Page 30 of Changing Tides

“That’s very nice of him,” I say without breaking eye contact with him.

I stand and reach my hand out to her. “Come on. You’ve had a big day. We need to get you home and feed you dinner,” I say.

“Ah, do we have to?” she whines, a clear indication that she’s tired.

“Yes, we do. Now, let’s go and thank everyone for being so nice today.”

She takes my outstretched hand and stomps over to the crowd.

“Leia,” I prompt.

“Thank you,” she mumbles quietly. Her bottom lip protruding.

Sebastian goes down to a knee and looks her in the eyes. “Now, that’s not a very fairy princess mermaid attitude,” he says as he taps the tip of her nose.

She grunts, and it makes him chuckle as he stands back up.

“I’m sorry. She gets grumpy when she’s tired,” I explain.

He shrugs. “So do I.”

An awkward silence grows between us before Sabel interrupts.

“I’ll go with you guys since her car seat is in my vehicle. How does that sound?”

“Yes!” Leia wails.

Sabel turns and kisses Sebby as I remove the life vest from Leia and hand it to Sebastian.

“Avie Sullivan,” he mutters as he takes it from my hand.

“Sebastian Hollister?”

“Harraway,” he corrects.

“Sebastian Harraway,” I repeat.

“It’s good to see you again,” he says, and my stomach does a little flip.

“You too.”

“Mommy,” Leia calls as Sabel steps off the deck onto the pier.

“Right, let’s go,” I say as I pick her up and rest her on my hip.

Sebby takes my other arm and helps us down, and we follow Sabel to the parking lot.

Sebastian

“You can stop eye-fucking her now,” Anson says, and my attention moves from the three of them walking away to him.

I toss the small yellow life jacket onto his head. “Shut up, dipshit. My grandfather is standing right here.”

Anson snickers. “He saw it too.”

Gramps grunts and shakes his head at us before hopping out of the boat and heading for the office.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell us she was here,” Parker says.

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