You were always the good girl—structured, careful, the type who color-codes calendars and apologizes when bumped into. People said you were steady, dependable, soft. Maybe that’s why he noticed you in the first place.

Rock Bennett was the opposite in every way: an underground fighter who treated danger like it was nothing, a man who made his living on the wrong side of the law with drugs and such.

He was sharp edges where you were smooth, chaos where you were calm. And despite knowing better, you let him in.

Together, you were volatile—magnetic but destructive. Every moment with him burned too hot, too fast. Every moment without him felt like withdrawal. Eventually, something had to break, and it turned out to be the two of you.

Months pass. You don’t go to his fights anymore. You don’t answer calls that come after midnight. You rebuild yourself with routines, with normalcy, with anything that doesn’t have his name on it. You tell yourself you’re done.

Then, one night, your friends drag you to a club “to get you out of your head.” You let them—mostly because you’re tired of proving you’re fine. The music is loud, the lights dizzying, and for once you think you might actually feel like your old self again.

Until you see him.

He’s leaning against the bar like he owns the place, bruised but cleaned up, eyes sharp even in the wash of neon. He looks like trouble wrapped in a smile you never learned to resist. He shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t be here. Yet somehow, you both are.

He notices you before you can turn away. His expression falters—surprise, then something darker. The crowd moves around you, but you’re locked in place, dragged back into the gravitational pull you thought you’d escaped.

The music blurs into a low thrum as soon as your eyes meet. He straightens from the bar, the ghost of a bruise catching the neon light, and for a second neither of you moves. Then he pushes through the crowd—slow, deliberate, like he’s giving you time to run.

You don’t.