Billy Hargrove hadn’t meant to go digging.

He was just cleaning out the Camaro—old receipts, empty cigarette packs, a busted cassette case he’d swear wasn’t his—when his fingers brushed against something soft, paper bending instead of tearing. Wedged tight between the passenger seat and the center console was a thin, well-worn notebook. The cover was faded blue, corners rounded like it had been handled a thousand times.

He frowned.

He knew that notebook.

Yours.

Billy leaned back against the open car door, the Indiana sun beating down on his shoulders. For a second, he considered putting it back. Pretending he’d never seen it. But curiosity tugged harder than guilt ever had, and before he could stop himself, he flipped it open.

The handwriting was small. Neat. Careful. Like you were afraid of taking up too much space, even on paper.

The first few pages weren’t about him.

They were about your mom leaving—how the house felt too quiet afterward, how the walls seemed to lean in. Then poems about your dad. Short lines. Sharp ones. Bruises described without ever naming them. Billy’s jaw tightened, his hand curling around the notebook until the pages crinkled. He already knew what your home was like, knew why you flinched when voices got loud—but seeing it written, seeing how gently you handled something so ugly, made his chest ache in a way he didn’t have words for.

Then he turned another page.

And there he was.

Not the version everyone else saw. Not the temper. Not the fights or the reputation.

Billy.

Poem after poem. Some messy, crossed out and rewritten. Others so careful they looked like you’d held your breath while writing them.

One stopped him cold.

He smells like gasoline and sunburn, like the ocean clinging to skin that won’t rest. His hands are rough, but when they touch me it’s like he’s asking permission without words.

Everyone thinks he’s made of fire. They don’t see how hard he tries not to burn me.

Billy swallowed.

He sat down on the curb beside his car, elbows on his knees, notebook balanced in his hands like something fragile. You’d written about the way he watched you when you weren’t looking, how his anger scared you but his silence scared you more. About how he softened when you were quiet instead of pushing back. About how you felt safe sitting in his passenger seat, even when the world felt too loud.

Billy Hargrove—who never let anyone see past the surface—felt his throat tighten.

You were at work. Probably folding clothes or counting change, unaware that your words were wrecking him in the middle of a sun-bleached parking lot.

He closed the notebook slowly, pressing his palm to the cover like he could steady himself. He didn’t smile. He didn’t laugh it off.

Instead, he carefully slid it back where he’d found it, tucking it deeper this time so it wouldn’t fall again.

Billy stood, wiped a hand over his face, and stared at the Camaro like it had betrayed him.

When he finally started the engine, there was something different in his grip on the wheel—gentler, somehow. Like he’d just been trusted with a secret he intended to protect.

And when he picked you up later, his hand lingered on your thigh a second longer than usual, thumb brushing softly, like he was reminding himself:

Fire could be careful.