Page 24

“We’ll text when we know something,” Danica called over her shoulder before sliding into the driver’s seat of the rental car parked in the driveway.

And just like that, they were gone, leaving Kiera and Izzy alone, the sound of the waves and distant chatter of other beachgoers settling between them.

“Well, should we go try to relax until they come back?” Izzy suggested.

Kiera glanced back toward the beach, where their own umbrellas and chairs still sat. “Might as well.” They walked back down into the sand, an awkward silence stretching between them that hadn’t been there that morning on their walk.

Izzy didn’t sit back down. Instead, she busied herself with brushing sand off her chair, adjusting her sunglasses, and brushing nonexistent flecks off her Patagonia shorts. Kiera noticed how Izzy kept her body angled away, almost like she was trying to physically avoid looking at her.

Ever since the tide pools, Izzy had been acting… off. Not just distant, but weirdly avoidant. Normally, Izzy was blunt — if she had a problem, she’d say it, not dance around it. But now, it felt like there was an invisible ocean between them.

Kiera sighed, settling back into her chair. “You’re being weird.”

Izzy, still standing, tensed slightly. “What? No, I’m not.”

Kiera tilted her head, squinting at her through her prescription sunglasses. “Yeah, you are.”

Izzy huffed out a small laugh, but it sounded forced. “I’m literally acting normal.”

“You’ve barely looked at me since we got back from the tide pools this morning.”

Izzy paused, her fingers fidgeting with the edge of her towel. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.

Kiera arched a brow. “So you’re saying youdidn’tfull-body flinch when I asked you a question at lunch?”

Izzy rolled her shoulders in a shrug, finally dropping back into her chair with a sigh. She pulled on a baseball cap, obscuring part of her face. “I don’t know. I guess I’m just tired.”

Kiera studied her for a long moment, debating whether to push or let it go. She didn’t want to let it go, though. Not when the morning had been so easy between them.

She leaned forward in her low beach chair, resting her arms on her knees. “Is this about me? Did I do something? Did you get offended when I said you were cute?”

Izzy stiffened just slightly. “No,” she muttered.

Kiera narrowed her eyes. “Youarelying.”

Izzy exhaled sharply through her nose, tilting her face up toward the sky like she was praying to the Sun God for patience. “Kiera. You didn’t do anything. I don’t know what you want me to say.”

Kiera searched Izzy’s expression, the set of her jaw, the way she kept picking at the hem of her shorts. It was like Izzy was holding something back. Kiera swallowed hard and leaned back again, feigning casualness in her tone, even as something tight curled in her chest. “Fine. Whatever.”

Izzy didn’t respond. She just lay back on her towel, crossing her arms behind her head like she was completely unbothered, even though Kiera couldfeelthe awkwardness radiating off her.

And that was it. The conversation ended, the silence stretching between them, filled only by the sounds of others on the beach shouting, laughing, playing, and rhythmic crash of the ocean waves.

Kiera crossed her arms and forced herself to lookanywherebut at Izzy. The ocean, the sky, the joggers passing by on the packed sand — literally anything to keep her from noticing the way Izzy’s legs stretched out, sighing as she finally seemed to settle.

Izzy pulled a book from her bag, some fantasy novel with a dragon and a sword on the cover. Kiera should’ve known better than to look up at Izzy’s face. But she did.

Izzy, with her sun-kissed skin and tousled blonde hair, turned her baseball cap backward on her head, pushing her sunglasses up her nose before flipping the paperback open. She held it casually in one hand, her fingers resting lightly against the pages as she shifted onto her side, propping herself up on an elbow. Izzy’s barely perceptible frown, the minimal movement of her lips while reading, and the absentminded scratching of her shoulder captivated Kiera.

She’d always thought Izzy was attractive. Objectively, Izzy was the kind of effortlessly cool that Kiera had never been. But this? There was something unbearablyhotabout the way Izzy read. Something about the ease of it, the casual confidence of a person completely absorbed in her book, oblivious to the worldaround her. She licked the tip of her finger to turn the page, brow twitching slightly as she concentrated, and Kiera had to drag her eyes away, biting the inside of her cheek.

Kiera cleared her throat and turned toward the water, willing herself to think about anything other than Izzy’s fingers against the soft, worn pages. Or the way the sunlight traced over the line of her jaw.

Kiera forced her gaze out toward the horizon, pretending she was deeply fascinated by the waves rolling in.Act normal, Kiera. Get it together.,

“What?” Izzy asked, her tone light. Her voice held a hint of hesitation, like she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer. Izzy shifted, glancing at her over the top of her sunglasses, her lips quirking into something almost —shy?No, that wasn’t right. Izzy didn’t do shy. Stoic, at her most quiet, but never shy.

Kiera’s stomach flipped. Great. Izzy caught her staring. Now she looked like a creep.