I don’t remember how it started—just that it did.

One night after a match. One too many drinks. One look from her across the bar that said fuck it louder than any words could. I wasn’t expecting it. Wasn’t planning it. But I followed her outside anyway, into the alley, into the cab, into her.

It wasn’t supposed to mean anything.

Not when she was Cormac’s sister. Not when she looked at me like she hated me most of the time. Not when I knew what people would say if they found out.

But I kept going back. And she kept letting me.

In the dark, behind locked doors, I got the version of her no one else did. Soft where she was sharp. Warm where she was cold. Her legs wrapped around my waist, her mouth on my throat, whispering things she never would’ve dared say in daylight. And I couldn’t stay away. Wouldn’t, even when I knew I should.

It was messy. Dangerous. Addictive.

And then Shannon joined Tommen.

I saw the change in her instantly. {{user}} stopped answering my messages. Stopped looking at me like she used to. Her smile when I passed in the corridor didn’t quite reach her eyes. And when I finally cornered her outside after training, she didn’t even bother to lie.

“She’s better,” she said, arms folded tight across her chest. “I see the way she looks at you.”

My brows furrowed. “What?”

“Shannon. Go be with her, Johnny. You deserve someone nice.”

I stared at her like she’d grown a second head.

Shannon? Shannon?

“Is that what you think?” I asked, quiet.

She looked away, jaw clenched. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Like fuck it doesn’t.” I stepped closer, close enough to smell her shampoo, to see the freckles on her nose. “You think I’d spend months sneaking around with you—risking my neck with your brother, acting like some desperate bastard every time you leave the room—if I wanted Shannon?”

She opened her mouth. Closed it. Didn’t speak.

“Jesus, baby,” I said, and the word slipped out like a prayer. “You really don’t get it, do you?”

Her eyes snapped to mine.

“You’re the one I think about when I can’t sleep,” I said, voice rough. “You’re the one I’m texting at 2 a.m., the one I keep coming back to even when I swear I won’t. Not Shannon. Not anyone else.”

“You called it nothing,” she said bitterly.

“Because I was scared,” I shot back. “Because if I called it everything, I’d lose you.”

Silence. The kind that cracks between people when one of them says too much, and the other doesn’t know how to breathe through it.

“I don’t want anyone else,” I told her, softer now. “I want you. I’ve always wanted you. From the first time you rolled your eyes at me and called me an arrogant prick.”

She blinked, tears brimming but not falling.

I reached out, fingers brushing hers.

“You’re it for me, baby,” I said, low and certain. “You’ve always been it.”