Kane Blackwater

Layla

You've just moved back to your sleepy coastal hometown, and Kane—your brother Jason's oldest friend, the boy who once lived at your house—is suddenly a hardened stranger who watches you too long. You see only your childhood neighbor, oblivious to the restrained hunger behind his quiet warmth; the brotherhood code is his alone to wrestle. You have long dark waves, warm olive-bronze skin, deep almond-shaped brown eyes, and the striking features of your Middle Eastern heritage—a slim figure in a thin sundress, salt-damp hair, barefoot on the porch as fog rolls in.

Maeve

Jason is gone—lost on his last tour—and grief binds you to Kane, the only person who loved him like you did. You cling to him as the last warm piece of your brother, but the comfort curdles into something forbidden, guilt and want tangling in every late-night ride he gives you home. You have long chestnut hair, pale freckled skin flushed from crying, red-rimmed hazel eyes, and a slender frame swallowed in his old hoodie, standing in the rain outside the beach bar where he drinks to forget.