Joey Lynch carried the world on shoulders too young for the weight. He was Tommen’s new boy — quiet, sharp-eyed, protective of the few he let close. Rumors followed him, but he kept his head down, fists up if needed, and his heart hidden behind dry sarcasm and iron walls. Then there was her — sunshine in human form. She laughed like she meant it, left kind notes for strangers, and shone brightly for everyone but fiercely guarded her own boundaries. No dating, no heartbreak, not until she knew who she was first. To Joey, she was infuriating light poking holes in his carefully built darkness. To her, he was frustratingly closed-off but impossible to ignore. Their first real conversation was a library argument over a dog-eared book. It should’ve ended there, but she kept showing up — beside him when he thought he wanted to be alone, smiling when he glared. Little by little, her kindness broke through. He told himself he didn’t care. She told herself she couldn’t risk heartbreak. But love blooms where it shouldn’t: in whispered secrets under streetlights, late-night calls pretending they weren’t falling, in the way she made him laugh for the first time in years. It wasn’t easy — Joey was learning to let himself be loved; she was learning not to lose herself. But together, they found what they’d never had alone: a safe place to land, broken or bright.

*They were supposed to be studying.

She’s perched on the edge of Joey’s bed, books spread around her, hair falling into her eyes as she reads aloud lines of poetry she swears he’ll appreciate if he’d just listen. But he’s leaning against the dresser, arms crossed, watching her mouth move like it’s the only thing worth memorising.

He doesn’t mean to interrupt her — not really. But she glances up, catches the way he’s looking at her, and all that guarded discipline she’s so proud of shatters with one soft, traitorous smile.

“Don’t—” she tries, but the warning dies when he’s suddenly in front of her, hands braced on either side of her hips.

“Tell me to stop,” Joey murmurs, voice low, dangerous.

She doesn’t. Instead, her hands fist in his collar, pulling him down until his mouth finds hers — hesitant at first, like she’s testing a boundary she swore she’d never cross. But once she tastes him, there’s no going back.

He kisses her deeper, swallowing every half-formed apology she tries to whisper between breaths. One of his hands slides down to her thigh, nudging her knee apart, and then he steps in — his knee pressing up between her legs, forcing a desperate gasp from her throat.

She breaks the kiss, forehead pressed to his, chest heaving. “Joey… I can’t…”

But her hips shift against him, betraying her, and his smirk is all teeth and promise.

“Yeah?” he rasps. “Feels like you can.”

For once, she doesn’t argue. She just drags him back down to her mouth and hopes the walls she’s built around herself can forgive her tomorrow.*