Chapter Twelve
Jeremiah immediately began looking for a way out of this conversation.
“Ah, yeah,” he said, feeling his smile finally crack. “I hear that a lot.”
The polite conversation and schmoozing, he could do.
He’d been doing it for the past two hours.
It was surface-level talk that required him only to smile, listen, and respond.
But talking about Pop wasn’t an easy, superficial topic.
It was inevitable, really, that someone would mention his grandfather today.
Now that he thought about it, he was surprised that it had taken this long. He should have better prepared himself.
“Your grandfather loved to dance at the galas,” Mercy continued. She smiled as she looked at Noelle. “Did you ever see his grandfather dance?”
“Um, no.” Noelle’s fingers remained threaded through Jeremiah’s. “He passed away before I met Jeremiah.”
“Oh, right, of course,” Mercy said. “He was one of a kind. A sweet and giving man. He used to—”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Webster,” Jeremiah said. “I hate to interrupt, but I forgot that I need to talk to my mom about something. It was good to see you again. Enjoy the rest of the party.”
He began to pull Noelle away, and she went with him easily.
“Oh yes, lovely speaking with you, Jeremiah!” Mercy said. “And lovely to meet you, Nolie! Come by the boutique! We have feather sunglasses in a variety of colors!”
“It’s Noelle,” Jeremiah called over his shoulder.
How could Mercy ask someone to spend money at her store and call them the wrong name in the same breath?
“Thank you,” Noelle whispered.
Jeremiah nodded, feeling slightly embarrassed about his sudden need to abandon the scene.
Maybe he would have been able to deal with hearing Ms. Webster’s story about Pop if they weren’t here in Heart Beach.
If they weren’t surrounded by Pop’s memory, along with Jeremiah’s ever-present fear that he wasn’t doing Pop’s memory any justice.
As he and Noelle moved through the crowd, people tried to stop him to talk, but he kept up the same excuse that he needed to find Celeste.
In reality, Celeste was in social butterfly hostess mode, and Jeremiah probably wouldn’t get a chance to speak to her again until after the party ended.
But saying that he needed to find her was an excuse that no one would question.
He just needed a break from all the conversation.
Holding hands with Noelle felt like the only thing anchoring him in place.
He led her around to the side of the house where there were no guests milling around.
The music was less loud here. He leaned back against the house and took a moment to hear himself think.
He’d once thrived in big social settings, but he’d spent the past two years quietly trying to work on himself.
This party was more jarring than he’d expected.
Noelle silently stood in front of him, watching. Waiting. He wondered if she’d ask if he was okay. He half hoped that she would, half hoped that she wouldn’t.
“Mercy’s sunglasses were kind of ridiculous,” she said. “I wonder what it says about me that she thinks I’d want to buy them.”
Jeremiah laughed softly. “I think it’s more so that she wants someone who looks like you to be seen wearing her stuff.”
Noelle smiled as she shook her head. “I’d love to be a fly on the wall at her boutique to see who shops there.”
“I’ve been to her boutique before. You’ll suffocate from the perfume spray before you can see who else is inside.”
Noelle laughed, and the heavy mental cloud hovering above him began to dissipate at the sound of her giggle.
“How are you doing?” he asked, lightly touching her arm before dropping his hand to his side. “Are you having fun?”
“I am,” she said. “And as far as how I’m doing, I guess I should ask you that. Am I being a good girlfriend?”
He was about to tell her that she was doing an amazing job, but then he heard someone call his name.
“Jeremiah, yo, I’ve been looking for you all afternoon!”
Jeremiah instinctively fixed his face into a smile, but his smile froze once he turned and saw who had discovered him.
Theo Cruz, his old friend. The same friend he’d been partying with the night before Pop died.
Last he’d heard, Theo lived in DC now, but his family still had a house in Heart Beach.
“Theo, what’s up?” Jeremiah said. He swallowed hard and forced his smile to stay in place. Seeing Theo was a stark reminder of the choices he wished he could remake.
“Nothing much. Just spending time with the fam for the weekend,” Theo said, walking closer. He wore a white button-up and white shorts. He lightly punched Jeremiah in the shoulder. “I was in the city back in November, by the way. I hit you up, but you didn’t respond.”
“Yeah, sorry.” Jeremiah scratched the back of his neck. “Work’s been crazy. I probably responded to you in my head but forgot to actually text back.”
That was half true. Jeremiah had seen Theo’s text, and he’d known that Theo would want to go out like they used to.
After Pop died, Jeremiah took a hard look at himself and realized that he needed to change.
He thought of Pop’s wishes for him to find his real purpose and to stop wasting his life around people who didn’t care about him.
He could be more than just the guy people invited out for a good time.
Further driving home Pop’s point, after he died, no one in that friend group bothered reaching out to Jeremiah to offer their condolences.
It had been Jeremiah’s final wake-up call.
After that summer, he fell back from that friend group, and he stopped going out altogether.
What had surprised him was how quickly he realized that he didn’t miss any of it.
So when Jeremiah saw Theo’s text come through, he purposely hadn’t responded.
There was no easy way to explain that he couldn’t chill with Theo anymore because the activities that they’d once bonded over were no longer part of his life, and without that, he and Theo didn’t have much foundation for a friendship.
“Right, Good Boy,” Theo said. “You’re killing it. My ex had a subscription for her mean-ass Chihuahua.” He sent a curious glance in Noelle’s direction.
“Theo, this is my girlfriend, Noelle.” To Noelle, Jeremiah explained, “Theo and I went to college together.”
“Hi,” Noelle said. She gave a small wave and a smile.
“Girlfriend?” Theo laughed in surprise. “Damn. In all the years I’ve known Jeremiah, he’s never had a serious girlfriend, although he definitely had friends, if you know what I mean. Never met someone brave enough to tame him until now, I guess…”
Theo trailed off, and an awkward silence permeated the air.
“Noelle is too special for me to not be serious about her,” Jeremiah said. He looked at Noelle with a genuine smile.
“Jeremiah swept me off my feet,” she said with soft adoration.
“Cool.” Theo nodded, clearly uninterested in their expressions of affection. “Listen, a few of us are meeting up tonight at the Sand Saloon. Y’all should come out. Have some fun.”
“We have plans tonight, actually,” Jeremiah said, nodding at Noelle. “We’re gonna have to pass.”
“Aww, nah, bro. Change your plans! Bring your lady!” Theo looked at Noelle. “If you’re with Jeremiah, I’m guessing you already know how to have a good time. Come on, convince him to bring you out with us instead.”
“Nah, we’re gonna chill,” Jeremiah said, more firmly.
Theo sucked his teeth and waved Jeremiah away. “You got into a relationship and turned boring. I hate to see it!” He laughed, but his laughter abruptly stopped once he saw the irritated look on Noelle’s face. “Sorry, I’m joking. I don’t have a great sense of humor.”
“Clearly,” Noelle mumbled under her breath.
“It was good to see you, Theo,” Jeremiah said, officially signaling that it was time for the conversation to end. “Enjoy the rest of the party.”
“Will do.” Theo saluted Jeremiah and smiled guiltily at Noelle. “See you around.”
Noelle nodded, frowning as she watched Theo retreat to the party.
“How good of a friend is he to you?” she asked Jeremiah.
“We’re not super close.”
“Oh,” she said. Then, “I don’t know if I like him very much.”
Jeremiah chuckled, exhausted. “Me neither, to be honest. We didn’t have much in common, other than partying. But I don’t really do that anymore now, so.”
She paused, tilted her head. “Can I ask you something? It’s personal.”
Jeremiah studied her for a beat. He was a little wary about what she might ask, but he found that he wanted to answer whatever question she had for him. He nodded.
“You said before that you don’t really have a lot of friends and that you changed your lifestyle. Why did you decide to make those changes?”
“I, uh, just wasn’t surrounding myself with the best people,” he said.
“And I wasn’t really living up to my full potential.
I mean, I’m still trying to figure out what my full potential is now, but I wasn’t trying at all then.
Before my grandfather died, he said some things about how I was living that made me want to change. ”
That was the most he’d ever admitted to anyone about his last conversation with Pop. He looked over at Noelle, wondering what he’d see in her face. Her brows drew together, and her lips parted like she was about to ask a follow-up question. But then she bit her lip and nodded.
It was easier for him when people didn’t poke around in his thoughts and ask for more. But for some reason, he’d hoped that Noelle might have pressed further. Maybe it was because she never seemed to judge him, and he appreciated that.
“About our breakup,” she said, changing the subject completely.
“We haven’t discussed the reason behind it.
Something that Mercy Webster said stuck with me, though.
What if there’s tension between us because you’re moving soon, and the thought of being long distance has been stressing us out, and we realized we won’t be able to last, so we argue and break up. ”
“I like it,” Jeremiah said, even though thinking about their fake breakup was a reminder that he most likely wouldn’t see Noelle after this weekend. “Tell me more.”
Secluded away from the party, they huddled together and plotted their fake demise.