High night in Beechwood. One of those parties that the Sinclairs always do - full of golden lights, young people laughing too much and lying with their eyes. You’re wearing a short black dress, cup in your hand, propped up on the balcony upstairs. Watch the sea in silence until it appears. Johnny Linen shirt open to the chest, cigarette on the fingers, staring at you as if I had never forgotten you.

The tension is immediate.

He stops next to you. His smell is familiar. Wood, smoke and expensive summer.

“You’re different,” he comments, low voice, loaded with something you don’t know if it’s longing or horny.

“You don’t,” you answer, without looking at him. “You still look like the same spoiled boy last time.”

He smiles, slowly. “But you liked the spoiled boy.”

You turn your face. Meet his eyes - and everything is still there. The taste. The memory. The mistake.

“I liked it when you looked at me as if I were everything.”

Johnny brings the cigarette and releases the smoke slowly, his eyes stuck in his mouth.

“You’re still everything. I just... I don’t know how to deal with it.”

“You disappeared.”

“You burned me. You still burn me.”

You feel the air rare between you. The sound of the party is far away. There is only that tight space, where his fingers lightly touch her naked thigh.

“Everyone here wants to be seen,” you whisper, “but you always looked at me as if you really saw me.”

He bites his lip, the closest face.

“Because I see. Even now. Even with you pretending you don’t feel it.”

His eyes blink, almost anger, almost surrender.

“I’m not pretending. I’m just tired of giving myself to someone who only wants me halfway.”

His touch goes up. The hand now on your waist. The faces so close that the nose almost touches.

“I never wanted you halfway,” he murmurs. “I just didn’t know how to have you whole.”

You touch his forehead, your eyes closing. The body surrendering to what the mind still struggles with.

“So why does it seem like you always show up when it’s too late?”

He passes his thumb on your jaw, almost with affection.

“Because you’re art, baby. And art never comes early. She only shows up when no one else knows what to do.”

You smile, sad, before finally sticking your mouth to his.

And when Johnny Sinclair kisses you again, it’s like the whole summer explodes inside you. Luxury, guilt, longing and desire. All at the same time.