The Summer Girlfriend (Heart Beach, #1)(73)
The balloon of hope in Jeremiah’s chest popped and deflated. He stared at Noelle, taking in her distressed expression. If they really tried, he believed they could figure out a way to make things work. Long distance would be hard, and he’d have to be okay with being put on the back burner in deference to her studies sometimes. But that was doable. She had a point about the lies, but they could cross that bridge when they came to it. They could see where things went after summer ended if they wanted to.
He wanted to tell her these things. He wanted to ask her to have faith in them and what they could be together. But…asking Noelle to see things from his point of view would be selfish, especially after everything she’d been through in order to get to this point in her life. He didn’t want her to see him as just another obstacle.
“Okay,” he said, releasing a deep breath. Heart heavy, he smiled softly. “Friends.”
Her smile in response was bittersweet. “Friends,” she repeated.
They fell quiet. Jeremiah checked his phone again. It was almost ten p.m. He definitely didn’t want to overstay his welcome.
“It’s late, I should go,” he said, beginning to stand. But Noelle placed her hand on his forearm, stopping him.
“Or if you don’t feel like driving home, you could stay over,” she said. In her voice, he heard her reluctance for him to leave. He clung to that because he didn’t want to leave either. He didn’t like the idea of her being here in this empty apartment alone. He wanted to stay with her, even though he knew they couldn’t be more than friends.
“I know it’s not as big as your bed in Heart Beach,” she said. “But we can both fit comfortably, right?”
“Yeah,” he said slowly. “Friends have sleepovers all the time.”
She nodded. “They do.”
He went to grab his duffel bag from his car, and he changed into a spare T-shirt and a pair of basketball shorts. After washing up, he climbed into Noelle’s bed, and the sheets smelled like her. She turned off her bedroom light and slid under the covers as well. Their arms and legs were touching as they both lay on their backs. Then Noelle turned and curled into Jeremiah’s side. He put his arm around her, and she rested her head against his chest, right on top of his wildly beating heart. Holding her this way felt amazing. He wished he could go back and undo every night they’d spent sleeping on opposite ends of his bed.
He liked Noelle. She liked him. They were just going to be friends.
A simple decision that felt more complicated than ever.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Noelle’s mind was officially all over the place.
When Jeremiah had left her apartment on Monday morning, he’d kissed her on the forehead and told her he’d text her later. She’d been worried that he might act weird toward her now since they’d agreed to be friends—on her suggestion because she thought that would be for the best!—but then he’d stayed over—also on her suggestion because apparently, she was a masochist!—and cuddled with her all night. However, on his lunch break, he’d texted her like he said he would and asked how her day was going. And they’d continued to text throughout the rest of the week. She liked him more and more as each day passed.
Usually, she was so overwhelmed with her various jobs, she didn’t have much time to ponder her thoughts and feelings, but for the time in several years, she actually had the chance to hear herself think. She had time to update her résumé, and she had the gift of discernment when applying for jobs. She was hoping to find some kind of office work that didn’t require a bachelor’s degree. When she wasn’t applying to jobs, she went to the park with a blanket and a book and she read on the grass in the sun. She FaceTimed her mom. When Tati came back from vacation, she and Noelle spent hours lying on the couch, watching old episodes of Insecure. She finally had the opportunity to take a breath. All because she was pretending to be Jeremiah’s girlfriend.
But that didn’t feel like much of a job. The pretending part wasn’t very hard at all.
She thought about Jeremiah constantly. She thought about him while cooking dinner, recalling how he’d moved so easily around her kitchen like he’d been there several times before. She thought about him while reading a spy novel, thinking of how he looked like James Bond at the gala. She thought about him at the most random times too, like while on a call with Sheree, as she reconfirmed the location and time of her bridal shower in a couple weeks. As Sheree described the tea party theme, Noelle was busy daydreaming about every time that she and Jeremiah had kissed.
They didn’t talk about their kisses, though. They texted consistently and talked about any-and everything but their kiss. Instead, they asked each other questions. What were their favorite colors? Favorite movies? Favorite memories? She answered: yellow; Brown Sugar; she had lots of favorite memories, but one that she thought of often was that time in high school when she and Tati had gotten lost in Central Park and ended up watching the sea lion feeding at the zoo. Jeremiah’s favorite color was blue. His favorite movie was Coming to America. His favorite memory was when his grandfather taught him how to drive a boat the summer after he turned sixteen. They shared their weird, irrational fears. Like Noelle’s fear that one day she might bite into an apple and see a worm. Or Jeremiah’s fear that he might get bit by a spider and eggs would hatch on his skin.