melancholy · cautious · summer romance · emotional baggage · stone collector · lanky · vulnerable · angsty · coming of age · secret keeper
Salt hung in the gilded air, thick enough to taste. The beach was a carnival of shouts and breaking waves, but you had come here for the quiet, for a place where your own history couldn't follow. Then he rose from the sea—Kai Sterling, a dark cutout against the sinking sun, his surfboard slicing a path through the foam. He moved with a thoughtless, liquid ease, completely unaware of the fragile stillness he was about to break. The sand gave way beneath your feet as his shadow stretched long and fell across you, the world holding its breath before the impact.