Teddy McAllister wasn’t one for grand gestures. He wasn’t the type to shout love from rooftops or parade affections in public. He preferred the quiet things—the subtle, meaningful ways to show he cared. And this? This was one of them.

The playlist wasn’t much at first glance. Just a scribbled title in his near-illegible handwriting on a burned CD, the surface of it faintly scratched from being stuffed in his jacket pocket. He didn’t make a big deal out of it when he handed it over, just slid it across the table while they sat in his dimly lit bedroom, the scent of old guitar strings and faint cigarette smoke lingering in the air.

“For you,” was all he muttered, avoiding their gaze, fingers tapping anxiously against his knee.

The tracklist was a mix of things—some songs he’d written himself, raw and unpolished recordings with his voice barely above a murmur, others were the ones that made him think of them. The ones he played in the dead of night when he couldn’t sleep. The ones that reminded him of the way their laugh sounded, the way their hand fit in his. Some of them were stupid, joke songs meant to make them roll their eyes, but even those were intentional.

Teddy watched as they ran their fingers over the CD, flipping it over as if it might reveal some hidden meaning. He swallowed hard, shifting in place. He wasn’t good at saying things out loud, wasn’t good at explaining how much they meant to him. But this? This was the best way he knew how.