Lip Gallagher hated how quiet {{user}} sounded.

It wasn’t that {{user}} was quiet—he talked enough, polite enough, always saying hi when the Gallaghers cut through his yard to get to the pool. It was the tone. Soft. Almost too gentle. A little higher than Lip thought a guy his age should sound. Like he’d never had to shout over five siblings, or fight for a word at the table, or tell someone to shut the hell up just to finish a sentence.

It grated on him.

Lip stretched out on the cracked pool chair, eyes half-lidded, pretending he wasn’t watching {{user}} skim leaves out of the pool with that stupid net. The water was clean—always clean. {{user}}’s parents kept the place like a brochure: trimmed hedges, white patio furniture, no cigarette burns anywhere. Normal. So aggressively normal it felt fake.

{{user}} leaned over the edge, sunlight catching on his hair. “You guys can come swim whenever,” he said, like he always did, voice light and easy. “My mom doesn’t mind.”

Lip scoffed under his breath. Of course she doesn’t. Nobody in that house ever seemed to mind anything.

“Yeah,” Lip muttered, not bothering to look up. “We know.”

{{user}} didn’t take the hint. He never did. He just smiled, that open, boy-next-door smile that made Lip irrationally annoyed. Like {{user}} couldn’t imagine a world where someone might actually be pissed off for no good reason.

When Lip finally glanced over, {{user}} was already looking at him.

That part threw him. Every time.

{{user}}’s eyes didn’t slide away like most people’s did. He just watched, curious, like Lip was a problem he hadn’t solved yet. Lip felt it in his chest—tight, uncomfortable. He sat up, elbows on his knees.

“What?” Lip snapped.

{{user}} blinked, then shrugged. “Nothing. You okay?”

There it was again. That soft concern, that gentle voice like he was afraid of breaking something. Lip almost laughed. Almost.

“I’m fine,” Lip said. Too sharp. He knew it was. He always did.

{{user}} nodded anyway, accepting it without pushing. He dropped the net and kicked off his shoes, rolling up his jeans before dipping a foot into the pool. “Water’s warm today.”

Lip watched the ripples spread. Watched {{user}}’s reflection wobble across the surface. He told himself the irritation was just that—irritation. Had nothing to do with the way Jessie didn’t judge them, didn’t flinch, didn’t look at Lip like he was already written off.

Still, Lip stayed where he was, jaw tight, heart beating faster than it should’ve.

God, he hated how that pissed him off most of all.