Cecilia - Fifteen
“Oi! Lovers of the sea! Get your arses back on this boat before we sail off without you!”
Siena’s voice rang out over the water, slicing through the haze in my head.
I turned toward the boat, blinking. The sun was bright, too bright, and my chest still felt tight—not from the swim. From Theo. From the things he’d said. The things I didn’t know how to answer.
Theo swam past me first, his strokes unhurried, easy.
He reached the ladder and climbed aboard, water streaming off his back, and for a moment, I just stared.
Like I had when we were kids and he’d done something effortlessly brilliant—aced a test he hadn’t studied for, fixed something I thought was broken.
Except this wasn’t then. And this wasn’t effortless. He’d laid his heart bare out there.
And I’d swum away.
I dragged myself onto the boat, towel hitting my chest before I’d even stood up. Theo. Offering it without a word, just a quiet glance that held too much and yet not nearly enough .
“You’re just in time,” Nate said, not looking up as he passed a container to Theo. “I bought enough to feed a small nation. Which, given Siena’s appetite, should just about cover us.”
Siena flipped him off without lifting her head.
I sat down beside Theo, close but not touching. Every part of me was wired for him. The heat of his skin. The calm in his presence. The silence now, which wasn’t awkward—just waiting.
He wanted me.
He said he wanted me .
I reached for a slice of bread, but my fingers trembled. I couldn’t believe this was happening. That Theo had ended things with Natalie, looked me straight in the eye, and said he was tired of pretending he didn’t want me.
And I’d panicked because I wasn’t just scared of wanting him back, I was terrified of what it would mean to feel everything with him and then have the possibility of losing it or worse, losing myself, again.
“Cece,” Siena said under her breath, eyeing me like she could read the storm behind my eyes.
I cleared my throat. “I’m fine. Just starving.”
Her brow arched. “Right.”
I took a bite I barely tasted.
Theo let out a low laugh at something Rae said, and it slid right under my skin.
I looked at him—really looked. Salt-crusted curls, sunlight in his lashes, dimple just barely visible.
There’d always been this softness to him, this quiet steadiness that made the whole world feel like it had a centre.
And I’d spent so long pretending I didn’t miss it .
I should’ve known what that kiss meant. All those years ago, outside that godforsaken pub, with the streetlights bleeding gold into the night. I’d kissed him like I meant it. And he’d kissed me back like he knew.
But then I made a joke that same evening and pretended it hadn’t shaken me. I’d been so chicken shit. So determined not to feel it, not to face what it might mean. I told myself we were better off as friends. I told myself we weren’t ready.
Maybe we weren’t. But God—he’d been. And he’d waited.
My stomach twisted.
I couldn’t sit here pretending everything was normal. Not when my chest was cracked wide open. I leaned over to Siena and muttered, “Walk with me?”
Siena looked at me, “Walk where? We’re on a boat.”
I shot her a look and she got up instantly, clearly reading the look on my face.
We headed toward the bow, Rae too busy with an olive feast now to protest Siena leaving. The deck boards creaked beneath our feet, the wind licking at our damp hair. When we were far enough, I turned to her, arms folded, voice low.
“He told me he broke up with Natalie.”
Siena’s eyebrows lifted. “What?”
I nodded. “Out there, in the water. He just… said it. Said he ended it and that he didn’t want to pretend anymore. That he wanted me. ”
She let out a breath that was half laugh, half gasp. “Bloody hell.”
“I know. ”
“Well, what did you say?” she asked.
“I didn’t know what to say, so I swam away!” I replied, feeling like a complete idiot for it.
“And you—you just… swam away?”
“I panicked.”
“Clearly.”
“I know ,” I said, burying my face in my hands for a second. “God, I know. But I just—he said it so plainly. Like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Like he’d known it all along. And I… I think maybe a part of me did too. Even back then.”
Siena didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to.
“I keep thinking about the kiss,” I admitted.
“The one after the pub. I always told myself it didn’t matter.
That I was drunk. But I wasn’t – I remember everything.
I think I talked myself into thinking that he wouldn’t even remember it, that it wouldn’t matter to him.
But it did , Siena. It always did matter.
And now I can’t stop thinking about how patient he’s been.
How he just let me come to the realisation on my own, and I—God—I was so scared to admit it meant something to me too. ”
“It’s okay to be scared,” she said gently. “But you’re not that girl anymore.”
I swallowed hard. “No. I’m not.”
“Then don’t let her make the decisions for you.”
I looked back toward the others. Theo was still sitting there, quiet and golden in the sun, watching Rae try to convince Nate she needed dessert. He hadn’t tried to force me into anything. Hadn’t even looked disappointed when I swam away.
He was just… waiting. Still .
I took a breath, everything inside me tilting forward.
Maybe it was time I finally stopped running away from myself and more importantly stopped letting the only man who had ever treated me right from waiting any longer.
The rest of the day blurred into a warm bliss of picky food, Rae’s gorgeous giggles, crisp rosé and the sun beating down on our skin.
At some point, Theo handed me a strawberry without saying a word, and I took it, brushing his fingers without meaning to, feeling that stupid jolt all the way down my spine.
By the time we arrived at the accommodation—a beautiful house with faded blue shutters and terracotta tiles—it was golden hour.
According to Nate, it belonged to a friend of a friend.
I didn’t ask more. I was too caught up in the haze of salt and sun and the way Theo’s voice sounded when he laughed, low and easy, like he’d forgotten to hold back.
Rae had long since fallen asleep, her curls tangled and cheeks pink from the sun. She’d grown more attached to Siena as the day wore on, curling up beside her under the awning of the boat, insisting she help her with the sun cream, pulling her hand when we disembarked.
The house had six bedrooms, each with wooden floors and tall windows that let in that soft, Mediterranean light. Bougainvillea curled up the outside walls, and there was a tiled outdoor shower around the side I instantly loved .
Everyone peeled away slowly grabbing bags, muttering about showers and sleep. The day had melted us into a kind of shared, sun-drowsy silence.
I wasn’t tired. And I didn’t want to wash the salt from my skin.
Being around Theo was making me wired.
I hadn’t even spoken to him properly since the boat—just a few glances, a small smile when I passed him the corkscrew, his hand briefly on the small of my back when we reached the dock. But it was all I could think about. All-consuming. And I hated myself a little for it.
I dropped my bag inside my room and closed the door behind me, letting my head thump lightly against it.
“Pull it together,” I whispered, eyes shut.
I pushed off from the door and started pacing, arms folded tight across my chest. Then unfolded them. Then sat on the bed. Then stood again.
God, what is wrong with me?
I kept hearing his voice in my head - I want you, Celia. And I’ve wanted you since that kiss.
I sat on the edge of the bed, bouncing my knee, chewing the inside of my cheek. Then I stood. Walked to the door. Turned around.
Sat again.
I could go to sleep. I could shower. I could write in my journal and pretend I wasn’t going out of my mind wanting to see him.
I could wait until tomorrow.
I blew out a breath. “Or I could stop being such a chicken for once in my life.”
Fuck it .
Before I could second-guess myself, I yanked open the door and padded barefoot down the hallway, heart pounding against my ribs.
The hallway was still, dimly lit, the muffled sound of water running somewhere in the distance.
Theo’s door was at the end and my breath shifted slightly as I stood outside it and raised my hand.
My knuckles hovered, uncertain for only a beat.
Then I knocked.
He answered quicker than I expected — hair slightly tousled and still wet from his shower, his white t-shirt slightly wrinkled like he’d only just pulled it over his head. He looked like he belonged in a late-night dream I hadn’t realised I’d been having for years.
His eyes flicked over my face, searching for something — permission, maybe, or reason. “Celia?”
“I still don’t know what to say,” I murmured, and I didn’t. Not in any way that would make it clean or clever. But I didn’t back away. I stepped into the space between us, heart pounding but hands steady.
“But I know what I want.”
His breath caught, almost imperceptibly. His eyes locked on mine, and something shifted between us — not like the slow turning of a page, but like a tide crashing in.
I reached up and kissed him.
It wasn’t cautious. It wasn’t testing the waters. It was urgent and rooted in something deep, something I’d buried and tried to forget. My mouth found his with a desperate kind of knowing — like I’d already lived this moment in a thousand different dreams and now I was finally, finally awake .
Theo inhaled sharply against my lips, and then he was kissing me back like he’d been waiting a lifetime. His hand slid to my waist, pulling me in closer, grounding me to him, chest to chest, breath to breath, until I couldn’t tell where I ended and he began.
I pulled back just a fraction, barely enough to catch my breath, lips parted as I whispered, “Was that—?”
But I didn’t finish the question.
And oh God.
His mouth was warm, open, eager . He kissed me like he’d been waiting years for this exact second, like he wasn’t going to waste a single breath. His hands found my hips, fingers digging in through the fabric of my dress, pulling me in so hard our bodies collided — lips sliding, breath catching.
I stumbled forward, and maybe it was me pushing him or him pulling me, I couldn’t tell — I didn’t care — but we moved into the room together in a fevered, uncoordinated blur.
The door slammed shut behind us.
I felt devoured.
I wanted to be devoured.
He kissed me like he had something to prove — not to me, but to time, to fate, to every version of us that almost happened and didn’t.
And I kissed him back like I’d finally stopped running.
Theo turned us fast, just enough to press me back against the wood, one hand braced beside my head, the other gripping my jaw as he angled my face up and kissed me deeper, harder.
His thumb swept just beneath my ear, tracing the edge of my neck like he needed to feel that I was really there.
Like he needed to commit every piece of me to memory.
I gasped against his mouth, and he took that too — took everything I gave him.
My hands were everywhere; in his hair, across his back, sliding under the hem of his shirt and up over the warm, smooth skin of his stomach. He groaned softly into the kiss, and the sound nearly undid me.
When he finally pulled back, he rested his forehead against mine, both of us gasping, lips swollen, breath unsteady.
“You have no idea,” he said hoarsely, “how many times I’ve replayed that kiss in my head. Every day. Every damn day.”
A grin tugged at my lips, my voice shaky as I whispered, “This is so much better than I remember.”
Theo let out a half-laugh, still breathless. “You’d had a drink.”
I rolled my eyes and barely got the words out before my mouth was back on his. “Would you just stop talking and kiss me?”
He didn’t hesitate. “I thought you’d never ask.”
Then his hand slid around to the back of my thigh, lifting slightly, guiding my leg up to hook around his hip as he kissed me like he was starving.
His other hand curved around the back of my neck, holding me still as his mouth devoured mine — teeth grazing, tongue sliding, breath catching in that way that made my entire body burn.
There was nothing gentle now — nothing soft. Just years of tension crashing between us, all the almosts, all the waits , coming undone against the door of a dim room in the South of France somewhere.