Chapter Nine
Noelle smoothed her hands down the front of her satin, sleeveless olive green dress.
She’d bought it at the same boutique in SoHo with Tati.
The hem fell right below her knees, so it seemed appropriate to wear to dinner.
Jeremiah’s mom had hired a private chef to cook tonight.
He said that Celeste didn’t have a ton of house rules, but she preferred that everyone be dressed for dinner.
Nothing fancy, but you weren’t allowed to sit at the table in your bathing suit or your pajamas.
Noelle had gotten a tan from being out in the sun today, and she wore her braids loose down her back.
They’d spent the majority of the early evening at the arcade and the games section of the boardwalk.
Jeremiah had tried and failed three times to win her a stuffed bear at the balloon darts booth, but he’d won her a stuffed turtle after playing the spray-and-race game.
While accepting the prize, Noelle had kissed Jeremiah on the cheek, and she’d carried the turtle proudly like it was a coveted trophy.
His mom and sisters had found this adorable.
Hopefully, she and Jeremiah looked convincingly in love, and when their big breakup happened tomorrow night, his family would understand his heartbreak and he’d be able to drop the girlfriend narrative for good.
So far, the Smiths had been nothing but kind to Noelle.
Amara and Robin went out of their way to include Noelle in conversations, and although she found Celeste intimidating, she could tell that Celeste was making an effort to be welcoming to her son’s new girlfriend.
His nieces were rambunctious sweethearts.
After the standoff between Jeremiah and Percy on the boardwalk, they’d avoided each other, and as a result, Percy also inadvertently avoided Noelle.
He’d walked away from the group more than once to take phone calls.
Noelle didn’t know the source of friction between Jeremiah and Percy, but that also didn’t seem like important information that she needed in order to do her job properly.
It wasn’t her place to insert herself and ask Jeremiah about what was going on.
Every family had drama, and she wouldn’t be seeing this family after the weekend ended.
She was more concerned about keeping herself in line.
Literally. The house was immaculate. Like the kind of house that location scouts picked for movies.
Noelle felt like a bull in a china shop here.
Every item was placed just so with intention.
From the spotless furniture to the wall decor to the sparkling plates and utensils she’d spotted in the dining room.
Even the toothbrush holder in the third-floor bathroom was made of white glass.
If she broke something, it would cost her a pretty penny to replace it. That was for sure.
She reached toward the bedside table and grabbed the dainty gold necklace with a heart pendant that she’d also bought in SoHo. She’d added it to her overall purchase at the last minute when she’d realized she didn’t have jewelry to wear this weekend.
A knock sounded at the door.
“Hey, can I come in?” Jeremiah asked. He’d waited downstairs while Noelle got dressed in order to give her privacy.
“Yeah, I’m dressed,” she called.
Jeremiah opened the door and took a tentative step inside. He wore a navy blue polo, tan chinos, and navy blue and white low-top Dunks. He was holding a hand over his eyes, and he pretended to stumble as he walked.
Noelle laughed. “You can open your eyes.”
“You sure?” He peeked through his fingers, smiling.
“Promise.”
He dropped his hand, and whatever he was about to say died on his lips. He gazed at Noelle and blinked slowly.
“You look beautiful,” he said.
She bit her lip, suddenly bashful. She’d felt the same way earlier when he’d said that her beauty took his breath away.
It had been a line for his family then. But the way he was looking at her now, like the sight of her made his breath catch, seemed genuine.
Especially since he hadn’t complimented her for the benefit of any witnesses.
Her inner butterflies were trying to break themselves out of prison and flood her brain again.
“Thank you,” she said, forcing herself to turn to the mirror. “You don’t look so bad yourself. I’ll be ready in a second.”
She tried to clasp the necklace around her neck, but she kept missing the tiny hole.
“Let me help you,” Jeremiah said. He walked over and stood behind her. Their fingers brushed as she released the necklace ends into his hands. Warmth radiated from his skin. He smelled good too, of course. He probably never smelled bad, even when he sweated.
Great, now she was picturing him shirtless and glistening with sweat.
STOP, brain. Please!
“I like this,” he said, focusing on the necklace. “Is it new too?”
“Yeah, but it’s not real gold,” she hastened to say. “It didn’t cost that much.”
He just smirked and shook his head. “I told you to buy whatever you needed for the weekend. Real gold or not.”
He’d also told her to keep his credit card until the weekend ended, just in case. It was nothing to him. That must be nice.
He finished fastening her necklace, but he didn’t move from behind her. She didn’t move either. Their gazes held in the mirror.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
“Pretty okay,” she said. “Your family seems to believe us, right?”
“Yeah, I think so.” His attention traveled from her face to her collarbone and hovered there, like he didn’t want to lower his eyes and openly ogle her. The neckline of her dress was modest, but a bit of cleavage was still visible.
“We look good together,” he said, meeting her eyes again in the mirror.
“We do,” she agreed.
For a second, she let herself imagine that she was living in an alternate reality where she was Jeremiah’s real girlfriend and they were about to have dinner with his family.
They’d met at the bookstore weeks ago and had fallen madly in love, hard and fast. She hadn’t lost her job, and she was all squared away to start classes in the fall.
No, wait. In this scenario she was already a librarian.
(Her alternate reality, her rules.) She didn’t have to worry about Jeremiah distracting her because she had achieved landing her dream job.
He wasn’t moving to California anymore either, and on her lunch breaks, he picked her up in his sleek, fast car and they made out in his back seat.
In this reality, pigs also flew, she was best friends with Beyoncé, and the sky was purple. Because why not.
It was best to stay grounded in real life, though.
She turned around to face Jeremiah.
“I’ve decided that if your mom offers me sweets for dessert, I’m going to tell her that I don’t eat them,” she said with a regretful sigh. “I don’t think I’ve been doing a good enough job at not endearing myself to them. They don’t need to know how obsessed I am with Smith’s Sweets.”
“I’ll sneak you some later,” he said. “I got you.”
“Thank you.” She grinned up at him, and he winked.
She didn’t know how she was going to manage sleeping in this room with him without wanting to jump his bones, but she’d figure that out later.
“Ready?” he asked.
He held out his hand, and she placed her hand in his.
“Ready.”
Palms pressed together, they walked downstairs. She heard the chef and his team bustling around in the kitchen. The voices of Jeremiah’s family members drifted down the hall from the dining room. Noelle leaned in closer to Jeremiah.
“We haven’t kissed yet today,” she whispered. “I thought I’d ask if that’s fine with you, or if you’d like to plan a kiss for sometime tonight.”
His eyes immediately went to her mouth, and her heart started doing jumping jacks.
“You’re right,” he said. “We should probably kiss tonight, shouldn’t we?”
“For believability’s sake, yeah,” she answered, trying to remain purely professional. “That way when we break up tomorrow, it will be all the more shocking. And your family will want to give you space because they’ll think you’re really heartbroken.”
He nodded. “True. I like how you think. Let’s kiss as we walk into the dining room, before we sit down. What should be our cue? I’ll let you take the lead.”
“I’ll wink at you,” she said.
“Perfect.”
When they entered the dining room, the rest of the Smiths were already seated around the table.
“There they are,” Celeste said, smiling. She was sitting at the head of the table, and she shook her finger at Noelle and Jeremiah good-naturedly. “There’s always a couple stragglers for dinner.”
“Sorry, Jeremiah was helping me with my necklace,” Noelle said. She looked up at him. “Thanks, babe.”
Then she winked, giving his cue.
Jeremiah reached up and lightly cupped her cheek.
Their eyes locked as he slowly lowered his mouth to hers, like he was giving her a chance to change her mind if she wanted to.
But Noelle didn’t move. Their lips pressed together, and it sent her rebellious butterflies on a frenzy, rattling around inside her chest and begging for release.
The kiss was sweet and chaste. Featherlight with no tongue.
But electric currents moved through Noelle, nonetheless.
She pulled away from Jeremiah, ending their kiss, and she smiled easily as she walked to one of the open seats at the table, even though every cell in her body was buzzing.
As Jeremiah sat next to her, she was afraid to look at him, afraid for him to see how much their simple kiss had affected her.
When she finally found the courage to glance over, she found him looking down at the table, smiling quietly to himself.
“How are things at Good Boy?” Percy asked. He was sitting directly across from Jeremiah, who looked up and blinked, like he was surprised to hear Percy ask that question. Percy glanced at Celeste. “Mom was telling me that you just landed a new deal with Shop Mart. That’s dope. Congrats.”