can’t even explain it. It’s just Noah. Noah, with his rumpled brown hair and too-wide eyes, looking way too much like Flynn Rider. Regular Noah in a regular hoodie, and he’s so cute, I can hardly stand it. And the closer we get to Dad’s house, the worse it gets. I just stare out the window, one hand pressed to my chest, like I’m holding my heart in.

Meanwhile, Noah keeps driving, and he’s just as silent as I am.

When he parks in my driveway at last, I stay seated. “Thanks for the ride,” I say shyly.

“Anytime. Hey.” He turns all the way toward me, and I feel clumsy and tongue-tied and weak with anticipation. God. There’s something downright surreal about the fact that I just spent my whole entire day picturing this exact moment, and now it’s happening. It’s like I conjured it. “So . . . ,” he says—and then his eyes flick up to my house. “Your dad’s watching us.”

“You’re kidding me.”

But sure enough, there’s Dad, holding Charles, fully lit and framed by his bedroom window. He waves hi with Charles’s paw.

Noah waves back. “Listen,” he says. “I’m not going to kiss you in front of your dad, and, like, your dog, but I’m just going to say this, because otherwise I might explode. Okay?”

I nod, heart pounding.

He exhales. “I really like you.”

“Me too. I really like you, too.”

He shakes his head. “Let me try again. I have been,” he says, “I have had the biggest, most ridiculous crush on you, Kate. For so long.” He catches my eye for the barest split second, and then looks away. I realize his hands are shaking. “Since middle school. Since the bread balls at Temple. Since the variety show. I don’t need you to say anything. I just want you to know.” He covers his face with both hands.

“Noah,” I say.

“You can leave. If you want. I’ll just.” He swallows. “I’m going to go park in my driveway. I can drive you to school tomorrow, but if that’s too weird, I totally get it—”

“Noah.”

He slides his hands off his eyes and looks at me.

“My dad closed the blinds.”

“What?” he says. “Oh.”

“Can I kiss you?” I ask, knowing perfectly well he’ll say yes.

The look in Noah’s eyes makes me feel like Rapunzel.

He unbuckles his seat belt and scoots toward me, and that alone makes my heart swoop. This is actually about to happen. Noah Kaplan’s about to kiss me. Strange how it feels both preposterous and inevitable. He takes my head in both his hands, thumb tapping my lip for the barest split second. Then his lips are on mine, and I’m not Rapunzel at all.

I’m a paper lantern.

I’m floating, lit up from the inside.

Scene 74

Okay, thank God I’m in a musical that has mattresses for set pieces, and I mean that in a completely nonsexual way.

Almost completely.

Okay, seriously, I’m not going to have sex with Noah on a set piece during dress rehearsal.

Or ever.

On a set piece.

I JUST MEAN I NEED A NAP.

Because last night was . . . not a sleeping kind of night. Not because Noah and I stayed up late kissing. I mean. Maybe we stayed up slightly late kissing. Maybe we kissed until my lips felt like they were buzzing, and maybe I was so breathless by the end that I could barely say good night.

Afterward, I lay in bed, staring up at my canopy, thinking about how I’ll be thirty, I’ll be fifty, I’ll be a grandma, and still. I’ll never forget the look on Noah’s face as he leaned closer, that breath of anticipation right before our lips met. And I especially thought about the last thing Noah said when I got out of the car. See you tomorrow, Kate. So ordinary, and so full of possibility. So completely drenched in magic. He’d texted me a heart emoji about ten minutes later, and I hugged my phone upside down to my chest, thinking: even that is a thing I’ll never forget. Even the emoji.

Meanwhile, I’ve started and deleted about a hundred texts to Anderson, which is its own shot of joy. Just knowing I can text him again. I can text him anything I want to, full giddy ramblings, with nothing held back. There’s a part of me that thinks Andy’s the reason Noah and I kept getting interrupted. Because the world wouldn’t give me a moment like last night if I couldn’t share it with Andy.

Maybe I wouldn’t give myself a moment like last night until I could share it with Andy.

But in the end, I don’t text him. I want to tell him in person. I want to squeal and hug and freak out and obsess over details and field intrusive questions.

And it occurs to me suddenly: I want to do that for Andy. About Matt.

Scene 75

The whole day feels like a dream. Noah kisses me twice in the morning, quickly and softly—once when I get in his car, and once in the school parking lot, right