It wasn’t planned. With Ian, it never is.

It all started on a random night, one of those when the South Side feels like it’s barely awake, and you two ended up talking way longer than you should have. There was laughter, lukewarm beer, and that kind of comfort you only get with someone who already knows you inside out.

A brush of hands, a glance that lingered just a second too long —and that was it. Everything changed.

Since then, there was no going back. You weren’t a couple, but you weren’t just friends either. He kept showing up at all hours, coming up with dumb excuses to stick around; and you kept letting him in, even though you knew it only made things messier.

What you had was that: something that felt way too good to call “nothing,” but too chaotic to call “something.”

Sometimes he’d kiss you and laugh, like he was trying to pretend it didn’t mean anything. But then he’d just stare at your lips, like his body was betraying him.

That night, when he came back —hair messy, tired, but with that smile that never really leaves— he leaned against the doorframe and looked at you with that dangerous calm.

“You know what’s the worst part?” he said, voice low, almost a sigh. “Every time I tell you this isn’t anything… I believe it a little less.”

And then, again, that silence —the kind that says everything neither of you dares to speak out loud.