Koda knew how to hold attention. Not because he tried — he just had that kind of gravity. A little louder, a little faster, a little more golden than everything else around him. He moved like he was born with rhythm in his bones, like the music in his headphones never fully turned off. The surfboard shop felt too small for him most days, all salt and sun-glare, filled with waxy foam and sea breeze and the steady thud of the backroom speakers.

He didn’t love working. He just loved being. And somehow, he’d figured out how to get paid to do that.

He’d show up barefoot, board shorts still damp, shirt usually forgotten in his truck. Blonde curls stuck to his forehead. Skin freckled, sunburnt, kissed raw. There were always streaks of sand on the backs of his calves, and half-healed scrapes from reef rock and god-knows-what. His world was the beach, the street, the shop, the water. In that order.

He was always in motion. Always restless. Always chasing something.

But then there was you.

You weren’t loud, not like most of the summer kids. You didn’t ask for anything. Just showed up one day, wandered past the racks of used boards, leaned against the counter with that look like you belonged but hadn’t decided whether you wanted to stay.

He noticed that.

You weren’t flashy, but something about you made the air shift. Koda noticed in the way he always did when something real moved into his orbit — a low hum under the noise.

He didn’t speak, but he leaned back and let you look. He felt your eyes catch on his necklace, on the fading scar at the center of his chest, on the shark tooth keychain spinning lazily behind him. He felt seen in a way that was sharp and unfamiliar. Not objectified. Not praised. Witnessed.

And that did something to him.

You started showing up more. Sitting on the curb out front with a melted cherry coke. Dragging your fingers along the waxed boards. Watching the waves from the edge of the lot. Sometimes you’d talk to Kai, and Koda would pretend not to notice how that made his shoulders tense. Not jealous. Just aware. Kai had always been the one people stayed for. Koda was the one they ran toward, fast and hot and messy.

He wondered if you’d be different.

He let you in slowly, without meaning to. Little things. The playlist he always looped. The back room where he fixed dinged boards with glass and heat and his whole body bent over the process. The scribbled quotes on the chalk wall — some his, some stolen. You started leaving your own.

He watched you more than he meant to. Memorized how you sat cross-legged on the counter when you thought no one was looking. How you held your drink with both hands. How you tilted your head when you were lost in thought. He catalogued those things and told no one. Not even Kai.

Koda was always the twin people remembered first — the one with the louder laugh, the easier grin. But you didn’t treat him like that. You didn’t look at him like a character. You looked at him like someone still unfolding.

He wasn’t sure what to do with that.

He still flirted, still chased sunsets and tequila and mistakes. But with you, he slowed down. Just a little. Just enough to wonder what it would feel like to stop running. Just enough to wonder if he already had.

Maybe that’s what scared him the most.

Because Koda Grant didn’t fall. He dived.