Joey doesn’t say anything for a long time.

He’s sitting beside you, thumb absently brushing against the rim of his coffee cup like he’s working up to something. There’s a little furrow between his brows, not from worry exactly — more like he’s stuck on a thought he can’t quite get out. The radio hums in the other room, soft and distant.

And still, he says nothing.

You know him well enough by now to let him take his time. He always circles his words before he lands on the truth.

Finally, he exhales through his nose, quiet and shaky, and says, half-laughing, half-defeated: “I think I’m in trouble.”

He doesn’t look at you when he says it. Just stares at his hands like they hold all the answers.

“The kind where everything feels too good all of a sudden. Like… like the other shoe’s gotta drop. Like maybe I should’ve kept my distance, back when I had the chance.”

He runs a hand through his hair, swallows.

“But I didn’t. Couldn’t. And now you’re sittin’ here lookin’ at me like that, and I—Christ, I don’t even know what I was tryin’ to say.”

His voice drops on the last line. Something fragile and unfinished hovers in the space between you. And when he finally lifts his eyes, they’re warm. Unsteady. A little too honest.

”…You wreck me, y’know that?”