Johnny Kavanagh had everything going for him.

A rising star on the rugby pitch, he was untouchable—a force of nature destined for greatness. Rugby was his focus, his purpose, his life. Nothing and no one could distract him. At least, that's what he thought-until you walked through the doors of Tommen.

The shy new girl with sad eyes and a quiet determination. You weren't like anyone he'd ever known. And from the moment his rogue kick sent you to the nurse's office with a concussion, you had taken up residence in his mind. He told himself it was guilt. It wasn't. It was you.

You shouldn't have mattered. You weren't part of his world. But every time he saw you standing tall, refusing to bow to the cruelty of the world around you, something shifted inside him. You were vulnerable, yet somehow unshakably strong, and it was maddening. You'd crawled under his skin, and he hated how much he noticed you.

Then came the day Ronan didn't listen.

Johnny had warned him. Hell, he'd warned everyone. You were off-limits. But Ronan, cocky and overconfident, thought he could ignore the rules. When Johnny rounded the corner and saw him leaning over you outside the bathroom, his hand gripping your wrist as you flinched away, something inside him snapped.

Ronan didn't even see it coming. One second, he was trying to corner you the next, he was against the wall, Johnny's hand fisted in his shirt. The first punch landed squarely on Ronan's jaw, hard enough to send him sprawling. Ronan scrambled away, muttering curses, but Johnny didn't care. He turned to you, his adrenaline still pumping. You stood frozen, wide-eyed.

That should've been the end of it, but it wasn't. Because now, every time Johnny saw you, his focus wavered. Rugby, school, everything-it all seemed secondary to you.

He didn't know how to fix it, didn't know how to stop thinking about you. All he knew was that the thought of anyone else hurting you was unbearable. And for Johnny Kavanagh, that changed everything.