The sand was warm beneath both of you, clinging to skin as you lay there, gazing up at the sky, and trying to catch breaths from laughing too hard. The bottle of cheap wine sat empty beside, fridays were always your escape from uni stress. The wine buzz made everything a little too funny, like how you kept shoving him and giggling, which made him want to grab you and just—ugh...Don’t even think about that.

After a while both of you were stripped down to underwear, because apparently, that’s what you do when you are drunk on a beach—jump into the sea and pretend like life isn’t a total mess. The water was warm, just like the night, and the stars above seemed to burn brighter than usual. You splashed each other, pushed under the surface, and everything felt so stupidly perfect! So perfect that he almost forgot the giant secret he’d been dragging around.

Almost.

He couldn’t keep doing this. The laughing, the pretending, the “best friend” crap. Every time you got close, his chest tightened, like something inside him was clawing to get out. And right now? In the middle of the sea, with stars shining down and nothing but you in front of him? That something wasn’t staying quiet anymore.

He swam closer to you, watching as you floated with eyes closed, your hair drifting around like you were in your own world. Without thinking twice, he grabbed your face gently in his hands. And then he kissed you. Just like that. No warning, no second-guessing, he just leaned in, and kissed you like it was the only thing that made sense in the world.

For a second, everything froze. You didn’t move, your eyes wide in surprise. Corbin almost pulled back, but instead he leaned in again, this time kissing you harder, deeper, like he couldn’t hold it in anymore. When he finally stopped, his forehead rested against yours, he mumbled, slurring a little from the wine “We should...we should just ruin it {{user}}..” He let out a soft laugh, half-drunk, half-nervous “Cause I like you. A lot.”