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Jen Calonita is the author of the VIP, Secrets of My Hollywood Life and Fairy Tale Reform School series, and a former magazine editor who has interviewed everyone from Justin Timberlake to Beyoncé. She lives in New York with her husband, Mike; sons, Dylan and Tyler; and their Chihuahua, Captain Jack Sparrow.

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Belles

Poppy

One

Isabelle Scott kicked her legs, propelling herself to the ocean surface with a final burst of adrenaline even as her lungs screamed for air. Breaking through the waves, she looked around, focusing on the tiny stretch of North Carolina coastline that she had called home for the last fifteen and a half years. Harborside Beach was still packed at 5 pm. She could see couples lounging on beach blankets while their kids dug in the sand or attempted to bodyboard, but beyond the roped-off swim area, Isabelle was flying solo. She had always preferred it that way. But that was before she’d met Brayden Townsend. As if on cue, he paddled his surfboard toward her.

“Go ahead and gloat, Iz,” Brayden said, not sounding the least bit out of breath, even though he had just paddled over the breaking waves. He pushed a beat-up surfboard toward her. His favorite black wet suit, the one with the pirate skull on his chest, looked barely wet even though they’d both been in the water for almost half an hour.

Izzie, or Iz, as Brayden called her (only her grandmother called her Isabelle, when she called her anything at all), rested her arms on the bobbing board. She couldn’t help but smirk at Brayden. “I didn’t say anything.”

“You didn’t have to,” Brayden grumbled even though his blue-green eyes were playful. Salt water dripped from his short, light brown hair and he wiped it off his face. “You win, Iz. I’m man enough to admit you can swim faster than I can paddle out here, but,” he added before she could gloat, “let’s not forget that I was carting two boards, and pelicans were nose-diving at my head.”

Izzie tapped her chipped purple nails lightly on the board, the bathlike water lapping at her upper back, which was the only part of her torso not covered by the unflattering blue Speedo she wore for her job as a lifeguard. After four, she was off-duty, but unlike some of the other guards she worked with, she didn’t change into her own suit before going for a dip. Why waste time? When she wasn’t working, there was no place she’d rather be than in the ocean. Brayden was the first guy she’d met who seemed to feel the same way. They’d only been friends since mid-July, but they had been meeting up practically every day since, and this was the best time of day to do it. By 5 pm, the soupy North Carolina heat had started to subside and there was even a light breeze. The sun was still bright, but low enough that they didn’t need sunscreen, and the water wasn’t overly crowded with kids goofing around or adults twice her size who could barely swim. Five pm was “me” time, and when me time included Brayden, it was that much better.

“It only took you half of July and all of August to realize I pretty much know everything there is to know about being in the water,” Izzie teased, staring at his woven rope necklace that had a pirate coin dangling from it. “You surfers are all alike. Cocky.”

“Hey,” Brayden argued even as he smiled an extra-adorable grin. “It’s not cocky; it’s called confident. There is a difference. You lifeguards seem to forget that.”

Izzie coyly pushed her wavy, shoulder-skimming brown bob out of her hazel eyes. “It’s kind of hard not to when we’re pulling you guys out of a rip current at least once a day.”

Brayden gave her a sharp look. “I told you a million times, I was fine.”

“You didn’t look fine,” Izzie reminded him, wrinkling her freckled nose at the memory. “You were going—”

“Against the current instead of with it,” Brayden interrupted, and shook his head. The dimple in his left cheek began to form. “I’m never going to live that down, am I?”

“Nope,” Izzie said, feeling at ease, like she always did around him. They were just friends—friends in a teasing, sort of flirty way—but for some reason it didn’t matter. Well, it mattered a little, but they had such a good time together that she almost forgot he wasn’t her boyfriend. She knew practically everything there was to know about him, from how much he loved to surf to his favorite iPod playlist. They liked the same bands, preferred water over dry land, and would take a slice of pizza over a hot dog any day. Maybe that was why she was beginning to dread the thought of school starting in two weeks. When would she see Brayden then? They hung out only at the beach. She wasn’t even sure where he lived. Whenever she asked, his cryptic answer was always “Nearby.”

Brayden looked at the shore as he bobbed up and down on his board, and Izzie tried not to ogle his toned arms. “So, ready to try surfing again? Maybe you can actually stay on the board today.”

Izzie pulled herself up on her board and floated next to him, their tan knees touching. Brayden’s, she noticed, were beaten up and bruised from some crash landings. “Do we have to keep doing this?” she groaned. “Why do I need to know how to surf?”

“I told you—so you can do it with me. Let’s try this again, okay?” Brayden instructed, his square jawline set. “I’ll make you a deal. If you can manage to get up this time, I’ll buy at Scoops.”

Izzie grinned. “You’re on, surfer boy.”

She reached down and attached her board’s leg strap to her ankle. She’d learned her lesson about being untethered last week when she had to swim after a runaway board. Then she paddled after Brayden, trying to remember his instructions—when to stand up, how to lean left or right into the wave for balance, how to hold her legs. Brayden had given her this board after he bought one that had a pirate ship on it. The gift had come with one condition—that Izzie keep both boards in the lifeguard hut for him. Brayden said his board didn’t fit in the back of his Jeep. He had just turned sixteen and his parents had bought him the truck for his birthday, which led Izzie to assume that Brayden didn’t live that close to Harborside, because she lived there and no kid she knew owned a car, let alone a new one.

Izzie looked for the balance point Brayden had marked with wax and tried not to “cork” the board, as he’d called it. Something about too much weight in the back. She watched Brayden almost fifteen feet ahead of her—the proper safety distance—and saw him effortlessly stand up on the board as a wave began to crest. She tried to remember what he’d said as she got closer to the waves and pushed up on the board, keeping her legs on the stringer and gripping the board with her feet. She was supposed to look like a sumo wrestler, and it was working. She was up! Was Brayden seeing this? Even her feet were in the right positions! Then two seconds later, she fell and cursed herself for looking down, which is what Brayden had told her not to do. The surf was swirling around her, and as she swam to the surface, her board whacked her in the head. She dragged the board behind her as she hit the beach a few minutes later with a scowl on her...