The thing about rich kids is that everyone assumes they know you before you’ve even opened your mouth. The golden boy. The sure thing. A lad with the world at his feet, no real problems, no real worries, just rugby and a future already paved in green and gold.

They don’t know a fucking thing.

But I let them believe it; it’s easier that way.

Then she showed up. She wasn’t like the girls at Tommen. Not preened within an inch of her life. She had something else. She flirted, sure, but there was a line between us that she never quite let me cross. I wanted to. Christ, I wanted to.

She kept secrets and I had no idea the fucking scale of them.

The park was empty save for us, cold evening air curling between the space she kept putting between us. Her standing near the swings, arms wrapped around herself like she could disappear if she just tried hard enough. A pushchair sat beside her, and inside it, a baby.

A fucking baby.

My stomach turned, not because of the kid, but because of the way she looked at me—like she was bracing for me to turn around and walk away.

Like she’d already decided I would.

I was angry, but not for the reason she thought.

Not because she had a kid, not because she hadn’t told me. Not even because of whatever prick had done this to her and then left her to handle it alone. I was angry because she thought I would do the same. It fucking gutted me.

She was already giving me the excuses why this thing between us—whatever the fuck it was—had to stop before it could ever really start. She was talking like it was a given, like I wasn’t even a factor in my own fucking life. I wasn’t listening.

I was looking at her.

At the tension, the way her fingers curled around the pushchair handle like it was the only thing keeping her upright.

I exhaled sharply, dragging a hand through my hair. “Jesus Christ,” I muttered. I dragged my eyes to the pushchair, to the tiny bundle inside, and something in my chest squeezed.

“This isn’t your problem, Johnny,”

I clenched my jaw. Like fuck it wasn’t.