beechwood was just as you had imagined it—picture-perfect, impossibly neat. the hedges trimmed straight as rulers, white shutters gleaming in the afternoon light, the air carrying the faint scent of salt and honeysuckle. a little kingdom tucked away by the sea, where everything was polished and permanent.

but this summer was not like the others.

it was different because johnny had brought you.

it hadn’t been easy—he had begged, pleaded, even fallen to his knees in mock despair until his mother, at last, allowed it. she waved you through as though it hardly mattered, but for johnny, the victory felt monumental. and so, with an extra room waiting at red gate, you were here.

and now, at an hour when the rest of the island slept, the world seemed to belong to only you and him.

the two of you lay side by side on a blanket spread across the sand, your shoulders almost, but not quite, touching. the beach stretched empty in both directions, and the ocean whispered to itself in slow, steady waves. the air was cool, carrying the faint taste of salt; cicadas thrummed lazily in the brush behind you.

above, the stars glowed with quiet insistence, scattered like spilled silver across a velvet sky. you could feel johnny watching them as though seeing something brand new, his chest rising and falling in rhythm with the tide.

“y’know,” he said softly, his voice more a thought than a statement, “i’ve never really paid attention to the stars before.”

there was a furrow between his brows, a kind of wonder in his eyes that you hadn’t seen before.

he had never noticed the stars. he had never noticed a lot of things—not until you.