It had always been like this.

You were Magui’s little sister. The tag-along. The one who sat cross-legged on the floor while they talked. The one Lando used to ruffle the hair of, tease endlessly, call “tiny” even when you clearly weren’t anymore.

Especially him.

Summers had a rhythm, and you’d grown up inside it.

Every year, without fail, both families escaped to the same stretch of coast. Same beach houses lined up like a secret only they knew. Same sun-faded towels. Same grocery runs. Same mothers laughing too loud over iced coffee on the porch because Lando’s mum and your mum had been best friends forever—the kind of friendship that didn’t need explaining.

Lando came with the summers. He always had.

He was part of the furniture at this point. Barefoot most of the time, hair permanently messed up by salt and wind, living in board shorts and old T-shirts. He blended into the season so well that it was impossible to remember a summer without him.

And for the longest time, you were just… there.

Too young to join the late nights. Too young for the beers passed around after sunset. Too young for the way people paired off once the music got louder and the lights got lower. You watched from the edges—stairs, doorframes, beach towels—while Magui and Lando moved easily through a world you weren’t invited into yet.

Lando treated you like a kid because that’s what you were supposed to be. Teased you. Stole your snacks. Commented on how much you’d grown like it was funny. Like it didn’t mean anything.

And you told yourself it didn’t.

But this summer was different.

You were old enough now.

Old enough to stay out late. Old enough to be handed a beer without someone hesitating. Old enough to go to the annual beach party—the one that happened every year like a ritual. Bonfires, speakers half-buried in sand, laughter echoing down the shoreline, people making out like the night was endless.

The air was thick with heat and music and something unfamiliar—freedom, maybe. Or possibility.

You showed up barefoot, hair loose, skin warm from the day, and for the first time… no one looked surprised to see you there.

Lando did, though.

Just for a second.

It wasn’t dramatic. No big reaction. Just a pause. A flicker of something unreadable before he caught himself and smiled like usual. Like nothing had changed.

But it had.

You felt it in the way conversations stalled when you walked by. In the way Lando’s teasing softened, like he was suddenly aware of where his hands landed, how close he stood. In the way the night felt charged whenever you were near him.

Magui didn’t notice.

She was somewhere in the crowd, laughing, moving easily through the night like she always had. This was her world. Had been for years.

You’d grown up on the edges of it.

And now you weren’t sure where you fit anymore.

This was just summer. Just heat. Just your imagination getting ahead of you.

The party blurred into noise and movement—music, clinking bottles, sand under your feet. The bonfire cracked and popped, throwing shadows across familiar faces that suddenly looked different in the dark.

At some point, you drifted closer to the water, the noise fading behind you.

Someone followed.

You didn’t need to turn around to know who it was.

Lando stopped a few steps away, hands shoved into his pockets like he wasn’t sure what to do with them. The ocean reflected in his eyes. The firelight catching the sharp edges of his smile.

He hesitated.

Then, quietly—like it mattered—

“Since when do you come to these things?”

And suddenly, the summer wasn’t pretending anymore.