Joey Lynch was perched on the school’s low stone wall, one boot braced on the concrete, thumb absently flipping his lighter open and shut. The sun was low, burning copper across the car park, the chatter of students dissolving as most filtered off for the evening.

She walked up beside him, fingers curled around the straps of her backpack, cheeks pink from the wind, eyes bright like they always were when she looked at him.

Joey clocked her from the corner of his eye and offered the smallest of smirks. “You’re late.”

“Or you’re just early,” she shot back, bumping her hip against his knee. “How long’ve you been brooding here like some chain-smoking poet?”

Joey flicked his lighter shut with a click. “Not brooding.”

She squinted at him. “Sure you’re not.”

There was a beat. Her gaze dragged over him — the disheveled tie, the permanent scowl, the knuckles still pink from rugby. Then she smiled, soft and a little smug.

“My pretty boy,” she said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Like she’d said it a hundred times.

Joey’s fingers froze around his lighter. His head snapped up.

“What?” he asked, deadpan, cautious.

She didn’t even blink. “You heard me.”

He stared at her, something unsteady flickering behind his eyes, like she’d knocked the wind out of him and didn’t even know it.

“You callin’ me pretty now?” he asked, guarded.

She shrugged. “Don’t get a big head about it. You’re mine, that’s all.”

He looked at her — really looked — and she wasn’t teasing like she usually did. Not really. But she wasn’t serious either. Somewhere in between. Somewhere dangerous.

So he rolled his eyes and muttered, “You’re full of shite.”

But hours later, when he was alone in bed and everything was quiet, her voice echoed again in his mind:

My pretty boy.

And Joey Lynch—who didn’t believe in softness for himself—smiled into the dark.