The Summer Girlfriend (Heart Beach, #1)(51)

That was one way to summarize the situation. He didn’t need to go into the guilt and shame he’d felt about making his family look bad.

Noelle took a deep breath. Then a slow smile crept across her face.

“This is crazy,” she finally said. “But you’ve got yourself another deal, Jeremiah Smith.”

He smiled too, filled with relief. And another feeling that he refused to acknowledge just yet. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she said, smiling wider.

“Send me a new agreement to sign,” he said. “I’ll pick you up on Friday.”

“All right.”

He walked backward to his car, facing her. “And call me if you need anything in the meantime.”

“I will,” she said. She laughed and shook her head. “Crazy!”

His heart pounded a little harder at the sound of her laugh.

He chose not to examine why.





Chapter Sixteen




“The game is called Stone Man,” Jeremiah said.

Noelle glanced over at him. Then she looked past him at Amara. It was Saturday morning and ninety-one degrees in Heart Beach, and the three of them were standing knee-deep in the ocean. On the beach behind them, people were lying out, tanning in the sun, or protecting themselves beneath umbrellas. Amid the crowd, Robin was lounging in a beach chair, listening to a podcast with her eyes closed, while Harper and Ashley built a sandcastle. Other kids splashed in the water or swam out on their boogie boards. It was a little after ten thirty a.m., and the ocean was at low tide. The water was expansive and far-reaching. From her vantage point, Noelle could almost imagine that the world was her oyster.

“How do you play?” she asked, turning to Jeremiah again.

“You have to try to stay as still as possible when the waves hit,” he said. “If a wave knocks you down, you lose.”

“And you can’t try to swim into the wave either, because that’s cheating,” Amara added. She smirked at Jeremiah. “That’s what he always tries to do.”

“Lies,” Jeremiah said, but he was grinning. His white teeth sparkled in the sunlight. To Noelle, he said, “Wanna play?”

Water droplets glistened on his skin, and Noelle couldn’t help but gape at his strong, defined muscles. At the crack of dawn, he’d gone for a run. Apparently, this was something that he did multiple times a week, and his dedication showed. As she looked at him, the hairs on her arms and the back of her neck rose and she involuntarily clenched her thighs together.

She was a hornball. Plain and simple. Last night in his Heart Beach bed, she and Jeremiah had slept on opposite ends without touching. Not even so much as an accidental foot brush. It had been for the best, but now she was starved. Deprived. She knew how amazing it felt when he touched her.

Earlier this morning before they’d left for the beach, Jeremiah had accidentally walked in on her before she had a chance to throw her cover-up on over her new neon pink bikini, another item that she’d bought during that initial shopping trip with Tati. Jeremiah stood in the doorway, dazed, eyes trailing from her head to her toes as she was exposed to him in nothing but her bathing suit. Her first instinct should have been to quickly grab her cover-up and shrug it on, but she didn’t immediately move. She blamed it on her own surprise, but the truth was that she liked to be stared at by Jeremiah. Heart pounding, she’d stared back.

“I’m almost ready,” she’d said.

He’d blinked. Then, slowly, like his brain was coming back to life, he’d nodded, apologized, and said he’d wait for her downstairs.

Now, as they stood side by side in the ocean, he kept his attention trained on her face like he was trying really hard not to let his eyes drift down to her breasts.

“Yeah,” she said, shaking off her hornball thoughts. She kept her attention trained on his face too. “I’ll play Stone Man.”

The three of them waded farther out. When they stopped, the water hit just above Noelle’s belly button. Jeremiah and Amara immediately locked in, planting their feet and holding their arms at their sides, trying not to move as the waves lapped against them. Noelle laughed and copied their stances. A series of waves passed and Noelle squealed when a bit of water splashed up in her face. Before she had a chance to recover, Amara said, “Shit, here comes a big one.”

Noelle wiped her cheeks and blinked. A big wave was building toward them, formed from one of the boats driving by in the distance. If she stayed put, the wave would most certainly do more than slightly splash her face. It would overtake all three of them. Jeremiah and Amara were laughing, like this was exactly the kind of wave that they’d been waiting for. Noelle’s heart began to pound harder. She knew how to swim but she hadn’t grown up playing this game like them. She was going to get knocked over and end up swallowing a shit ton of salt water if she didn’t move, and she suddenly remembered that the taste of salt water made her nauseous.

“Actually, I’m done playing!” she announced, the shrill of her voice giving away her panic. She turned and tried to move her legs as quickly as she could back to shore.

“Wait!” Jeremiah called after her. “Don’t be scared! I’ll protect you!”

“What?!” she called back. She spared a glance behind her and saw Amara lifting her arms in the air, ready to embrace the big-ass wave. Jeremiah was laughing as he tried to catch up with Noelle.