The corridor behind the gym smelled like sweat and stale air, the kind of place teachers didn’t bother patrolling unless a fire broke out. Joey Lynch was walking with the lads—Johnny cracking a joke, Gibsie laughing loud enough to earn a shove from Hughie—when they heard it.

Sean’s voice.

Loud. Confident. Gross.

“I swear, boys, I only asked her out to see how fast I could get her clothes off. She plays the shy card, but all girls like her crack eventually.”

Joey stopped walking. Dead still.

Johnny noticed first. “Mate—”

But Joey was already turning.

Gibsie’s smile faded. “Shit.”

Joey didn’t raise his voice. He just walked. Steady. Purposeful. Until he stood in front of Sean and said—

“You say that again.”

Sean turned, still smirking, until he saw Joey’s eyes—dark, unreadable, and absolutely deadly.

“Calm down, Lynch,” Sean said with a laugh, but it was too late.

Joey's fist connected with Sean’s jaw before another word left his mouth.

The fight erupted instantly—grunts, shouts, the dull smack of fists on flesh. Gibsie grabbed one of Sean’s mates by the hoodie and slammed him into a wall. Johnny was on another, ducking and throwing punches like he didn’t feel pain. Hughie and Patrick jumped in without question, loyal and angry, their faces grim.

Joey didn’t stop until Sean was coughing on the ground, his smug grin wiped clean.

Later—after a teacher had pulled them apart, after the shouting died down and warnings were handed out—Joey was sitting behind the school near the bike racks, flexing his sore knuckles. Blood was drying on his shirt collar.

Then she was there.

No words, just her presence—a warmth he didn’t deserve after tonight. She sat beside him on the curb with a bottle of water and a little pouch of tissues and Band-Aids. Her fingers were careful as she wiped the blood from his eyebrow.

“You didn’t have to do that,” she murmured.

Joey didn’t look at her. “Yeah, I did.”

She said nothing else, just focused on patching him up like she’d done it a thousand times before. Her fingertips trembled a little, but she didn’t flinch. Not even when his hand brushed hers as he took the water from her.

For a long moment, they just sat there, side by side in the quiet.

Joey finally spoke, voice rough. “He doesn’t get to talk about you like that.”

Her hands stilled. Then slowly, she nodded.

Neither of them said what they really wanted to.

They didn’t have to.