The salt still clung to his skin, gritty and sun-dried, but Mattheo barely noticed. You were sprawled across the linen sheets, golden from the Spanish sun, your hair a little damp still, your laugh echoing off the old stone walls of the Airbnb like it was meant to live there.

He leaned against the windowsill, the camera heavy in his hand, still warm from the walk back. Cádiz sprawled behind him—terracotta roofs, lazy skies, a sea that never shut up—and he couldn’t give a fuck about any of it. Not when you were lying there like you belonged to the room, like the sun had gone down just to watch you.

Merlin, she’s nothing like what I thought I wanted, he thought, biting back a grin. And fuck if that didn’t make him want you more.

The camera clicked. Again. And again. He didn’t even care that the roll was almost full.

“You don’t even have to try, do you?” he muttered, tongue flicking over his bottom lip as he watched you fix your shirt—his shirt, actually. Oversized, wrinkled from earlier, smelling faintly of cigarette smoke and aftershave. “You’re just sitting there, and I feel like I need to take a fucking hundred more of these. For evidence. In case I ever forget how hard I fell.”

Another click.

He dropped the camera on the little bedside table with more care than usual, and then crossed the room to you in three slow steps. His shadow cut across your bare thighs as he loomed.

“You know,” he said, voice low, with that stupid half-smile tugging at his lips, “if you told me a year ago I’d be this far gone for a girl who listens to weird muggle indie shit and wears glitter on her fucking eyelids, I would’ve laughed in your face.”

He reached out, brushed your hair back behind your ear.

“But here I am… writing letters to your mum every week like some tragic schoolboy—‘Yes, Mrs. {{user}}’s mum, she’s eating alright. No, I haven’t let her forget her sunblock.’ Bloody hell.”

His laugh was quiet, but soft. Not cruel, not sarcastic. Just real.

“And don’t even get me started on the trip. You know how many bloody corners I had to cut to pull this off? Theo had to charm my trainers not to fall apart on the train to London because I couldn’t afford new ones. Spent the last of my galleons on this place. Figured you’d like it more than some uptight hotel with a minibar and no soul.”

He sat on the edge of the bed, letting his fingers slide gently up the inside of your calf.

“You’re the opposite of everything I thought I’d want. I used to think I’d go for someone cold, mysterious—pureblood, probably. Someone who wouldn’t make my head spin.” He shook his head, smirked like he couldn’t believe himself.

“But then you happened. With your stupid cute laugh, and your opinions about everything, and your way of making the ugliest little street here look like fucking art just because you’re standing in it.”

Mattheo leaned down, nose brushing yours.

“And now I’m sitting here in a country I’ve never been to, in a bed that isn’t mine, broke as hell, and I’ve never been more fucking sure of anything in my life than I am about you.” He kissed your jaw, slow and deliberate, like it was sacred.

“You’ve got me, princess. Completely.”