The Summer Girlfriend (Heart Beach, #1)(49)
He’d looked forward to the way he’d lock eyes with her around his family, acknowledging their shared secret. Or how her whole face lit up simply because she was excited to eat cookies or talk to him about the plot of the book she was reading. This weekend she’d been by his side, unknowingly grounding him whenever his thoughts had started to spiral. She’d been his partner in crime.
He missed her already.
It took him a moment to realize that the silence was so loud because Noelle had been playing her music. He fumbled to reconnect his phone so that he wouldn’t be stuck alone with his thoughts, but he barely had a chance to open his music app because Celeste was calling him. She probably wanted to check in.
Before he’d left Heart Beach this morning, he’d talked with his mom in her office, and she’d told him that she was concerned about him in the aftermath of his “breakup.” She’d reminded him that he didn’t have to chase after someone who didn’t want to be with him, and that if Noelle couldn’t see his value, then she didn’t deserve him. He’d reassured Celeste that he was okay and that he just wanted to nurse his broken heart in peace and get back home and focus on work. And separately, he’d be able to catch his breath after being in Heart Beach, constantly confronted with his guilt over how he’d left things with Pop before he died.
“Hey, Ma,” he said, connecting the call on his car’s speaker. “What’s up?”
“Are you home yet?” Celeste asked.
He could hear Ashley’s and Harper’s high-pitched voices in the background. He felt a slight tug in his stomach. Being back at Heart Beach had been hard, but there had been pockets of joy too. Like being with his nieces on the boardwalk and catching up with Amara and Robin at breakfast. Things with Percy were tough right now, and leaving Heart Beach meant that he wouldn’t risk getting into it with Percy again. But as Jeremiah heard his nieces chattering in the background, a part of him wished that he could have handled staying in Heart Beach for a bit longer.
“Not home yet,” he said. “Almost. Why? Everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine,” Celeste said. “I’m calling about Noelle.”
“Mom, I’m gonna be okay,” Jeremiah insisted, although as he said those words, he got another whiff of Noelle’s lingering perfume, and it caused his chest to tighten. He swallowed. “It was a wrong place, wrong time kind of thing.”
“I want you to work things out with her and bring her back next weekend.”
He almost swerved out of his lane into another car. “I’m sorry,” he sputtered. “What?”
“I think I was wrong about her.”
He blinked, dumfounded. “Less than two hours ago, you said you didn’t think she deserved me. What changed your mind so fast?”
“Well, I saw her helping the girls this morning with their routine, and it was just the sweetest thing. My instincts are telling me that I overreacted about how she broke up with you. You’re both hurt, and hurt people say hurtful things.”
Jeremiah’s brain was doing mental gymnastics. His mom watching Noelle interact with his nieces had brought on her sudden change of heart? What had Noelle done, exactly? Teach Harper and Ashley an entire Beyoncé routine in five minutes?
“But it’s not just about her helping the girls, Miah,” Celeste said. “Aside from the drama last night, you lit up around Noelle. I haven’t seen you happy like that since before Pop died. It was nice to see you that way.”
Jeremiah paused, falling quiet. He and Noelle had pretended to be in love for the benefit of his family. What Celeste saw between them had been manufactured. But…what if Celeste had been able to see past what Jeremiah had struggled to keep in check? That he’d started to like Noelle in a way that was not outlined in their agreement. Now, suddenly, Celeste was invested in him and Noelle getting back together.
Jeremiah rubbed a hand over his face. This was all his fault. He’d buried himself too deep with his lie. Under no circumstances would he admit to Celeste that he had hired Noelle to be his girlfriend in order to back up his story. In an unexpected turn of events, their plan had backfired. More than backfired—it had blown the fuck up in his face.
“The rest of the family enjoyed you being here too,” Celeste continued. “Life is short, Miah. We’re here one day and gone the next. I’m not trying to guilt-trip you or be unnecessarily morbid, but that’s just the truth of it. We’re family and we have to cherish each other. Otherwise, what do we have? We want you here.” She paused, and Jeremiah felt the weight of her words settle around him. “So, patch things up with Noelle, okay? Bring her as your date to the gala. Spend time with us before you’re a West Coaster. And please don’t tell me that you can’t come down on the weekends because of your job. You work hard but you don’t work on the weekends, and you’re already working remotely. I don’t see why you can’t work from Heart Beach if need be.”
We’re family and we have to cherish each other.
Jeremiah grasped on to those words because they were true. He’d wasted years hanging around the wrong people. His family was important to him. Spending more time at Heart Beach with them, keeping his mom happy, was what he should be doing. But that meant a month of weekends with no escape from his complicated feelings about Pop’s death. And weekends where he’d inevitably argue with Percy again. Noelle told him that he should talk to his family about his grief over Pop, that they were a soft place to land. He wanted to believe that he could work himself up to that, even if he didn’t feel fully capable.