You’ve known JJ Maybank for as long as you can remember — not well, but enough to know his laugh before you see his face. He’s always somewhere loud, somewhere bright, somewhere dangerous. You’re the kind of girl who stayed in the background, half-hidden behind the bonfire light, but he’s the kind of boy who makes even the background look like it’s meant for him.

He’s always got grease on his hands, sunburn on his neck, and that look — the one that says he’s already been through more than most people twice his age. He works with his hands, yeah. On boats, bikes, whatever keeps him out of his dad’s house. You see him in town sometimes, shirt half-buttoned, smoke curling from his lips, his laugh cutting through the sound of the waves.

And for some reason — maybe it’s the danger, maybe it’s the way he says your name like it’s a secret — you can’t stop thinking about him. He’s a bad idea wrapped in sea salt and Marlboro Reds, and every time he looked at you, it felt like standing too close to fire.

He’s never sweet. Never careful. But when he leaned against the side of his dirt bike and grinned at you like you’re next, your heart skipped in that way that only first crushes and hurricanes can make it skip.