The Summer Girlfriend (Heart Beach, #1)(17)

Reluctantly, she pulled away from the handsome stranger who claimed to know her. He looked down at her and smiled. Again, she was struck by a sense of familiarity, but she still couldn’t place him. Maybe she actually had seen him in a cologne ad before.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “But I actually don’t think I remember you.”

He chuckled and shook his head. “That’s because we’ve never met.” He pointed his thumb in the direction in which Brian had disappeared. “You seemed uncomfortable with that dude and it looked like you needed an out.”

Noelle smiled, relieved that she hadn’t somehow forgotten meeting Jeremiah before. Maybe she’d seen him on the PATH once, and that was why he looked familiar.

“Thank you,” she said. “You saved him from getting punched, so he should be thanking you too.”

“We don’t need you catching any charges,” he said, laughing. “My name really is Jeremiah, though. What’s yours?”

“Noelle.”

“Noelle,” he repeated. He smiled slowly this time, like he was savoring the sound of her name. “Nice to meet you, Noelle.”

He held out his hand, and goose bumps spread across Noelle’s skin as their palms pressed together. His hand was much larger than hers, and other than the calluses on the inside of his palm, his skin was smooth.

“It’s nice to meet you too,” she said, gazing down at his long fingers.

“He an ex or something?”

Noelle tore her attention away from their clasped hands and looked up at Jeremiah’s face. “No. God, no. He’s just some guy I met at my other job.”

“Ah.” Jeremiah smirked, and a dimple appeared on his left cheek. “So, you were gonna punch him? Let me find out you have a mean right hook. You a boxer?”

He began examining her knuckles, and Noelle shook her head and laughed as he turned her hands this way and that, peering at her skin. He glanced up and looked at her through his lashes. Then he flashed a disarmingly charming smile, and Noelle could do nothing but smile back as a flight of butterflies began a feverish swarm in her stomach.

“I, um,” she started, then stopped.

She, um, what? She had no idea how to finish her sentence. The butterflies had traveled upstream and were currently discombobulating her brain.

Jeremiah politely ignored her sudden inability to form a complete thought.

He released her hands but kept his eyes firmly on her face.

“I could use your help finding a book—if your shift isn’t over, that is,” he said. “Would you be able to help me?”

Right. Her job. The one that she’d be losing by the end of the day.

“Oh yeah, of course,” she said. “Please follow me.”

Jeremiah held the door open for her, and the bell chimed as they stepped inside. Kevin briefly glanced up as Noelle placed her leather jacket behind the register, but he quickly became engrossed in his phone again. Noelle chewed the inside of her cheek and tried to fight her frustration. This was whom she was being fired in favor of?

No, she wouldn’t let herself get worked up about that right now. She’d finish her shift and think all of her frustrating thoughts later, preferably with a box of Smith’s Sweets cookies nearby to help soothe her battered, jobless soul.

She walked back over to Jeremiah. “What are you looking for today?”

He paused by the beach reads display table and picked up a copy of How Stella Got Her Groove Back by Terry McMillan. He turned it over and peeked at the description on the back before placing the book down.

“I’m looking for a vintage copy of Dracula,” he said. “A few people online said you had a good selection of classics.”

Dracula was the last book she’d expected him to say. But so much about Jeremiah and this entire afternoon was unexpected. She might as well just roll with it.

“Sure, our classics are this way,” she said, gesturing for him to follow her toward the back of the store. “Are you a big reader of classic literature?”

“Oh, nah, I don’t read that much.” He sent her a quick, sheepish look as he walked beside her. “I’m sure you hate hearing that.”

“Not really. I read a bit of everything now, but I wasn’t much of a reader for most of my life. I do think there’s a book out there for everyone, though. Maybe you just haven’t found yours yet.”

“That’s a nice thought,” he said. He ran his fingers against the spines of several John Grisham novels from the ’90s as they passed through the thrillers section. “Makes me feel less uncouth.”

Noelle smiled. “There’s a word you don’t hear often.”

He smirked, lifting one shoulder in a shrug. “When my siblings and I were kids, my grandfather had this thing where he would teach us a new word and if we found three ways to use it in a sentence by the end of the week, he’d give us twenty dollars.”

“How old were you when he gave you ‘uncouth’?”

“Thirteen. One of my sentences was ‘Percy thinks I’m uncouth because I get powdered sugar all over everything when I eat funnel cake.’?”

Noelle’s smile widened. “Who’s Percy?”

“My brother.”

She laughed, and Jeremiah grinned at her.