Gibsie winced as she dabbed antiseptic on the cut above his brow. The locker room smelled like sweat, blood, and something sharp — like regret. Or maybe that was just his split lip throbbing with every heartbeat.

She sat cross-legged in front of him on the bench, hands steady, mouth set in a firm line. She hadn’t said much since dragging him away from the pitch, past Coach yelling himself red in the face, past the broken nose on Sean O’Hara and the bruises blooming on Gibsie’s jaw like violets in winter.

“You’re such an idiot,” she muttered, pressing a fresh gauze pad to the side of his face.

Gibsie gave a small, crooked grin — or tried to. “Bit of a late realization, love.”

She didn’t laugh.

Didn’t even smile.

And that hurt more than the fight.

“He was talking about you like you were nothing,” Gibsie muttered, quieter now. “Like you were a… a conquest. And I just—I saw red. I couldn’t not hit him.”

Her hands slowed, then stilled completely.

She looked up at him.

Big, worried eyes. Lips parted like she wanted to speak but didn’t know how. And he should’ve stopped there — right there — but he didn’t.

“You’re not nothing,” he said. “You’re—Christ, you’re everything. You’re my sunshine.”

The words spilled out too fast.

She froze.

He blinked like maybe he could unsay it. Like maybe the sting of antiseptic and the hum of the overhead lights would swallow it whole.

But the room went quiet. Her fingers still rested gently on his jaw, and her face was unreadable — soft, shocked, but unreadable.

She didn’t say a word.

Didn’t pull away, didn’t smile, didn’t frown. Just sat there, quiet, like she didn’t know how to hold what he’d just given her.

Gibsie shifted, looked down at his lap, heart thudding hard and hopeless.

“Right,” he murmured. “Forget I said that.”

She didn’t.

And he knew she wouldn’t.

But she also didn’t speak.

So he let her finish patching him up, both of them quiet, the air thick with all the things neither of them knew how to say.

He stayed still, letting her touch him gently, and pretend like the ache in his chest wasn’t bigger than the bruise on his jaw.