Page 9

“I’m going to tell Maisie you said that I was the most beautiful,” I say with a straight face, unable to hold it for more than a few seconds before I start laughing.

“Screw Conner.” She grins, not taking the bait.

“Screw Conner,” I agree.

“We should go out tonight.”

“We should.”

“There’s this amazing little place not far from here. They have the best crab cakes you’ll ever eat, and if we’re lucky, River’s friend Evan will be working, and he’ll slip a little rum into our virgin daiquiris.”

“Who are you and what have you done with sweet little Lyric?” I tease.

Ten months ago, we had to beg her to go out and even then, she rarely drank. Now here she is, suggesting not only that we drink, but that we do so illegally. Is it bad to say that I’m proud of how far she’s come?

“Ha. Ha.” She sticks her tongue out at me. “If I haven’t said it already, I’m really glad you’re here.”

“Yeah, me too.” Despite the hesitation I had in coming here, now that I’m here, I really am enjoying myself.

Granted, I just got here yesterday, but so far so good.

“What do you say we head back to the house and grab some food? I don’t know about you, but the sun makes me ravenous.”

“I could eat.”

“Money says my mom already has a five-course meal prepared for us.” She chuckles, pushing herself upright. “She never knows what to do with herself over summer break.”

“I kinda get why you want to be a teacher now. Getting every summer off is definitely a perk.”

“Not at all why I want to be a teacher, but yes, it certainly is an added bonus,” she agrees, grabbing her beach bag before proceeding to stuff her towel and sunscreen inside.

“It’ll come in handy when you and Kai start knocking out little runway models.”

“Oh Lord, way too early for that kind of talk.” She stands, reaching for my towel, which I quickly slip off my chair and hand to her before standing myself.

“You know it’s going to happen one day.”

“I hope so.” She smiles softly, more to herself than at me. “Just not for a very long time.”

“When you two finally decide to tie the knot, I call maid of honor. I don’t care if Maisie has known Kai her whole life. I call dibs.”

“I’ll let you two figure that one out when the time comes. Luckily, we’ve got a while.” She rolls her big, beautiful hazel eyes.

Lyric is one of those girls who’s so unaware of her own beauty that it only makes her even more beautiful. She’s small and petite, with long brown hair and the cutest freaking freckles that pepper her nose. The kind of cute you wish you could bottle upand sell. And she’s completely oblivious to the effect she has on other people.

She took the most notorious womanizer in school and made him a one-woman man. That in itself should tell you everything you need to know.

We make the mile walk back to her parents’ house on foot. Growing up, I would have given anything to live this close to the ocean. My parents live on the western side of Virginia and the closest beach is over two hours away, so when I was a child, we only visited it a couple of times a year if we were lucky. I can’t imagine just walking out my front door and being able to smell the sea.

“There they are,” Lyric’s mom, Heather, greets us the instant we walk through the front door of their small, ranch-style home, a plate of sandwiches in her hand that she quickly sets on the breakfast bar that separates the living room from the kitchen. “I hope you’re hungry.”

“Told you,” Lyric murmurs under her breath just loud enough that I can hear her. “Thanks, Mom. We’re actually starving.”

“I thought you would be. I know how being out in the sun makes you hungry.” She smiles at the daughter who looks so much like her, it’s uncanny. Though, after meeting her dad, Mike, I can see a little of him in her too.

I refuse to think about who else looks like Mike. A certain second-born son who I’ve tried really hard not to think about, which is damn near impossible when I’m surrounded by the people who made him, in the house where he was raised, with pictures of him as a kid everywhere I look.

Taking the seat at the bar next to Lyric, I grab a sandwich wedge and tear off a big bite, hungrier than I had realized while we were on the beach.