The Summer Girlfriend (Heart Beach, #1)(9)

He turned on the coffee machine that Amara had bought him for Christmas last year. It was complicated and had a billion buttons, but it made an excellent cappuccino. After he got the machine going, he sat at his kitchen table and stared at the digital clock above the stove. He waited a full minute. Then he took a steadying breath and FaceTimed his mom.

“Oh, my second born has finally deigned to acknowledge his mother’s existence,” Celeste said, by way of hello. She was sitting in her office at the Smith’s Sweets headquarters in Hamilton, about an hour south of Jersey City. A blown-up framed photograph of his grandparents’ original bakery hung on the wall behind Celeste’s head. Her hair was cut into a short, blunt bob, and she was dressed smartly in a cream sleeveless turtleneck with matching pearl earrings. She tilted her head as she looked at Jeremiah. “Are you done ignoring me now?”

“Heyyy, Ma,” he sang sheepishly. “You look beautiful this morning.”

Celeste gave him a look, which let him know that flattery wasn’t going to get him very far.

“Sorry, I’ve been getting ready for a meeting,” he said.

Celeste arched a perfectly tweezed eyebrow. “And were you getting ready for a meeting yesterday and the day before that and the day before that too?”

Jeremiah winced. “Yes?”

Celeste shook her head on a sigh. “Who’s the meeting with?”

“Shop Mart.” As a peace offering, he asked, “Any advice for me?”

The corners of Celeste’s mouth curved into a smile. She’d respected his decision to leave Smith’s Sweets and try to make his way on his own, and she’d reminded him that she’d always be there if he needed her. Now she loved when he came to her for business advice.

“Be yourself, honey,” she said. “The Shop Mart team is selective. If they’re taking the meeting with you, they’ve most likely already decided that they want your product and they just want to feel you out in person before saying yes. Trust yourself. You know how to sell.”

A natural-born salesman. That’s what Pop had called him.

On Jeremiah’s first day at the Smith’s Sweets office, Pop had walked him around and formally introduced him to everyone. By that point, Pop had long since retired and left the company in the capable hands of Celeste, his only child. But his second grandson joining the family business had been a big deal, and he’d wanted to be present for the occasion.

Unfortunately, as it turned out, if there was an award for Smith’s Sweet’s Least Motivated, Most Distracted Employee, Jeremiah would have won it easily.

Sometimes Jeremiah thought about his last conversation with Pop before he died, and he wished that he could give himself a lobotomy in order to forget the utterly disappointed look on his grandfather’s face as he witnessed Jeremiah stumble into their family beach house after yet another night of partying.

“You know why I’m calling, don’t you?” Celeste asked, snapping Jeremiah back to the present.

Behind him, the coffee machine beeped. Jeremiah slanted his eyes at his mom as he grabbed the steaming mug and sat in front of his phone again.

“Mom…I won’t be able to make it out to the house this weekend,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not willing to accept that answer.”

Jeremiah sighed. “Mom.”

“Jeremiah,” she countered.

It was a family tradition to spend the majority of their summers at their vacation home in Heart Beach, New Jersey. Every weekend, beginning with Memorial Day Weekend and ending with Labor Day weekend, the Smiths inhabited the Heart Beach house. As Jeremiah and his siblings grew older and they spent their summers studying abroad or going on vacations with their friends, they came and went from the house as they pleased. But it was a guarantee that on the weekend, the house would be filled with chatter and laughter, and inevitably someone would complain about how there never seemed to be a way to completely get rid of the sand by the front door.

His grandparents had bought the house when his mom was a kid. Now that Percy and his wife, Robin, had their twin daughters and a new baby on the way, the house had seen four generations of the Smith family.

If someone asked Jeremiah to picture his happy place, his brain would immediately conjure the Heart Beach house. Some of his most cherished memories took place there. But his most painful memory took place there as well. He hadn’t been to Heart Beach in two years. Not since the summer before last, when he’d stupidly argued with Pop the night before he died.

“You didn’t come down at all last summer,” Celeste said. “And I let it slide, but two summers away is too long. You’ve already missed Memorial Day Weekend and the Juneteenth parade. Harper and Ashley keep asking when you’ll be here. You’re their favorite uncle.”

Jeremiah laughed and rubbed his temple. “I’m their only uncle.”

He loved his nieces. Loved them so much he made regular visits to see them even though it meant seeing their dad, Percy. For most of Jeremiah’s life, he and Percy had been close, even if Jeremiah struggled with being in his perfect older brother’s shadow. But their relationship had become strained since Jeremiah’s decision to leave Smith’s Sweets. Percy was vice president of operations. In many ways, both professional and personal, Percy was Celeste’s right hand.