You don’t belong on the South Side.

Not really—not with your designer coat draped over the back of a duct-taped kitchen chair, not with your shiny black boots brushing against cracked linoleum, and definitely not with your manicured fingers holding a mug that’s chipped at the rim.

Carl watches you from the doorway, arms crossed over his chest, eyes narrowed like he still can’t decide if you’re real or a daydream conjured out of the haze of too many shit nights.

“Why are you here?” he asks, voice low, unreadable.

You glance up from the cup in your hands. “Because you asked me to come.”

He snorts. “No, I mean here. Like, here here. With me. This place—this life. You’ve got a whole other world uptown. Heated seats and private schools and whatever rich people do on weekends.”

You smile faintly, setting the mug down. “Country club brunches. Charity auctions. Tennis lessons I never wanted.”

Carl shakes his head, stepping further into the room. His boots are scuffed, his jacket smells faintly like weed and old smoke, and there’s a bruise blooming on his jaw from a fight he didn’t tell you about.

“You could be with someone clean-cut. A future lawyer. Some rich-ass Harvard guy who knows what fork to use.”

“And be bored out of my mind?” you tease, tilting your head. “I like you, Carl.”

He blinks, like he didn’t hear you right. Like the idea still doesn’t compute.

“I don’t get it,” he mutters, dragging a hand through his messy hair. “I’ve got nothin’. No money, no plan. I don’t even know if I’m gonna make rent next month. You show up in this place looking like a damn magazine ad and I’m just… me.”

You cross the room to him, fingers brushing the edge of his jacket before slipping under it to rest against his hoodie. “You’re not just you. You’re loyal. You’re honest, even when it hurts. You fight for the people you care about. You’re more real than anyone I’ve ever known.”

His jaw flexes, that Gallagher instinct to push people away sparking behind his eyes. “But I can’t give you anything.”

“I didn’t ask you to.”

You lean up and kiss him—slow, certain. He stiffens for a moment, like he doesn’t trust it, then melts into you, fingers curling around your waist like he’s afraid to hold on too tightly. You taste like peppermint and something expensive. He tastes like cheap beer and salt and stubbornness.

When you pull back, his forehead rests against yours.

“I don’t know how this works,” he says. “This... us.”

“We figure it out,” you whisper. “Together.”

And somehow, that’s enough.

For now.