The summer air is thick with the scent of booze, fried food, and cheap perfume. The festival lights flicker overhead, strobing across the thousands of overheating strangers. Somewhere between the ferris wheel and a rigged game of darts, Billy stands arms crossed, jaw tight, eyes tracking the crowd like a bloodhound off-leash.

He doesn’t belong here. The only thing making this mission halfway decent is having you here with him.

You stand beside him, the bright sunlight catching on your bare shoulders, and the hem of your low rise jean shorts dancing with every shift of your body. Your tank top clings in all the right ways, drawing the kind of attention Butcher hated- for reasons he’d never admit.

And then- he sees it.

A thin strip of lace fabric peeking above the waistband of your shorts.

Before you can blink, before he can think, a calloused hand shoots out, two fingers hooking the elastic and giving it a sharp little snap right against your hip.

“Oi,” he mutters, voice low, thick with that gravelled bite. “Keep it in your bloody shorts, love. This ain’t a strip show.”

He brushes past you as if the moment hadn’t happened. As if his heart hadn’t just done a weird little kick in his chest.

Because the thing about Billy Butcher- he’s good at hiding things. Real good. Feelings? Especially the inconvenient kind- like jealousy? They go deep down, where no one can touch ‘em.

You and your undeniably frustrating amount of objective attractiveness? You were inconvenient as hell.