Chapter Twenty-Eight #2
Jeremiah looked at his brother. “Of course it’s a good offer. Avid Foods is a corporate machine who wants to make a profit, but they won’t care about the integrity of the company. Pop wanted Smith’s Sweets to stay family owned. Selling isn’t what he would have wanted.”
Celeste’s throat worked as she swallowed. “Miah, it’s more complicated than that.”
“I agree with Miah, though,” Amara said, biting her lip as she looked at Celeste. “How sure are you that you want to sell?”
“Very,” Percy cut in. But he wasn’t looking at Amara; he was looking at Jeremiah with a tense frown.
“Why do you deserve a say in what happens? While you’ve been off with the dog company, I’ve been taking on the brunt of Smith’s Sweets expansion as Mom has started setting herself up to retire.
I’m exhausted. Robin has been dealing with this pregnancy on her own, and I feel terrible.
I’ve barely been able to spend time with my family.
” He gestured to the twins, who anxiously looked back and forth between their father and Jeremiah.
“Girls, why don’t you go inside and eat your dessert in the kitchen,” Robin said.
“But, Mom,” Ashley started to protest. However, at Robin’s stern look, the twins rose from the table and walked back inside.
Jeremiah waited until the girls were out of earshot before he spoke again.
“I know I don’t work for the company anymore,” he said slowly. I wanted to stay out of your way, he almost added. “But I’m still part of this family. How long have you known about this offer?”
“A week,” Celeste said.
He looked at his mom. “A week? Why didn’t you say anything sooner?”
“You’re such a hypocrite,” Percy said, shaking his head. “Like you haven’t been withholding information too.”
Jeremiah narrowed his eyes. “What are you talking about?”
“You’ve been lying to us about your girlfriend all summer,” Percy blurted in frustration.
Jeremiah’s stomach dropped. He looked at Noelle, who stared back at him with round, wide eyes, wringing her hands together.
“What are you talking about, Percy?” Celeste asked, glancing between Jeremiah and Noelle.
Percy cleared his throat, looking guilty. Like he was aware that his anger had led him to say something he hadn’t meant to reveal. But it was too late now. Everyone was looking at Noelle with fixed curiosity.
“It’s nothing,” Percy said, sighing. “I just found out that she isn’t a librarian like she said she was, and Miah knew. But, look, that’s irrelevant to our current conversation.”
Jeremiah was relieved that Percy wasn’t aware of the full scope of his relationship with Noelle or how they’d originally lied about being together. But he was still confused about when Noelle and Percy would have talked about her not being a librarian.
“He asked me about it last night,” Noelle said quietly, as if she could read Jeremiah’s thoughts. She leaned closer to him, expression uneasy, still wringing her hands together. “I didn’t want him to think I’d been lying to you.”
Her behavior today toward Percy made so much more sense now. Jeremiah hated to see her look so stressed, but he was confused as to why she hadn’t said anything to him about it until now.
“You should have told me,” he said quietly.
She bit her lip and nodded.
Celeste rubbed her temples. “What in the world is going on?”
Jeremiah turned to his mom, ready to enact some sort of damage control because now she, Robin, and Amara were looking at Noelle with suspicion.
He and Noelle had just decided last night that they wanted to keep dating long term and that they were going to tell his family that she wasn’t actually a librarian yet.
But they hadn’t had a chance to formulate a plan.
The conversation wasn’t supposed to happen this way.
However, before Jeremiah could think of what to say, Noelle answered Celeste first.
“Percy is telling the truth,” she said. She glanced around the table.
“I’m not a librarian. At least not yet. I used to work at a bookstore, but I got laid off.
I’m going back to college in the fall to finish my bachelor’s degree, and then I plan to apply to grad school to get my master’s degree in order to become a librarian.
I lied because I didn’t want you to think I was using Jeremiah.
And because I wanted to impress you. I’m really, really sorry. ”
“I see,” Celeste said quietly. Amara and Robin sported matching expressions of hurt. Percy crossed his arms and focused his gaze on the table.
“You didn’t have to lie to us about your job,” Amara said softly. “We wouldn’t have cared about that.”
Noelle’s throat muscles worked as she swallowed. “I realize that now.”
“Just so everyone is aware, I never cared about what she did for work either,” Jeremiah said. “It wouldn’t have made a difference to me or change how I feel about her.”
He put his arm around Noelle, wanting to shield her from everyone’s eyes. He felt the tension in her shoulders. He glared at his brother, angry that he’d inadvertently put her on the spot.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Percy said.
“I didn’t mean to tell them about Noelle, but the point I wanted to make is that you shouldn’t judge me when you’ve got your own secrets too.
Just because you think you were Pop’s favorite doesn’t mean you get to dictate our decisions now that he’s gone.
You didn’t give a shit about the company when he was alive, so don’t pretend that you give a shit now. ”
“Fuck you, Percy,” Jeremiah spat, standing. Percy immediately stood too.
Noelle grabbed Jeremiah’s forearm and attempted to keep him still, but as Percy rounded the table toward him, eyes blazing, Jeremiah’s anger flared hotter, and he shrugged Noelle off. This fight between him and his brother had been brewing for months. Years, even.
“Stop!” Celeste said, shooting out of her chair.
Suddenly everyone was scampering to intercept the brothers, but Jeremiah lunged at Percy, and they scuffled on the patio, rolling into the grass. Celeste, Amara, and Noelle shouted for them to stop. It took all their strength to pull the brothers apart.
“Have you lost your minds?!” Celeste cried. “We’re family! You can’t fight each other like this! What’s wrong with you!”
Jeremiah stumbled to stand. His T-shirt was covered in dirt and grass stains, and his jaw ached from Percy’s right hook.
Percy was doubled over, rubbing his stomach where Jeremiah had kneed him.
As the adrenaline wore off, Jeremiah began to see how stupidly they’d acted.
But he couldn’t let Percy’s comment about him not giving a shit slide.
“Come with me,” Noelle said, appearing at Jeremiah’s side. She grabbed his hand and pulled him away. He let her lead him around the house to the front yard, and down the driveway to the street.
“Just take a deep breath,” she said, looking him in the eyes as she placed her hands on his shoulders.
Jeremiah listened and inhaled and exhaled deeply.
He just couldn’t believe that his mom was even considering selling.
The thought of taking Pop and Grandma Minnie’s legacy and handing it to someone else made Jeremiah’s stomach turn.
It felt like another way of losing Pop. But he’d parse through those thoughts after he made sure Noelle was okay.
“Tell me what happened between you and Percy,” he said, removing her hands from his shoulders and holding them instead. “Is that why you’ve been so quiet all day?”
She nodded and let out a slow breath. “Last night while you were asleep, I went downstairs to the kitchen for a snack, and I ran into Percy. He told me that he’d stopped by the library where I said I worked because he wanted to take me to lunch in order to make up for how he hasn’t tried to get to know me better this summer.
That was when he discovered that I didn’t work there.
He was concerned that I was lying to you or trying to play you, so I told him you knew that I wasn’t a librarian. ”
“Damn,” Jeremiah said quietly. “Okay.”
“But the reason he brought up the librarian lie is…because I overheard him and your mom talking about selling Smith’s Sweets,” she said.
“Percy realized that I’d overheard them, and he asked me not to tell you.
I didn’t want to keep something like that from you, but I also felt it was important for you to learn that information from your mom and brother directly instead of hearing it secondhand from me.
I thought they owed you that. I told Percy that I wouldn’t say anything to you as long as he told you soon.
But I didn’t think it would happen like this. ”
Jeremiah stared at her, unblinking. The thing was, he understood her logic.
If the roles had been reversed, he probably would have made the same decision.
She’d been thrust into the middle of a convoluted family matter, and it was true that he deserved to hear the truth straight from Celeste and Percy.
But he and Noelle had been on the same team all summer.
He’d asked her multiple times today if she was okay when it was clear that something was bothering her, and she’d told him only about forgetting to schedule her advisor meeting.
All the while, she’d also been stressed about knowing that his mom and Percy were considering selling Smith’s Sweets.
“I’m so sorry that I waited to tell you,” she said quietly. “I knew that if you heard it from me first, it would be worse. And I promised myself that if they didn’t tell you in a few days, I’d tell you. I was trying to protect you the best way I knew how.”
“I mean, I understand why you didn’t tell me,” Jeremiah said.
“But I’m disappointed that you thought you had to carry that burden for me, especially when we’ve been so locked in.
” He dragged his palms down his face. He was starting to get a headache.
“And I’m upset that you somehow got in the middle of all this because that wasn’t fair to you. I’m sorry too.”
Noelle took a step closer. She was back to wringing her hands again. “I…I should probably go home.”
Jeremiah snapped to attention. “Wait, what?”