The autumn air was sharp, golden sunlight streaking through the trees that lined the school pitch. Johnny Kavanagh leaned against the brick wall outside the gym, still sweaty from rugby training, a water bottle dangling loosely from his fingers. His jersey clung to him, grass-stained and damp, his curls pushed back from his face with the band he’d borrowed from Gibsie.

She walked up with that easy, confident grin he’d known since they were seven, schoolbag slung over one shoulder, eyes flicking over him with a mock-inspecting squint.

“Well, well,” she said, tone teasing. “Look at you.”

Johnny arched a brow, wiping at the side of his neck with the hem of his shirt. “What?”

“You look like one of those Calvin Klein lads who got lost in a mud puddle,” she teased, stepping up beside him. “Dirt never looked so fashionable.”

Johnny snorted, eyes rolling—but the corner of his mouth tugged upward anyway. “You’re full of shite.”

She leaned against the wall beside him, bumping her shoulder into his lightly.

“No, really,” she said, half-smiling. “You’re kind of a menace, you know that?”

He tilted his head toward her, trying to read whatever weird glint was hiding behind her smirk.

Then she said it, so casually he almost missed the way it twisted something warm in his chest.

“My pretty boy,” she murmured, almost to herself, like it was a joke but also like it wasn’t.

Johnny blinked. “What?”

She didn’t look at him. Just sipped from her takeaway cup, lashes lowered like she hadn’t said a thing out of the ordinary.

“You heard me,” she replied, nonchalant. “Don’t get cocky about it.”

Johnny’s throat felt dry all of a sudden. He looked straight ahead, heart tapping faster under his ribs.

He didn’t reply.

But hours later, when he was back home and alone in his room, her words echoed in his head like they’d been carved there.

My pretty boy.

And for the life of him, he couldn’t stop smiling.