Tide Changer

Fourteen

His sky. I wondered why Rys chose that nickname. I'd ask him later; it's not like he'd call me nosy.

"Thank you," I said to Kaia. "You make me want to learn Spanish."

She stopped dancing and gave me a thumbs-up. "You should."

I was grinning like a fool, but I didn't care. It'd been forever since I went to a concert and had fun with a friend. Payton's jobs barely gave her time to hang out with me, and although I understood her priorities, I often wished things could go back to how they were when we were younger and spent lots of time together

There was a brief pause before the next singer would appear onstage. Both Kaia and I wiped the sweat off our foreheads, and I scoured my surroundings, hoping to see Rys returning from the bar.

Instead, my eyes landed on someone familiar a few feet away. Beads of a different kind of sweat - cold, uncomfortable - formed on the back of my neck.

If Brock's best friend, Max, was here, it meant Brock was too. My heart thrashed against my ribs because another guy I knew, Parker, was with him. And to my horror, he looked my way.

Kaia touched my forearm. "Lyra? You okay?"

I shook my head. "See those two guys over there? The blond one's Brock's best friend. That means Brock's here, Kaia."

"Oh my god." She gaped at me. "What do we do? Do we leave?"

"Too late," I said. "One of them saw me. I'll go say hi because if not, it'll seem suspicious."

"All right." Kaia looped her arm through mine. "I'll go with you so they see you're here with a friend."

Talking to your boyfriend's friends shouldn't be nerve-wracking, but we'd only had a few interactions despite knowing each other for years. I dodged a couple of girls and walked up to Max and Parker with Kaia.

"Lyra." Max cleared his throat, raising his beer can in greeting. "What a surprise."

"I didn't know you guys would be here. Where's Brock?"

Next to Max, Parker rubbed the back of his neck, looking toward the stage.

"He wasn't feeling well, so we had to leave him at the hotel," Max said.

"Which hotel? I might surprise him since he's here."

I'd been clueless about lots of things lots of times, but Brock used to go to parties with a fever and upset stomach because he was the leader of his gang, and he hated the idea of missing out on something. There was no way Brock would miss a festival like this one, and if Brock's buddies were telling the truth, giving me the name of the hotel shouldn't take them so long.

Max downed the rest of his beer and crumpled the empty can in his fist. "His father's hotel, but Brock told us about the break. I don't think going to surprise him is a good idea."

Kaia let out a loud snort beside me. "No worries, we're having too much fun to leave. Enjoy the Ocean Breeze, guys."

Parker waved at us with a sheepish smile, and a fake grin stretched Max's lips.

"Say hi to Brock," I muttered.

Kaia took my hand, steering me toward the densest part of the crowd. As soon as the mass of dancing bodies hid Brock's friends and, hopefully, us from view, she groaned. "I hate some men."

"Those two are full of shit. I know." I also knew that Brock's parents had been vacationing at our resorts for years because none of their hotels were on the coast. That Brock's buddies had to come up with a lie on the spot only meant Brock didn't travel to the beach with them like he said, and his reasons for wanting a break were different.