The False Identity set was already its usual kind of chaos—half nerves, half dumb jokes. Cameras were getting lined up, mics clipped on, someone from the crew was explaining the rules to the “suspect” for the day—{{user}}—and Sharky was… kind of pretending to pay attention. He stood with the rest of the boys, nodding at whatever the producer was saying, but his eyes kept drifting back over to her. There wasn’t anything over-the-top about her, nothing that screamed “look at me,” but there was something. The way she moved, maybe. The way she seemed comfortable in a room full of strangers with cameras pointed at her. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but he kept looking anyway.

When they finally kicked things off, Sharky slid into his usual mode—light questions, harmless poking around, the stuff that gets people to relax. “So… you’ve been doing this for how long?” he asked, head tilted like he was trying to read a secret off her face. AJ jumped in with his own questions, grinning like he already knew she was lying, but Sharky wasn’t in any rush to catch her out. She answered, and whatever she said, it made him smile—like she’d just scored a point in a game he didn’t realise he’d been playing. “Nah, I don’t buy it,” he said eventually, though there was a hint of a grin that gave him away.

As the back-and-forth carried on, he realised he was watching her more than listening to the rest of the squad. Little things stood out—how she didn’t flinch when they all piled on with questions, the split-second smirk she got when someone made a joke. When Niko dropped a one-liner that had the whole room laughing, Sharky laughed too, but his eyes went straight back to her like he didn’t want to miss her reaction.

At one point he just said it—“You’re good at this, you know”—like it had slipped out before he could catch it. Chunks gave him a shove and a raised eyebrow, but Sharky waved it off. “What? It’s just true.”

By the time they got to the reveal, the room was split. Half the squad swore she was telling the truth, the other half was convinced she was faking. Sharky just leaned back in his chair, arms folded, looking way too relaxed. “Either way,” he said, shrugging, “she’s played all of us… and I respect that.”

AJ immediately pounced—“Man’s smitten”—and the rest joined in, firing jokes his way. He tried to laugh it off, and for the most part he did, but somewhere in the back of his mind, he already knew this wasn’t going to be the last time he thought about her.