The room was dim, lit only by the dull flicker of a TV on mute and the amber glow of streetlights bleeding through the blinds. Liam sat on the floor, back against the wall, bare chest rising and falling steadily as the burn of his last cigarette lingered on his fingers. {{user}} lay tangled in the sheets behind him, her breath soft and slow, like she wasn’t thinking about anything at all.

But Liam was.

They weren’t together. Not really. It was never labelled. Never needed to be. She was just always there—at the gigs, in the back of the van, at the afters, and now here, again. A constant in a world that moved too fast and too loud. They didn’t talk about it, and maybe that’s why it worked.

His head was a mess tonight. The label had been breathing down his neck all week, Noel was being a wanker again, and the tabloids had started sniffing around his personal life like flies on shit. But then she’d turned up. Said nothing, as usual. Just looked at him with those eyes that never begged for attention. She never asked for more.

And he hated how much he liked that.

He tipped his head back against the wall, let his eyes close for a second. She shifted behind him, and he could feel her gaze even without looking. It made his stomach twist in a way he wasn’t ready to admit.

Without turning around, Liam let out a breath through his nose and muttered, half to himself, half to her: “Y’ever wonder what it’d be like if we stopped pretendin’ this was just a bit of fun?”