The Summer Girlfriend (Heart Beach, #1)(40)
Through the sea of white, Noelle spotted Ashley and Harper playing with two girls around their age. Noelle figured they must be their friends Zoe and Ciara from next door. Percy and Robin were nearby, talking with another couple. Jeremiah was the only Smith who didn’t have friends of his own in attendance. He’d told Noelle that he didn’t really have friends other than his childhood best friend, Danny, who wouldn’t be in Heart Beach this weekend. He’d said he’d had to cut off his other friends in order to change his lifestyle.
She wondered if that made him feel lonely now.
“Believe it or not, that’s average-sized compared to some of the displays my mom has had for past parties,” Jeremiah said, looking up at the balloon arch too. “Caesar is gonna hate when the balloons have to get popped later, though. It’ll scare him.”
Jeremiah was wearing a short-sleeve open-collar white shirt and straight-legged white jeans with white Veja sneakers, while Noelle wore an eyelet white minidress and white open-toe slingback kitten-heel sandals. They might not have been a real couple, but they matched each other’s fly. At least Noelle hoped they did. Blending in wasn’t an issue for her at weddings because she usually wore a dress that was approved by the bride, and her hair and makeup were done by professionals. But here, standing with Jeremiah in his family’s backyard, among people who probably had no idea what it was like to miss a bill or go into credit card debt for buying essentials, she hoped she looked like she fit in.
“Who’s Caesar?” she asked Jeremiah.
“My mom’s cat,” he said, turning to her. “He doesn’t like the beach house, so he hides under her bed most of the time. You’ll probably never see him, which is for the best, because he only likes my mom, and he might scratch you if he sees you.”
“Yikes.” Noelle tilted her head and quirked an eyebrow. “So you’re telling me he’s even able to resist your charms?”
“He likes to resist me the most.” The edge of his mouth curled into a slow smirk. “Are you trying to say that you think I’m charming, Noelle Lewis?”
She laughed. “I think we both know that you’re charming.”
“You said it, not me.” His grin made her stomach muscles tighten involuntarily.
This morning, she’d turned over to find him lying beside her on top of the covers. Sometime overnight, he must have moved from the foot of the bed to lie vertically. He was far enough away that they weren’t touching. She rested her head against the pillow and observed his sleeping form. He’d been frowning. She’d never seen someone frown in their sleep before. She wondered what he was dreaming about.
By the time he woke up, she’d been reading for almost an hour. He rubbed his eyes and immediately apologized for falling asleep on the bed when he’d meant to sleep in the nook. She told him it was fine, he probably would have hurt his back anyway.
“I don’t want to sleep in the bed with you again if it makes you uncomfortable,” he’d said, his gaze direct and earnest.
“I wasn’t uncomfortable,” she’d replied.
In fact, she liked waking up next to him more than she should have. It felt nice to read quietly in bed while he slept not too far away. If this were a longer commitment, their sleeping arrangement might have presented a bigger problem. But they had only one more night here together. It would be fine if they shared the bed again.
Jeremiah had gotten up and gone down to the kitchen. He’d brought Noelle a cup of coffee, and then he’d left to go on a run.
It was clear to Noelle that all of the Smiths missed their patriarch, but Jeremiah seemed to take his grandfather’s death harder than the rest of his family. When she’d found him by the pool last night, he’d been staring despondently at the ground. With her brides, she always made herself available as a sounding board. Someone to listen to their problems and help ease their emotional load. She’d wanted to offer the same opportunity to Jeremiah. She didn’t like seeing him so upset. It was why she’d asked if he wanted to talk about his grandfather. But unlike her brides who were usually bursting at the seams to unload their stress, Jeremiah wanted to keep whatever was bothering him close to his chest.
Maybe that was for the best, though. Historically, whenever Noelle asked a man to open up to her, things didn’t end well. CJ had been her first and last lesson with a serious boyfriend. She was too focused to let a relationship get in the way of her goals. But there had been others after CJ here and there whom she’d dated casually when feelings of loneliness wore on her. And even with those less serious situationships where her heart wasn’t on the line and there wasn’t much at stake, men couldn’t or wouldn’t meet her halfway in simple ways, and it was still disappointing. It had been years since she’d casually dated, though. It was a waste of her time and attention.
Jeremiah was different, of course, because on paper he was nothing like CJ or any of the men she’d dated before. And he wasn’t her real boyfriend. He was her client, and they hadn’t agreed to exchange emotional truths; they’d agreed to exchange a fee. There was no point in trying to get Jeremiah to open up to her if she wasn’t going to see him again after tomorrow. She needed to keep reminding herself of that. Because every time he touched her, an electric current zipped through her veins, and when they’d kissed last night, her skin cells had rearranged themselves. It was confusing, to say the least.