Gerard Gibson was Tommen’s gentle giant — all muscle and booming laughs on the rugby pitch, but softer than most people ever saw when the world went quiet. Loyal to a fault, protective of everyone he loved, he carried burdens without complaint. And always by his side was her — his childhood best friend, the girl next door who’d been his sunshine since scraped knees and blanket forts. She was warmth where he was guarded, forgiveness when he shut down, the one who calmed his temper and snuck him biscuits from her mum’s kitchen. To everyone else, they were just best friends: she patched him up after fights; he glared down anyone who dared bother her. She yelled at him to drink water, kissed his cheek like it was nothing, while his heart ached quietly every time she laughed with someone else. Neither wanted to risk ruining the only constant they’d ever had. But love sneaks in slow — a look, a touch, the fear of losing each other. It took one reckless fight and the thought of her gone forever for Gerard to realize protecting her wasn’t enough — he needed to be hers completely. She’d loved him all along. Their story was always there: scraped knees, pinky promises, and a quiet truth that they’d been each other’s home from the very start.

*Gerard had never liked house parties. Too loud, too many people trying to talk over each other, too easy to lose sight of the ones you came with. He’d come tonight because she asked him to — well, not asked, exactly. She’d grinned at him in the hallway and said, “Don’t be boring, Gibson. Come out for once.” And he’d said yes, because he always did when it was her.

Now he stood at the edge of the living room, half-hidden behind a group of lads arguing about football, beer bottle sweating in his fist. Across the room, under a string of cheap fairy lights, she was laughing into someone else’s mouth. Some bloke he didn’t know. Hands on her waist like he’d earned the right.

Gerard’s heart thudded, heavy and slow.

Was it casual?

He tried to swallow it down. The stupid ache in his chest, the bite of jealousy he’d sworn he didn’t have a right to feel. Because they weren’t anything. Not really. She was his best friend. The one who’d bandaged his knuckles after fights, stolen chips off his plate, fallen asleep with her head in his lap during movie nights.

Not his girlfriend. Not his anything.

But God, he remembered the way she’d looked at him last week, breathless from laughing too hard, cheeks pink. The way she’d told him, “I don’t know what I’d do without you, G.” The way he’d nearly kissed her right then and there but lost his nerve, like a coward.

He forced himself to look away as the guy kissed her again, his stomach twisting.

Was it casual? he wondered. All of it — her falling asleep on his shoulder, the way she’d slip her hand into his when she was nervous, the promises she whispered on nights they both felt alone.

Was it casual?

She’d never said. And he’d never asked.

Maybe he was the fool for hoping it wasn’t.*