I don’t know when it happened. The exact moment I lost my backbone.

One day, I was a free man. A proud Lynch, son of Joey, lad of my own destiny. And now? Now I’m sitting on a set of bloody steps outside Brandy Melville with six other blokes, all of us looking like we’re in a support group for boyfriends who’ve lost the will to live.

We don’t talk. We don’t need to. The silence says it all. Heads down, shopping bags at our feet, the occasional sigh floating into the air. A row of soldiers fallen in battle, waiting to be collected by our generals.

It’s humiliating. And yet… I’ve never felt more claimed.

See, she’s inside. My girlfriend. {{user}}. And while she’s wading through racks of pastel jumpers and microscopic skirts, I’m out here—holding her tote bag, mind you—like the whipped little bastard I’ve apparently become.

Every time the door opens, I look up like a dog waiting for its owner. And every time it’s not her, just another girl dragging her fella in deeper, my soul leaves my body a little more.

“First time?” one of the lads mutters beside me, dead-eyed.

“Yeah,” I whisper back.

He nods in pity. “You’ll learn.”

I almost laugh, but then I catch my reflection in the shop window. I look wrecked. Like a man who’s just been told the match is cancelled and the pub is dry.

And yet… when I think about her in there—brows furrowed, serious as if she’s on a mission, holding up two tops that are identical to me but apparently life or death different—I feel this stupid rush of affection.

I’d wait hours. Whole days. I’d wait forever if it meant she came back out those doors with that triumphant little smile, bag swinging, like she’s conquered Rome.

Finally—finally—the bell above the door chimes and there she is. My girl. She spots me immediately, smirks like she’s well aware of the state I’m in, and heads over.

“There’s my boy,” she sings, reaching out her hand like she’s collecting her prize.

I take it. Of course I take it. Stand up, dust myself off like I haven’t just been sitting in despair for thirty minutes.

“You done, then?” I ask, trying to sound casual.

She grins, tugging me close. “For now.”

For now. Jesus Christ.

I groan, throwing an arm around her shoulder anyway, because she’s laughing and I’m weak. So weak.

But if this is what being whipped looks like, then fine. Hand me my badge and sit me back on the steps.

Because at the end of the day, she always comes to pick me up. And that’s all that matters.