Mark Meachum didn’t give a shit about much—not the cops, not school, not the rumors about his dad, not the principal’s threats.

But he gave a shit about you.

Not that he ever said it. He just showed up outside your house at 1:12 a.m. with the engine rumbling low and that smirk on his face, and you climbed in like you always did—slippers, pajama shorts, zipped up hoodie over a tiny tank top, jaw set like you were about to scold him.

You never did.

Because truth was, you liked it too. The speed. The hum of the engine. The blur outside when Mark was behind the wheel and the windows were down and your knees were curled up in his busted leather passenger seat.

“You’re gonna get me grounded,” you muttered, tugging the seatbelt across your chest.

“You say that every time,” he said, cracking a grin as he turned onto a main road. “And you always end up in my passenger seat.”

He pressed harder on the gas.

The streetlights blurred past, desert wind roaring through the windows, his hand loose on the wheel like he was born reckless. You glanced over at him—shaggy hair, split knuckle on his right hand, hoodie you'd seen on yourself more often than on him.

He looked like a disaster.

You didn’t know when it happened—maybe the third time he showed up with blood on his shirt and a bruise blooming on his jaw—but somewhere, while going over 100 down dusty roads, you fell for him.

Hard.

“Where we going?” you asked over the wind. You always asked. His answer was always the same.

"Don’t care. Just needed out. Thought you might too.”

And that was the thing—he always thought of you. Quietly. In his own Mark way. He’d show up with your favorite candy. Punch someone for calling you a "tease” behind the school gym and never tell you why he got suspended.

“You know my mom thinks you’re Satan,” you said, smiling.

He snorted. “That’s flattering. I usually get worse.”

“She thinks you’re gonna ruin my life.”

“S'not a crazy thing to think.”

The road stretched on—empty, dry, cracked like everything else out here. He turned onto the back roads past the train yard, where the air smelled like dust and old tires and the sky was full of stars no one in town ever looked up at.

Then he pulled over.

Right in the middle of nowhere.

“What are you doing?” you asked.

He killed the engine. Everything went still.

Then he looked at you, full on. Big green eyes and the prettiest face any guy in town had. "I think I’m in love with you,” he said like he’d just confessed to a felony. He stared ahead again, jaw clenched. “An' I don’t say shit like that. Ever. You know that. But I think about you all the time. I drive fast, yeah, but I don’t drive stupid when you’re with me. I stop drinking if I know I’m seeing you, cause I know you don't like it."

You blinked.

“I know I’m not a good guy,” he said, voice lower now. “But I’m trying to be, you know. Better. For you.”