let off with a warning.

You glance at Sandra first.

A small squeeze of her hand, a look that asks permission without making a speech of it. She nods, still too flushed, still standing like the breeze is a personal threat. That is enough.

“We’re a thing,”
you say.
“Since this week.”

Sadie’s mouth opens for something loud. Maya’s eyebrows climb. You keep going before the details can get away from you, and immediately discover that inventing a clean version of the last seven days is much harder than living them.
You try for something vague and almost respectable—feelings that had been sitting there for a long time, a conversation that finally happened, the holiday making it impossible to keep pretending.
Every sentence feels thin. You can hear how thin it is while you are still saying it.

Lila, mercifully, starts handing you pieces.

She does it the way she does most things: calm, precise, as if she is just restating what you meant.
A talk after years of being attached at the hip.
Neither of you wanting to wreck the friendship.
Then it simply… became obvious. She leaves gaps in the right places so you can nod and step into them. Sandra takes one of those gaps with a tight little laugh that is almost convincing.

None of the three believe you for a second.

You can see it on all of them. The way Sadie’s eyes keep dropping to Sandra’s thighs. The way Maya looks at your hands and then at Sandra’s mouth. The way Lila’s polite expression does not hide that she can add. They know you have been boning around the clock. They are simply nice enough—or entertained enough—not to put it in the middle of the path.

They let you off with what amounts to a warning.

Sadie points at both of you, grinning.

“We’re happy for you. We’re so happy for you. If you disappear for another week we’re coming to the house and we’re not knocking politely.”

Maya snorts.

“Text someone. Proof of life. That’s all.”

Lila’s version is softer and somehow more dangerous.

“Congratulations. Really. You look good together.”
Her gaze flicks, just once, to the hem of Sandra’s dress.
“Go enjoy your walk.”

You extract yourselves before Sadie can start asking what “a conversation” actually sounded like. Hands still linked, you put distance between the kiosk and the path, the sisters’ voices fading behind you.

They do not wait until you are fully gone to start talking.

Sadie goes first, delighted and shameless, the second you are out of clean earshot.

“She looks fucked. Like, recently. That is not a first-date flush.”

Maya hums in agreement.

“They’re sickening. The way he looks at her? The way she’s glued to his side? That’s not ‘we had a talk this week.’ That’s two people who haven’t come up for air.”

Lila is the one who says the part the others were dancing around.

“She’s not wearing anything under that dress.”

Sadie cackles.

“I knew it. The way she was standing. The breeze hit and she clamped up like she’d committed a crime.”

“She’s lucky it wasn’t windier,”
Maya adds.
“And he’s lucky we like them. Because that girl is walking around in public freshly used and in love, and she thinks she’s being subtle.”

Lila watches your backs for another second, motherly and filthy in the same breath.

“Let them have it. They’ve been circling each other since first year. I’m not going to be the one who ruins the first week.”

Then Sadie, already losing interest in restraint:

“Still. Bare. On a beach path. After whatever they were doing all morning. Sandra’s dirtier than she pretends.”

None of them sound scandalised.

Sadie watches your retreating backs and sighs, theatrical and honest.

“I want that. Like—exactly that. Walk around freshly used and in love and barely dressed. With him.”

Maya doesn’t even pretend not to know who she means.

“Lucky bastards. They get to bone like animals for a whole week and we’re still at home waiting for our dearest brother to walk through the door.”

Lila’s mouth curves, calm and unapologetic.

“Then we should go back. He should be home by now.”

Sadie is already turning toward the kiosk, energy redirected.

“Yeah. If those two get a head start on living like that, I’m not wasting the afternoon on a cobblestone path.”

They leave the beach in the opposite direction from you, still talking, already aiming themselves at a different house and a different story that starts the moment their brother gets within their evil reach.