Playboy

| 19 |

When the sun had slowly gone down, darkness falling over the beach, the boys lighted a small bonfire.

Me and Ava gathered some pillows, blankets and found marshmallows in the kitchen on the yacht, as they lit it up.

When we came back, our arms full, we found the boys gathered around the fire, chatting quietly. We passed around the pillows and blankets, Ava excitingly holding up the marshmallows.

Lando patted the spare space beside him, where an extra pillow laid in the sand, gesturing for me to sit down.

I smiled at him, quickly going to sit beside him. On my other side, though with a gap between us, Noah sat. He quietly sipped from a beer, as he smiled over at me.

"Catch!" Ava shouted, unexpectedly throwing a marshmallow and a plastic stick we also found in the kitchen, straight at me as she grinned.

Just as I thought I was about to get a marshmallow right in my face, Lando leaned over and caught both the stick and marshmallow in a quick motion.

I raised my eyebrows at him, laughing softly.

"Impressive right?" Lando joked, sending me a wink as we both stupidly laughed.

"Very" I told him, as he placed the marshmallow on the stick with a cute, very concentrated face. Lando handed me the marshmallow-stick, letting me warm it over the fire.

As I held the marshmallow in the fire, Lando wrapped his arm around my shoulder, pulling a blanket around me in the process.

I leaned further into him, letting his body warm me rather than the fire. I looked up at him lovingly, adorning the way the fire shined on his facial features.

Lando smiled sweetly, stroking my cheek with his thumb. "My stunning girl" He whispered, leaning in until our lips collied.

"Hey love birds, sorry to interrupt, but your marshmallow is literally on fire" Noah suddenly chimed in, laughter coated in his voice.

I quickly pulled away from Lando, snapping my gaze to the fire. He was right. The marshmallow was in literal flames, completely black.

I lifted it away from the fire, erupting into an embarrassed, but also joyful laughter. I looked over at Lando, who was dying of laughter.

"I'll admit it, maybe I put it a bit too close to the fire"

─── ⋆⋅☼⋅⋆ ───

"Wanna go for a walk?" Lando whispered in my ear, as the others started passing around a bottle of whiskey. The alcohol had worn off me by now, and I could already feel the aftermath.

I was not in the mood to drink anymore.

I smiled as Lando said it. It was as if he could read my mind. "Yes please"

The waves quietly swept in on the beach, and then slowly withdrew again, as we walked hand in hand against the shoreline.

We walked slowly, in sync putting one foot in front of the other, as if we were tightrope-dancers. "You know those stories you've been told..?" Lando quietly broke our silence.

"The ones about me" He specified with a weak voice, looking down at his feet.

"Lando we don't have to talk about th-" I tried to tell him, but he wouldn't let me.

"No, I want to explain myself" Lando cut in, stroking his thumb against my hand that was interlocked with his.

I stayed quiet. If he wanted to, I wasn't going to stop him. "I don't know what you've been told but uh.. I can pretty easily guess what they were about" Lando started, escaping a chuckle that sounded more depressing rather than uplifting.

"All of them are true, the stories.. even the ones in the media" He clarified. Even though I believed what everyone had told me, it still stung to hear him confirm it.

He'd flown girls out to a foreign country, lied to them, and then abandoned them for another girl, slept with an innocent, sweet girl, and then ghosted her, beat up a guy because he'd spelt with his girlfriend...

These were just the things I'd gotten told personally. Online, the stories were much, much worse.

I could see Landos jaw tighten in the faint moonlight. "I've done some horrible things, I've been a horrible person" He admitted.

"And when I met you for the first time, I was still that horrible person"

I thought back to the day we'd met. I'd honestly fallen for him the first time we'd spoken. I guess he was flirty, and bold, but..
He was still the sweet Lando I knew now.

"But there was something about you" Lando paused with a chuckle. "I was so fucking infatuated with you form the second we spoke" Lando said, smiling to himself.

Now I was blushing, grinning like an idiot.

"And then your mother told me you were sick and.." Landos mood turned quickly, a somber feeling rushing over the both of us.

"I don't know.. I guess I thought I could somehow save you, and I came up with the idea of this whole trip and felt like a fucking genius" Lando scoffed over himself.

He hesitated for a moment, then a smile escaped on his lips. "Then I spent a day with you, and immediately fell in love" Lando told me, finally locking his eyes with mine.

He came to a halt, causing me to stop as well. "And when you slept on the plane, looking beautiful as ever, I felt this weird desire to change"

Lando moved a strand of my hair. "To change for you, give you the treatment you deserved" I couldn't stop myself from looking admiringly at him, as he spoke.

Lando took in a deep breath, a nervous smile escaping on his lips. "What I'm trying to say is that I've changed" He softly said.

"You've shown me what real love is, and I've realized I've never actually experienced that before" Lando quietly admitted, biting down on his lips.

I breathed in deeply, staring up at him. Fucking hell, I was so in love.

Immediately digging a hand into his curls, I pulled him down to me, clashing our lips together.

In that moment, I felt and knew, I was truly the luckiest woman on earth.