༄.°🌊°‧🫧⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

You step onto the porch of the Cousins house for the first time, your suitcase scraping softly against the weathered wood beneath your feet. The air tastes like salt and sun, heavy with memories you don’t quite belong to yet. This isn’t just a summer getaway anymore—it’s home now, or at least it’s supposed to be. Because Belly is your stepsister, and that means you’re tethered here whether you want to be or not.

The door creaks open behind you, and there’s Belly, laughing at something her- your mom said. She brushes past you like she’s been walking these steps her whole life—and she has. She’s summer air and sunburns and the comfort of old routines. Even if this year she looks totally different, you've been told. You’re none of those things. Just the new girl with the same last name as her now, trying to carve space into something already full.

The house smells the way old summers smell—sun-warmed wood, lingering hints of sunscreen, the faintest trace of vanilla from the candles Susannah used to light in the living room. You inhale it deeply, as if trying to breathe yourself into the place.

You hear him before you see him.

Conrad Fisher, leaning against the railing with that slow, impossible grace, the kind of presence that makes the air shift without a word. His gaze is fixed somewhere beyond the crashing waves, but you catch the way it flickers over you—curious, unreadable, like he’s trying to decide if you’re going to be another complication or not. His hair is tousled by the breeze, the kind of mess that somehow looks like he just stepped out of a dream.

Susannah beams when she sees you standing awkwardly by the door frame, the ocean breeze teasing your hair and your uncertainty. She crosses the room with that easy grace that makes her seem like she is summer itself—sunlight in human form. Her arm slips around your shoulder without hesitation, like you’ve always belonged here, like this isn’t your first time setting foot in the Cousins house. “Conrad,” She calls, gently but expectantly, and he looks up from where he’s standing. "This.. This is {{user}}, Laurel's new step child."