"Thank god," said Caiti when Evelyn arrived. She still had her backpack with her from whatever uni class she'd had that day. "I'm freaking out."

She and Marlowe were leaving in just a few hours for Cornwall and Caiti still hadn't packed.

Evelyn smiled a little. She dropped her backpack down on Caiti's bedroom floor.

"How do you do this? How do you live together? How do you not just combust? I'm so nervous and it's only three nights."

"Well, it's different when it's just three nights I think," said Evelyn. "I don't really get nervous because it's normal, you know?"

"But still. What about in the beginning? How did you not panic right before you moved in together?"

"I did, a little," Evelyn said. "What are you nervous about specifically? Not having privacy or?"

Caiti shook her head.

"Being together that long without a break?"

Again Caiti shook her head.

Evelyn just waited.

Caiti glanced at her door, which was part way open, and got up to shut it. She still whispered when she spoke again.

"I'm afraid he might want to— you know." She sat back down on the floor amidst the pile of clothes she had been trying to piece together appropriate outfits from.

"I don't think Marlowe will push you into anything you don't want to do," Evelyn said with a frown. "He really loves you. He's not just in it for that stuff."

"I know." Caiti melted backwards onto the floor. "I've just never over thought anything with him like this."

"So what's making this different?" Evelyn asked, which was such a good question that Caiti had to think about it for a solid two minutes.

She grabbed a shirt from the floor next to her and covered her face with it before she answered. "I think I might want it to happen," she whispered.

Evelyn didn't answer right away. From the gap under the shirt, Caiti watched her pick a few things up from the floor and refold them.

"You're allowed to want that, Caiti," said Evelyn finally.

Caiti just rolled onto her side and curled up in a little ball to hide.

—-

Caiti's nerves didn't disappear until she and Marlowe had arrived in Cornwall. She'd lived all week long with butterflies in her stomach making it nearly impossible to eat. She hadn't slept well, hadn't been able to focus, and except for that one stroke of inspiration the previous morning, hadn't been able to think about anything else at all.

But once they were there, it was like she'd never been nervous at all.

Being with Marlowe was easy. That first night, he took her out to dinner for a belated birthday celebration even though he had been over to her house for her actual birthday dinner with her parents just the night before.

Then they'd gone back to their hotel room and played Uno Enchanted — the card game they'd bought in Hogsmeade when Marlowe had visited her the previous year — until they got too tired to continue. She beat him three times and Marlowe said it was rigged, but as the cards changed face at random, there really wasn't that much strategy involved. Caiti maintained that it was birthday girl luck.

The following morning, they bought hot teas and croissants at a small cafe for breakfast and then spent the day exploring a local pumpkin patch. Halloween was the following day. It was all decked out for the holiday and the muggle depictions of witches had Caiti in fits.

One in particular — a witch flying a broom that had crashed into a tree — sent them both into hysterics. The other patrons looked at them like they'd lost their minds, and to them it probably wasn't that funny, but Caiti just kept wheezing, "It's me! They knew I was coming!"

Once they'd recovered themselves, they wandered through a corn maze that really hadn't looked that difficult from the little map on the outside, and they got themselves very much lost. Caiti kept trying to jump up to see over the top but couldn't manage it. Finally, Marlowe boosted her up and when she came back down, she announced to him that she had seen corn, which really didn't help them at all.

When they finally made it out, Marlowe punched a fist in the air and yelled, "Freedom! At last!"

Caiti held up her hand and he high fived it hard.

Next they rode a hayride out to the actual pumpkin patch where they selected two pumpkins to carve the following day. Caiti picked one that was perfectly round and Marlowe picked one that was very tall. Hugging them to their chests on the ride back towards the barn and the rest of the attractions, Caiti said. "They're just like us. Short and tall."

Marlowe smiled and kissed her just because. They treated themselves to caramel apples before they left.

They spent the rest of the day exploring the town and after dinner they ended up at the beach, which was where they still were now.

It had completely cleared out after sunset. It was properly cold out now, but they sat shoulder to shoulder with a flannel blanket around the both of them and it wasn't so bad.

They'd been talking all day long and for the first time, they'd gotten quiet. Caiti didn't feel like she'd run out of things to say. It wasn't that kind of silence. It was just nice to be with him. Marlowe reached around her waist under the blanket, pulled her a little closer. Caiti turned her head and looked at him.

For what felt like entire minutes, they looked at each other. She couldn't remember ever holding his gaze this long. It made her forget to breathe, forget to blink. For probably the first time in her entire life, not a single thought went through her mind.

And then he kissed her, his hand tangling into her hair, and her stomach filled with butterflies. The wind whipped at them, Caiti's hair smacking Marlowe in the face, and then it caught hold of the blanket. It ballooned away from them and they broke apart, both reaching for it. Caiti's fingertips grazed it, but she wasn't long enough and she fell back in the sand, laughing, fingers clasping nothing. Marlowe caught it by the edges and yanked it back, a triumphant grin on his face, but rather than wrap it back around them, he shoved it under his knee where it wouldn't blow away and then he laid over her in the sand and kissed her again.

Caiti's fingers felt gritty and she was sure her hair was full of sand, but it didn't matter. Marlowe was warm on top of her and his hand had found its way under her shirt, under the strap of her bra in between her shoulder blades. She couldn't feel the cold anymore, couldn't hear the waves, didn't even notice the sand sticking to her back where Marlowe's hand had pushed her shirt up.

She couldn't process complete thoughts, only bits of things, almost phrases, impulses mostly. She turned her head a little so she could breathe, her hands on his face. He tucked his head down, pressed his lips against her collarbone.

"Let's go back," she breathed. They were scary words. She felt like they meant a lot more than she'd said and she felt like Marlowe knew that, too. He lifted his eyes to hers, kissed her again, and then helped her up, brushing sand off her back and out of her hair.

Caiti's hand fell from his shoulder down to his chest and she stood there, frowning at the buttons of his shirt. Marlowe had the blanket balled up under his arm. She couldn't quite decide if she knew what she was doing.

Back in their hotel room, Marlowe kissed Caiti again as soon as the door was closed. He dropped the blanket on the floor, sand spilling all over at their feet, and then he put his hands under her arms and lifted her up. Caiti wrapped her legs around him. There was only a lamp on, the one they'd left on earlier so it wouldn't be pitch black when they got back.

He laid her back on the bed, but took a few seconds just to look at her. If she hadn't been laying down already, the look in his eyes could have knocked her flat.

They kissed for forever.

His shirt was off. Hers was off. He'd unbuttoned her jeans. Their skin was sticky with sweat and her hair stuck to the back of her neck and she felt so nervous she could've thrown up, because it was about to happen. She knew it was. She knew he'd ask and she knew she'd say yes and she wanted to say yes. She really did. But she was also terrified. She was also aware that she had never put herself in such a vulnerable position before, and yes, Marlowe was the person she trusted more than anyone else in the world, but that didn't really make it any less scary, even if she felt as ready as she thought she'd ever be.

Marlowe's mouth was on her stomach, below her belly button and his hands were on her hips and it was getting hard to breathe.

Caiti reached for his face, coaxed him back up to her and kissed him again. Their lips were still touching when she said, "I want this." She wanted him to be sure. She wanted him to feel like it was at least a little bit her idea. She didn't want him to be afraid of pushing her when he wasn't.

When he kissed her again, she felt him smiling, and his hands started to travel lower. She forced her mind to stop thinking, to just be present.

—-

Marlowe had been so careful with her. He had been so gentle and so sweet and he had taken his time. It hadn't hurt as much as she'd thought it would, but it had been scary and strange and overwhelming.

Marlowe's face was pressed down into the curve of her shoulder and they were both breathing hard. His hand was on the side of her ribs and Caiti's brain, which had been pretty successfully shut off, seemed to surge back on all of the sudden. She felt a pressure building up behind her eyes and she instinctively moved away from him so he wouldn't see if she started crying, but it wasn't really any use. Marlowe sat up on his elbows, ran a hand through his hair, and looked at her.

"Oh god," he said. "Are you okay?"

Caiti didn't answer. She didn't know.

"Do you... can I..." Marlowe stuttered.

Caiti wished she could tell him what she needed, but she couldn't manage more than to try not to break out in sobs.

She rolled over to face away from him, pulling the covers up high and squeezed her eyes shut. She took deep, slow breaths. She felt Marlowe get up behind her, heard him doing something she couldn't see, and then he returned, placing a hand on her shoulder and he passed her a pair of pajamas he must have gotten out of her bag.

Caiti kept herself faced away from him while she pulled the t-shirt on, not because she was embarrassed of him seeing her body, but because she didn't want him to see her face. When she was dressed, she got up and went into the bathroom, shut the door behind her, and sank down on the floor. She let the tears come out.

—-

Marlowe did not know what to do. Caiti had been in the bathroom for nearly ten minutes now. He felt like such an idiot sitting there in his boxers. Had he really misunderstood her? He'd thought for sure he'd known she was okay with it. She had basically said as much, hadn't she?

Already, he'd used his wand to siphon as much sand as he could from the sheets, remade the bed, filled a glass with water and put it on the bedside table for her, and picked up their clothes from where they'd ended up scattered around the bed.

He still couldn't quite believe what had just happened. He sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the clock, and wondered at what point he should go and knock on the door, see if she was okay.

When it's been twenty minutes, he told himself, but Caiti emerged before then. He meant to stand up and go to her, but he saw the tears still on her cheeks, and his legs stopped working.

Caiti came right up to him, put her arms around his neck, and sat sideways across his lap, her chin on his shoulder. "I don't regret it, okay?" she said quietly "I'm just processing."

"Okay," said Marlowe, only partially reassured. He smoothed his hand down her back and just held on until Caiti crawled over him to lay down.

Marlowe switched out the lamp before he lay next to her.

Caiti rolled onto her side, placed a hand on his cheek, and kissed him — this really slow, sweet, long kiss. "I love you," she whispered. Then she rested her head on his chest, draped her arm over him, and Marlowe closed his arms around her back.

"Love you, too," he said in the darkness. She seemed okay, really, but Marlowe still felt unsettled.

—-

They slept in late the next morning. Or at least, Marlowe slept late. He didn't know how long Caiti had been awake, but her eyes were already open when he finally managed to open his own. She was lying on her back next to him, hands folded on her stomach, eyes on the ceiling.

She glanced at him when he moved, but then looked back up at the ceiling.

Marlowe didn't know what to say to her. He rolled onto his side, touched her face so she'd look at him, and only when he had her eye contact did he say, "Hey."

"Hi," Caiti said softly.

She held his gaze for a long time, but her expression was unreadable and that was confusing, because Caiti was usually an open book.

Her eyes drifted down to his chest and she reached up, ran the backs of her fingers down his sternum.

"I'm sorry, I don't really know what to say," she said.

"Me neither," Marlowe murmured.

Caiti's fingers traced his collarbone, her eyes still cast down.

"I guess I just want to make sure you meant it. What you said last night."

Her eyes lifted back to his and she nodded. It was so quiet but so sure. Marlowe felt his stomach unclench.

"I might not be ready to do it again for a little while," she said softly. "But I'm glad it happened."

Marlowe smiled a little bit in spite of himself and then Caiti started to smile, too, her cheeks a tiny bit pink.

She pulled him down to her and kissed him the same way she had last night, after. It felt new. He felt closer to her than he ever had before.

"It wasn't bad, right? I didn't hurt you?"

"No," she whispered, smile growing a little. Their faces were so close.

"Good," he said, leaning in to kiss her again. "Cause I didn't know what the hell I was doing."

Then they were both laughing and everything felt easy again.