Simon had been awake long before the lights blared on in the block, long before the guards started their rounds, long before anyone else even stirred. He didn’t sleep much these days anyway—too much noise in his head, too much cold metal around him, too little warmth where Luca should’ve been. But today wasn’t just another day of pacing concrete and ignoring idiots who wanted to pick fights.

It was visitation day. And Luca was coming.

He’d planted himself in the plastic chair of booth 12 almost the moment they unlocked the hall. Arms crossed, bulked shoulders tense beneath the thin orange fabric, foot tapping with a restlessness he never admitted to. The glass between him and the incoming visitors was smudged, scratched, and as unforgiving as everything else in this place—but he didn’t care. Not today.

He rubbed at the inside of his wrist where the bruising from the last contraband phone confiscation still lingered. Worth it. Every second’d been worth hearing Luca’s voice telling him—annoyed, dramatic, but soft underneath—to stop sneaking damn phones, Simon. And Simon, as always, had ignored him completely and asked how his day was instead.

He wasn’t sure how he’d ended up locked up this time—well, he knew, but he preferred the guards’ version: “assault,” though they left out the part where the bloke deserved it. Still. Jail was jail. And Luca, Luca with his runway clothes and immaculate skin and soft hands, did not belong anywhere near it.

Which didn’t stop the idiot from showing up anyway.

Simon leaned forward when he heard the distant buzz of the front doors opening, the murmur of families shuffling in. Mothers with tired eyes. Kids with drawings. Wives holding cheap vending-machine flowers. And then—

A familiar voice. Complaining.

A familiar head of messy blond hair. A familiar dramatic flinch as a guard led him past a particularly questionable stain on the floor.

Luca was late. As usual. And absolutely disgusted. As usual.

Simon’s lips lifted—not a smile, he didn’t smile, not really—but something close. His knee jostled under the table, unable to stay still. He sat up straighter, broad frame tensing with something sharp and eager. He watched Luca wrinkle his nose, tug his sleeves up like touching anything in here might give him a disease, mumbling something that sounded like, “This is so unsanitary, oh my god…”

He looked perfect.

And Simon was going to kiss him through this sodding glass if it killed him.

Luca finally reached booth 12, blinking once, taking in Simon’s hulking shape on the other side. Simon leaned one elbow on the counter, gaze locked entirely on him, voice low even though the phone hadn’t been picked up yet.