Terrible Kisser

The sun had that late-afternoon polish on it, the kind that made the whole beach look like it had been politely asked to behave for a photoshoot. Everything was gold and lazy. Waves rolled in without urgency. Somewhere down the shore a kid was screaming about a lost flip-flop like it was a national emergency.

I was stretched out on my towel, one arm flung over my eyes, the other nursing a beer that had given up being cold twenty minutes ago. Theo was next to me, equally horizontal, looking like the concept of effort had never reached him. Same black swim shorts sitting low on his hips. Same stupid perfect tan, complete with the sharp little line where the fabric started. Salt-messy hair. Sand stuck in a fine scatter across his stomach. Same expression that said he was already planning something annoying.

He reached over without asking and stole my beer.

“That’s mine,” I said.

“Was,” he corrected, and took a long swallow. “You’ve been treating it like an emotional support animal. It’s sad.”

I cracked an eye open. He held the bottle just out of reach, grinning. I shoved him. He shoved back harder. We ended up in a brief, pointless scuffle that ended with sand everywhere and my elbow in his ribs. He didn’t move away when we settled. Neither did I. This was just how we existed. Constant low-grade physical warfare and zero concept of personal space.

“You’re sticky,” he said.

“You’re stickier.”

“I moisturise. You just radiate poor life choices.”

I sat up and grabbed the sunscreen. The bottle made that sad empty-ish noise. I squeezed what was left onto my chest and started rubbing it in with the dedication of a man who had already burned twice this trip and learned nothing. Theo watched for three seconds, then made a noise of pure judgement.

“You’re missing half your back. Turn.”

“I can reach.”

“No you can’t. You look like a patchy tomato. Turn around before I start charging consultancy fees.”

I turned, grumbling. He sat up, took the bottle, and started spreading sunscreen across my shoulders like he’d done it a hundred times. Which he had. His hands were warm and efficient. Completely unbothered. He pressed harder than necessary over one spot near my neck.

“Ow.”

“That’s what you get for looking like a boiled lobster yesterday. Hold still.”

I held still. He finished my shoulders and then, because he is a menace, kept going lower. I felt the cool smear of sunscreen across my lower back, then the deliberate press of his palm.

“That’s not necessary.”

“It is if you don’t want to look like a zebra tomorrow. Stop squirming.”

I twisted to shove him. He shoved back. Somehow we ended up with me half on my knees and him kneeling behind me, both of us covered in sand and sunscreen, his hands still on my back. A woman walking past gave us a look that suggested she was considering calling someone.

Theo caught it, grinned at her, and stage-whispered, “It’s not what it looks like. He’s just very high-maintenance.”

I elbowed him. “You’ve had your hands on me for a suspicious amount of time.”

“I’m being thorough. Someone has to protect the public from your back.”

“You’re enjoying this.”

“I’ve seen better backs.”

“Liar. You’re lingering.”

“I’m assessing sun damage. Try not to take it personally.”

He finally wiped the last of the sunscreen on my arm like I was a towel and flopped back down. I immediately balanced my beer on his stomach while I dug under the towel for my phone. The bottle wobbled against the warm, sandy skin. He complained the entire time and still didn’t push it off.

“I am not furniture.”

“You’re horizontal, warm, and currently not doing anything useful. That’s furniture criteria.”

“I’m going to drown you later.”

“You say that every holiday.”

That was when I saw her.

She was maybe fifteen metres away, sitting on a blue towel with her knees drawn up, scrolling on her phone. Dark hair in a messy knot. Sunglasses pushed up. The kind of easy summer confidence that made me sit up straighter without meaning to.

Theo followed my line of sight and made a soft, delighted sound of pure evil.

“Oh no.”

“What?”

“You’re doing the face.”

“I’m not doing a face.”

“You are. It’s the one that looks like you’re trying to look mysterious while also mildly constipated. Stop it. You’re scaring the wildlife.”

I shoved him. The beer bottle finally tipped into the sand. He swore, grabbed it, and wiped it on his shorts. I was already standing, brushing sand off myself, trying to look casual and probably failing.

“I’m just going to say hi.”

“God help her.”

“Theo.”

“I’m serious. She looks nice. She doesn’t deserve the full Jamie experience.”

I ignored him and walked over. The sand was hot. My heart did that stupid little skip it always did when I decided to talk to someone attractive, like my body still believed this might go well despite extensive evidence to the contrary.

She looked up when my shadow hit her towel. I gave her what I hoped was a charming smile.

“Hey. Sorry to interrupt. Just wondered if you wanted company for five minutes, or if I’m about to get told to walk into the sea.”

She laughed. Actually laughed. Bright and surprised. “You’re direct.”

“I’m on holiday. Direct is all I’ve got left.”

We talked. It was easy in that temporary, sun-drunk way. She was here with friends who were currently off buying ice cream. I was here with the human equivalent of a second-hand embarrassment generator currently watching from fifteen metres away.

Theo, from his towel, gave me a massive, exaggerated thumbs-up when she wasn’t looking. Then he switched to slow, sarcastic applause. Then he started doing the most unhelpful encouraging gestures known to man, including one that looked suspiciously like he was miming drowning. I flipped him off behind my back while still smiling at her.

At some point we stood and wandered closer to the water, still talking. The waves licked at our ankles. She was funny. She smelled like sunscreen and something citrus. I thought, for one dangerous second, that this might actually work.

Theo, still watching, pulled an elaborate face of exaggerated approval and gave me a double thumbs-up so intense it looked painful.

We kept talking. The conversation drifted. She tilted her head a little, and I took the opening like the optimistic idiot I am. I leaned in. She met me halfway.

The kiss lasted maybe three seconds.

Then she pulled back.

Her face did something complicated. Not quite a grimace. Not quite a flinch. Something in between, like she’d bitten into fruit that looked perfect and turned out slightly off. She blinked once, then offered a polite, tight smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

“Sorry,” she said. “I… yeah. Sorry.”

I stood there with salt water around my calves and the sudden horrible certainty that something had gone wrong. “Everything okay?”

She hesitated, then seemed to decide honesty was kinder. “You’re a really terrible kisser.”

The words landed with the gentle force of a brick.

I opened my mouth. Nothing came out. She gave me another of those polite smiles, the kind people use when they’re already halfway gone, and then she was walking back up the beach toward her towel. I watched her go. My ears felt hot. My mouth felt like it had betrayed me on a cellular level.

Behind me, from the direction of our towels, came a sound like someone trying very hard not to inhale seawater.

I turned.

Theo was on his knees in the sand, one hand pressed to his stomach, the other pointing at me like he’d just witnessed a public execution and found it hilarious. His whole body was shaking. The second our eyes met he lost the fight completely and folded forward, laughing so hard he made almost no noise at all, just these wrecked little gasps.

I walked back across the sand. Slow. Dignified. Absolutely murderous.

“Don’t.”

He looked up, eyes wet, face red, and immediately tried to recreate the exact expression the girl had made. The wince. The polite horror. He even added a little head tilt for accuracy. Then he collapsed again, one arm flung out like he needed medical attention.

“She— she fucking winced, mate.”

“I will end you.”

“She looked at you like you’d offered her a mouthful of seawater and a side of sand.”

I lunged. We went down in a tangle of limbs and sand. I tried to clap a hand over his mouth. He twisted, laughing harder, and somehow ended up with both my wrists caught in one of his hands while he used the other to keep recreating the wince in my face. Sand was everywhere. My knee was in his stomach. His thigh was hooked over mine. We looked, from a distance, like two grown men having a deeply confusing moment.

A guy walking past slowed down, stared, then carefully looked away.

Theo noticed and stage-whispered, still pinning my wrists, “It’s not what it looks like. He’s just very bad at kissing and I’m providing feedback.”

I got a hand free and shoved sand at his face. He rolled, still wheezing, and I finally scrambled up, dripping, shirtless, dignity in freefall, while the late sun kept shining like nothing catastrophic had just happened to my entire romantic future.

“Get up.”

“Can’t. Dying.”

“Theo.”

“She actually winced. I’ve never seen that in real life. That was cinema.”

I grabbed our towels and the half-empty bag of crisps and the extra bottles. “We’re leaving.”

“What? No. Stay. I need to process this. For science.”

“We’re leaving before I bury you.”

He scrambled up, still laughing, and followed me up the beach path toward the road that led back to the Airbnb. Every few steps he made the face again. The wince. The tiny shake of the head. I kept walking faster. He kept matching my pace, barefoot and relentless.

“You know what the worst part is?” he said, once he’d caught enough breath to speak properly. “You looked so hopeful. Right before. Like a golden retriever who’d just been told there was a biscuit. And then— bam. Reality.”

“I hate you.”

“No you don’t.”

“I do right now.”

He caught up properly and threw an arm around my shoulders, heavy and familiar, pulling me sideways into his side. The contact was automatic. It always had been. His skin was warm from the sun.

“She’s probably wrong,” he said.

I glanced at him. The mockery had softened by about three percent.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. The face is fine. The body’s—” He stopped.

I stopped walking.

“The body’s what?”

“Nothing.”

“No, no. Finish that sentence.”

“I was going to say the body’s average.”

“You hesitated.”

“I was choosing a word.”

“You were about to say something nice and you panicked.”

“I was about to say ‘serviceable.’”

“You think I’m hot.”

“I think you’re mid at best.”

“You started rating the body and then realised you’d walked into a trap.”

He tried to pull his arm back. I ducked under it and jumped onto his back instead. He staggered, swore, and somehow kept walking with me hanging off him like an overgrown backpack, my chest plastered against his bare back, legs wrapped around his waist.

“Get off.”

“Not until you admit it properly.”

“Jamie.”

“Say ‘Jamie is attractive’ and I’ll consider mercy.”

“Jamie is a nightmare.”

“Close enough.”

He carried me another twenty metres while complaining the entire time, then finally dumped me onto the path. I landed laughing. He was still smiling. Not the dickhead grin. The other one.

We started walking again. The Airbnb was only a few minutes up the path. The pool would be waiting, blue and quiet and completely free of women who made faces after kissing me.

Theo made the wince one more time under his breath.

I pointed at him. “Do that again when we get home and I’m throwing you in the pool.”

He immediately did it again, bigger this time, complete with the head tilt.

I lunged. He ran. I chased him the rest of the way up the path, both of us barefoot and stupid and still covered in sand, the late sun stretching our shadows long in front of us.