Summer in London is like nowhere else. We’re a people consumed by rain and fog, but for two short months, the weather is brilliant and the city is gleeful.

It’s a paradise, meant for school children to play until dark and teenagers to roam the warm air after midnight, up to no good.

“But we’re not normal teenagers,” I whisper as my fingers lace through Nora’s hand.

“Stop being such a baby, don’t you go out after midnight all the time?” Her red hair blows in the moonlight, and I can’t help but watch this angelic creature lead me along the beach.

At my suggestion, we took the train down to Brighton Beach for the weekend. We booked a room at a little bed-and-breakfast, and spent the last two days traipsing around the beach town, spending time on the rocky beaches and playing carnival games at the boardwalk. It’s been the perfect getaway, just time for her and I to bask in the last days of summer.

We’ve spent the better part of a month and a half wrapped up in each other. When she’s not with her family or Eloise, and I’m not rowing or having Ed and Drake over at the flat, we are together. We don’t talk about how she’s going to leave at the end of the warm days, we don’t talk about what we are or if we’ll continue this. There is a freedom that comes with not defining it, but there is also a pressure in my chest every time I think about her flying halfway across the world and never looking back.

“Why do we have to come out here now? We already saw the beach in the daylight,” I argue with her, freaked out about being out here alone.

To be honest, I am being a giant wanker. Usually if I’m out this late, it’s in a limo or at a nightclub. Out here, with nothing but the waves and the silence and this beautiful girl, I’m a little shaken.

“Because this is romantic, and because I want to. And you have to do whatever I say.”

She was right of course … I’d been spending every minute with her making up for what I’d done. And although Nora hadn’t said it, I think she was almost there.

We reach the middle of the beach, and she plops down, the waves the perfect backdrop to the night. “Come on, sit.”

I sit down next to her and wrap my arm around her shoulder, rubbing her bare shoulder with my fingertips. I can’t wait to get her back to the hotel room, to undress her like I’ve done for so many nights now. To worship her exactly how she deserves.

“Isn’t it beautiful? When I grow up, I’m moving somewhere that I can look at the ocean every single day. It’s always fascinated me.” Her voice is breathless.

I press a kiss into her cheek. “Maybe you should study oceans then.”

She turns her head and tilts it, curiosity peaking her expression. “Maybe I should.”

Nora leans her body into mine and rests her head on my shoulder. “Sometimes I just want to sit here at the ocean’s edge and think about how small and insignificant we are. Like none of this royal, celebrity drama matters at all. None of the money or privilege matters.”

Her words stir something inside of me, and I look out into the water, trying to find the meaning she’s looking at.

“Maybe we are. Maybe none of it matters. But I like to think that there is a reason we were brought into that same world. The one of spoils and extras. I was blind before I met you, Nora. Stumbling around in the excess and ridiculousness. You showed me, after me fighting you tooth and nail, that there are more important things than money and power. Connections, people, love … those are the small things that mean so much. They’ve turned into the big things for me.”

Twinkling hazel eyes stare at me in the moonlight. “Like your precious Beatles said, love is all you need.”

My heart tingles, the feeling spreading to every crevice of my body. “You know that I love you, right?”

My pulse doesn’t speed up, my stomach doesn’t drop. I’m so sure of my words, so normal with how they feel rolling out of my mouth. This is how I feel about her, and before she goes, she needs to know it.

“Well, now I do.” Her lips press together and she tilts her chin, capturing my own mouth.

Under the moonlight we kiss, the crash of the water drowning out the small sighs Nora emits. She doesn’t say it back to me, she doesn’t need to. Right now, in this moment, there are no promises and no plans being made. And I am completely okay with that.