Chapter Fourteen
In the morning, Noelle woke to a notification from her bank app that Jeremiah had sent the second half of her payment.
She sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes. Jeremiah’s side of the bed was empty.
She checked the time. It was almost ten a.m. She didn’t want to get out of bed yet.
This bed was a lot more comfortable than her bed at home.
The door opened, and Jeremiah poked his head inside the room. He locked eyes with Noelle and smiled. Butterflies danced across her esophagus.
“Good morning,” he said. “I was hoping to leave within the next hour or so. That cool?”
She nodded. “Yeah, I’ll get up now.”
“Take your time. You want coffee? I just made a fresh pot.”
“Sure, thank you.” She pulled back the covers and swung her legs to the floor. She glanced up at him.
“Okay.” He paused for a beat. “How’d you sleep?”
“Good,” she lied. True to his word, Jeremiah hadn’t touched her for the rest of the night, and she hadn’t touched him either.
They’d secluded themselves to their respective sides of the bed, and she’d tossed and turned for hours before finally falling asleep from pure exhaustion.
Keeping away from each other had been for the best, but it had also been torturous. “How about you?”
“Yeah, same,” he said. He cleared his throat. “I’ll leave you to get dressed. I have to talk to my mom really quick.”
“Okay, I won’t be long.”
He smiled again before closing the door. Noelle let out a deep breath and urged her heartbeat to chill out.
When she returned to the bedroom after showering, there was a steaming mug of coffee on the bedside table next to a new box of salted caramel chocolate chip cookies.
Her heart rate increased again as she grinned like a fool.
How was she supposed to like him less when he’d taken it upon himself to become her personal snack fairy?
She drank her coffee and ate some cookies while she finished packing, making sure to fit her new stuffed turtle prize in her suitcase, then she made her way downstairs.
Robin sat alone at the kitchen table, peeling a grapefruit.
Noelle let out a small sigh of relief that she didn’t have to face all the Smiths at once.
After her and Jeremiah’s “breakup” last night, her interactions with his family this morning were bound to be a bit awkward.
“Pregnancy craving,” Robin said, gesturing to the fruit in her hand. “Want one?”
“Oh, no thank you.” Noelle turned at the sound of music coming from outside.
“The girls are coming up with their talent show routine,” Robin explained.
“What song did they pick?”
“ ‘Last Dance’ by Donna Summer.” At Noelle’s surprised expression, Robin laughed and added, “Celeste helped them pick it. After she showed them videos of Donna Summer performing, they decided their entire routine would be disco themed.”
Noelle smiled. “I’m sure it will be cute.”
“Morning,” Amara greeted as she sauntered into the kitchen. She was wearing a high-rise black denim skirt with a black bikini top. A canvas boat tote was slung over her shoulder. “I’m gonna sketch at the beach for a bit. Where’s everyone else?”
“Your mom and Miah are in her office, the girls are outside, and Percy’s at the coffee shop,” Robin said.
Amara raised an eyebrow. “On a Sunday?”
Robin sighed. “Don’t get me started on how your brother doesn’t know how to take a break.”
Amara shook her head, then focused on Noelle. “Jeremiah told me you’d be heading out early.” She walked over and enfolded Noelle in a warm embrace. “It was nice hanging out this weekend,” she said as she pulled away. “And thank you for helping Jeremiah pick out that copy of Dracula. I love it.”
“You’re welcome,” Noelle said, glancing between Amara and Robin. “It was really great meeting you both.”
The chances of her seeing them again were extremely low, and that made her kinda sad because she genuinely liked Amara and Robin.
She wished she’d had time to get to know them more.
Celeste and the twins too. Percy was a little prickly, but his prickliness could be overlooked.
If she were Jeremiah, and she had this nice, big family who wanted her to spend time with them at their gorgeous summer house, it would be hard for her to choose to stay away in favor of working.
She had to wonder if there was more behind Jeremiah’s reasoning. But then again, it wasn’t her business.
“I’m gonna wait outside for Jeremiah,” she said. Amara and Robin smiled and nodded before turning to each other to discuss their afternoon plans once Amara returned from the beach.
Noelle rolled her suitcase outside and found Harper and Ashley standing in the driveway, along with their friends Ciara and Zoe, whom Noelle had met at the party yesterday.
Harper and Ashley seemed to be in the middle of an argument.
Zoe and Ciara watched, their eyes volleying between the twins like they were witnessing a verbal tennis match.
At eleven years old, Zoe was the oldest and tallest of the group.
Ciara, having just turned nine a couple months ago, was the youngest.
Noelle sat on the porch steps and after a couple minutes of listening, she gathered that the twins were arguing about the group’s formation for their dance routine.
“We should be in a square shape, and I should stand in front of Zoe, and Ciara should stand in front of you,” Ashley argued.
“No, I should stand in front of Zoe, and Ciara should stand in front of you,” Harper countered. “Ciara and I are almost the same height! You’re taller than her!”
“I don’t care if I’m short,” Ciara mumbled. “I don’t want to be in the front. It’s too much attention.”
“I don’t think it’s fair that I can’t be in the front just because I’m tall,” Zoe said.
“Can I offer some help?” Noelle interrupted.
The girls turned to look at her. In middle school, Noelle and Tati had been part of the Brickton drill team. Her performing days were behind her, but she remembered a thing or two.
The girls nodded, and Noelle walked over to them.
“You don’t have to put the shortest in the front if you’re in windows,” she said. She hovered her hands above Ashley’s shoulders. “May I?”
Ashley nodded, and one by one, Noelle moved the girls into a new formation. Harper and Zoe were in the front, and Ashley and Ciara were in the back, but they were standing to the left of Ashley and Ciara, instead of standing directly behind them.
“This way, everyone will be seen,” Noelle said. “And halfway through your routine, you can switch spots if you want.” She looked at Ciara, who probably didn’t want to move to the front. “Or you can stay in the same spot. What do you think?”
The girls exchanged glances, holding a silent conversation. Then they turned to Noelle and smiled.
“This is a great idea,” Ashley declared. “Thanks, Noelle!”
She hugged Noelle and the rest of the girls followed suit.
“You’re welcome,” Noelle said, laughing as she hugged them back.
The screen door opened behind her. She turned around to see Celeste standing at the door watching them with an unreadable expression.
She probably now thought of Noelle as the woman who’d broken her son’s heart.
The girls went back to discussing their routine, and Noelle pushed aside her nerves and walked to the bottom porch step, looking up at Celeste.
“Thank you so much for having me this weekend,” she said. “And I’m really sorry about last night. I know it was a bit dramatic.”
“That’s all right. We were happy to have you.” Celeste tilted her head and looked like she was about to say something else, but Jeremiah appeared behind her. He kissed Celeste on the cheek as he slid past her out the door with his suitcase.
“Bye, Ma,” he said. “Love you.”
“I love you too.” Celeste smiled fondly, but there was a hint of sadness in her expression too. “Call me when you get home so that I know you got there safe.”
Jeremiah saluted her. “I will.”
“You’ll forget.” Celeste shook her head with a smirk.
“I promise I won’t,” he said, laughing.
He grabbed Noelle’s suitcase and carried both bags to his car. Then he hugged his nieces goodbye. As Noelle got in the car, she caught Celeste watching her with that same unreadable expression. She wondered what Celeste might have said to her if Jeremiah hadn’t interrupted them.
Before they left Heart Beach, Jeremiah stopped at a bagel shop and bought them breakfast sandwiches.
Once they were on the highway, he asked Noelle to connect her phone to the car’s Bluetooth, and she played another R & B playlist. They were mostly quiet as they listened to the music and snuck glances at each other.
Noelle stared at his large hands as they rested on the steering wheel.
The same hands that had touched her so reverentially.
The silence wasn’t awkward. It was more like they were giving space to the awareness between them.
An understanding. Last night, they’d acknowledged their attraction to each other, but there was no way forward.
All too soon, Jeremiah turned off the parkway exit for Brickton. Then he was pulling into her apartment complex. He parked his car and the engine hummed as they idled.
It was silly. She’d earned her thirty-five hundred dollars.
She should be happy! And she was happy. But she didn’t want to get out of the car.
She wanted to spend more time with Jeremiah, even though that definitely would not be a good idea.
She’d had a Cinderella-type weekend, and now her temporary Prince Charming was dropping her off after the ball. Such was life.
“Oh, I almost forgot to give you this,” she said, reaching into her purse to grab his credit card. Their fingers brushed as she handed the card to him. She swallowed thickly as goose bumps spread up her arm.
“Ah, yeah. Thanks.” He shifted in his seat to face her. It didn’t seem like he was in any real hurry for her to get out of his car either.
“I had a nice time with you this weekend,” she said quietly. “Thanks again for hiring me.”
“Thank you for agreeing to come, Noelle. I…” He trailed off and stared pointedly at the floor, frowning. Then he shook his head and laughed miserably to himself.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he said. “Just—I really hope that everything works out for you. Good luck with finishing your degree and becoming a librarian. You deserve all the good things. If you ever need anything—anything at all—I hope you know that you can reach out to me.”
The earnestness in his voice almost made her tear up. It was validating to hear someone tell her that she deserved good things, especially when life tried so hard to push her down.
“Thank you,” she said. “And good luck with your move and everything you have going on with your job.” She paused and bit her lip.
“I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but your family seems really great.
You should talk to them about how much you miss your grandfather.
They’ll understand. They’re your soft place to land.
I’ve always wanted a big family like yours. You’re really lucky to have them.”
Something flashed across his face, like the thought of talking about his grandfather with his family pained him. But his expression cleared just as quickly.
“Yeah, you’re right,” he said. “Thanks.”
They stared at each other, exchanging small smiles.
“I should go,” she said reluctantly.
She opened her car door, and Jeremiah hurried to grab her suitcase from the trunk.
When he hugged her, she carved everything about him into her memory.
The way he smelled, the even rise and fall of his chest when he breathed, how he securely encircled her in his arms. If she didn’t mentally document these things, tomorrow she might wake up and think that Jeremiah and this entire weekend had been an elaborate dream.
“Bye, Noelle,” he said. His smile was sad as he slowly pulled away.
She was sure that her smile looked the same.
“Bye, Jeremiah.”
With a heavy heart, she watched as her temporary Prince Charming returned to his car and waved before he drove away.
Well. Back to reality.