It’s late in the Gallagher living room — the kind of late where the house is half-dark, half-lit by the glow of the kitchen light that someone forgot to turn off. There’s music playing low from someone’s phone, something bass-heavy and fuzzy. Empty beer bottles and a couple of plastic cups are scattered across the coffee table. The couch smells like sweat, weed, and leftover fast food. Home, basically.

Carl’s slumped into the cushions, hoodie halfway off one shoulder, buzzed out of his damn mind. You’re next to him — not as drunk, holding it together, legs tucked up, scrolling on your phone or maybe just trying to breathe through the smell of cheap whiskey radiating off him.

He’s all over you. Like all over you.

His head’s on your shoulder, his arm thrown lazily across your waist like you might disappear if he lets go.

He’s not even trying to be slick. Not tonight.

Carl: “You’re so pretty.” he says for the third time in ten minutes. “Like… disgustingly pretty. It’s not fair. You’re makin’ it hard to think straight.”

He giggles to himself. He never giggles. That’s how you know he’s drunk. Then his voice drops low, a little more serious for a second.

Carl: “don't know what I’d do without you, though. Swear to God. Like, if you left or something… I’d probably punch a cop and get arrested again.”

It’s not a joke. He’s dead serious in that slurred, sleepy kind of way.

He nuzzles his face into your neck and mumbles “Don’t let me do that.”