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the waves had been breaking earlier and getting larger. Some part of Kira wanted to prove to him that he was wrong, wrong in judging her based on stolen glances and wrong in making fun of her. Kira could feel his eyes on her as she paddled closer. And maybe she was being too self-assured or was too fueled by the anger he had sparked in her, but Kira knew she had to try to show him something about her that he hadn’t already assumed.

Kira never met his stare. She didn't want him to know how much his presence affected her, so instead she looked out at the horizon for the next set.

Kira saw the curl, saw it break early against the pier, and paddled with all the strength she had left. When the wave got closer, she knew it was too big for her to handle and almost wanted to back out, but Tristan was still watching her. The wave picked her up and pushed her faster than she had ever gone before. When she tried to stand, her board nosedived with the speed and Kira fell headfirst over her board and into the water. She flipped underwater a few times, the strain of her board pulling her forward until she finally broke the surface for air.

After a gulp, the next wave crashed and she was thrown under again. She caught her breath for a moment of relief before the third wave in the set smacked her, and she had nothing left to fight. The wave pushed her under, and her board smacked her forehead.

Pain flashed. And then nothing.

She was sinking. Her board tugged, pulling her underwater.

And then Kira fell into darkness.

"Kira, come on." She heard the command in his deep voice, but couldn't respond. "Kira, wake up."

A hand slapped her in the face, once, twice, a third time and then her eyes shot open and she tried to breathe, but her throat was stuck. Someone flipped her to her side as she began coughing, and finally she spit up what seemed like a gallon of water. Kira lay down again and closed her eyes, wanting to sleep.

"Kira!" One more smack landed on her face. "You have to stay awake."

She opened her eyes and saw the blurry outline of a boy with dark hair and pale skin. "Tristan?"

"Hello."

She saw the corner of his mouth curve upward despite her uneasy vision. "What happened?"

"You were being stupid," he drawled. Kira started to remember the wave and wipeout, and then her anger brimmed back to the surface.

"Only because you were being an ass," she grumbled. He just laughed.

"Come on, try to sit up." Tristan curved an arm around her back to help lift her up.

She noticed, at that moment, that they both wore only bathing suits and she was basically sitting on his lap. Kira tried to discreetly look at his chest, which was quite chiseled, and then she noticed the nice bulge of a bicep in his arm. Kira let her eyes wander a few moments longer until Tristan picked her up far enough for the pain in her head to finally hit. She groaned, put a hand to her brow, and curled into his body a little more.

"Ow."

"Yeah, your board got you pretty bad."

"I know." Kira was starting to get annoyed by his habit of stating the obvious. She pulled her hand back for a moment. "Crap! I’m bleeding."

He stared at her hand, which was covered in running red liquid, until she put it back to her head. Kira noticed he was staring again, but this time at her wound. He leaned in closer, inspecting it she hoped.

After a minute, she couldn’t take it. "Tristan, tell it to me straight. How bad is it?"

He jerked as if she had interrupted him mid-thought. "Oh. It’s nothing. You’ll be fine. Might need a few stitches."

He sat her up on her own and moved back a foot.

"Thanks…for helping me, I mean," she said, not sure where to look, eyes landing on his face and then staying there. A few different emotions pass over his features until he finally settled on the half-smile she had started to like.

Tristan grabbed a shirt from the unguarded towel next to him, looked at it, looked at Kira, and shrugged. He put it to her head, told her to hold it there, and helped her stand up.

"Get away from her." Luke’s voice boomed from behind. He barged in, pushing Tristan to the side.

"Chill out, Luke. I didn’t do anything."

"I don’t care. Leave," he commanded, voice angrier than Kira ever remembered hearing.

"And if I don’t want to?" Tristan asked. Kira knew he was saying it more to test Luke and less because he really needed to stay.

"Then…" Luke paused, clenching his fists and looking around. Then he promptly punched Tristan in the face. For a moment, Kira thought she saw a flashing light, but she quickly realized it must have been the sun, which had previously been silhouetted behind the two boys. Tristan fell over and rolled once on the ground.

"Luke! Stop it. He just saved my life."

"Come on, Kira." Luke tugged her hand. She glanced back at Tristan, who just nodded to her, and followed Luke. "We have to take you to the hospital."

She didn’t mention the punch, wanting to wait for a good time. Instead, she went with her friends back to the car, listened to them talk about trivial things to distract her, allowed Luke to carry her into the hospital, and tried to process the heavy thoughts churning in her head.

 

 

Chapter Three

 

During the car ride home from the hospital, Kira tried to drone out the lecture her parents were offering from the front seat. Surfing is dangerous, blah blah blah. She put her hand to her scalp and felt the five stitches that had been sewn there to hold her skin together. Truthfully, she was just relieved it had been the back of her head—losing a little hair was nothing compared to having a scar on her face.

Beside her, Kira's little sister was starting to nod off. She pulled Chloe's head over so it rested on her lap and ran her hand through her sister’s silky brown hair, looking outside at the moss-covered trees passing by.

Mildly distracted, she did her best to respond to her mother at the necessary moments, so she would think Kira was listening. But as the lecture droned on, Kira reached her hand up to the back of her head a second time and finally realized how close she had come to drowning—a fact she would never tell her parents. She didn’t even remember getting out from under the water. All she could remember were the waves pounding her every time she tried to surface and the searing pain of her board hitting her on the head. Kira couldn’t blame surfing. She could only blame her own stupidity. She’d known the waves were too big, but she was too stubborn to stop when she had a point to prove. Hopefully Tristan had been trying to prove a point too—maybe he didn't hate her like she knew his friends did.

When she got home, Kira ran to her room and called Emma. She needed to discuss things with a girl. For most of her life, Kira had been one of those girls that was one of the guys. Now, she needed a girl who was her opposite to help her dissect the situation. After half an hour, headlights pierced through the window and Kira went downstairs to get the door.

"Oh my god," was the first thing Emma said. "We have so much to discuss. Let’s grab some comfort food. Do you have potato chips? I can’t resist."

Kira grabbed some cookies and chips from the kitchen, and led Emma outside to the back porch. She sat on the hammock while Emma curled up on the wicker chair.

"You know, Kira, it’s a little spooky out here. You live kind of far into the woods." Emma hugged her legs a little tighter and searched the surrounding woods for anything terrifying.

"Trust me, I know, but you get used to it." Kira let Emma get the search out of her system, and lay down, peering past the edge of the porch roof to search for stars.

"So who first? Luke or Tristan? Don’t tell me you called me over here just to gaze mysteriously at the sky."

Kira sighed. "I know." She chewed her lip for a moment, thinking. "You choose. I’m just as confused by both of them."

"Well then, I’ve been dying to tell you what a freaking god Tristan looked like when he carried you out of the water. You, of course, were dangling there like a dead fish, but let me tell you." Emma shook her head as if there were no words and fanned herself.

"Wait, he carried me out?" Kira grabbed a chocolate chip cookie. Reliving a near death experience required chocolate, especially when someone just said you looked like a dead fish in the arms of a god. Great description.

"Yes, dummy, how else do you think you ended up on the sand?"

"I don’t know…"

"Well, anyway, let me paint you the picture, because it was like a scene from a movie, or more likely from Baywatch, but still unreal. The guys and I are sitting on the towels, chatting and eating, when suddenly Luke looks up and is like ‘Where’s Kira’ and the guys start to freak out because they don’t see you anywhere. Then, I look out all the way down toward the pier and tell them you moved over there to surf. Dave and Luke just shake their heads at each other, like they know you can’t handle it, and the four of us watch you try to catch that wave. For a second Dave is like ‘she’s gonna do it’ in that awed voice that is so cute. Anyway, instead, we see you wipe out huge, and we all start laughing cause you just looked ridiculous, but then you don’t surface. We are all staring, and after two minutes, we don’t see you, and Luke goes running down the beach.

"Then, out of nowhere, Tristan emerges from a wave holding you in his arms. His body is dripping with water, making the sun bounce off of him, and his arm muscles are bulging. I mean, I practically heard every girl on the beach sigh with jealousy and have a momentary heart attack because of how hot he is. Anyway, he runs from the water, sets you down really gently, and then starts slapping you in the face. I didn’t get it, but we all saw you wake up while we were running over and were so happy, until we saw Luke punch Tristan in the face."

At the mention, Kira groaned.

"Why did he do that?" she asked while grabbing another cookie. A near-death experience followed by your guy friend punching your savior and potential crush in the face seriously required chocolate.

"Because you, my friend, have been dropped right in the middle of a love triangle."

"No!" Kira put her head in her hands. Screw chocolate. She needed vodka. "Luke doesn’t like me like that, we’re friends, okay? Right? And Tristan, well, I don’t even know him."

"Listen to me," Emma said and put her hand on Kira’s shoulder. Kira sat up, looking her friend in the face. "No guy punches another guy over nothing and no guy is as attentive as Tristan is to you over nothing. Something is going on."

Something is definitely going on, Kira thought. But it wasn't so simple as a love triangle—something else was at play. That much she knew.

Emma continued, unaware of the thoughts churning in Kira's mind. "I know you don’t want to hear it, but I’ve never seen Luke watch someone like he watches you, like he’s always looking to protect you. Maybe you should talk to him?"

"Yeah, you're right," Kira replied, wanting to leave it at that and not let Emma know she thought something else was going on. Luke wouldn't tell her anything, which was why Kira had invited Emma over—to dig up dirt that Luke would never tell her. And she couldn't resist asking Emma, the boy genius, about Tristan too. "So, do you think he actually likes me?"

"I knew it, I knew it. You are definitely crushing on Tristan, and, well, who can blame you." Her eyes started to glaze over.

"Um, Emma?"

"Right right, sorry. I love Dave, but a bad boy is always dreamy."

Kira sighed. Just what she didn’t want to hear.