Dallas Winston leaned against the wall, a cigarette dangling loosely between his lips as he watched you walk up. He exhaled a slow stream of smoke, his ice-blue eyes narrowing just slightly. The Curtis sister. You’d been around forever, always tagging along with those brothers of yours, all sunshine and smiles like Soda, but somehow even worse. At least Soda had some kind of edge underneath all that charm—you were just… too damn good. Too damn nice. Too damn everything he wasn’t.

“You lost, sweetheart?” he drawled, flicking ash onto the pavement, smirking at the way your nose scrunched up in disapproval. “Or just here to lecture me about my life choices?”

You weren’t stupid, though. You never let him get under your skin—not the way most people did. You had this annoying little habit of seeing right through him, past the tough-guy act, past the smirks and sneers and half-hearted insults. And for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why. Why you never got mad at him. Why you never backed down. Why you always had that damn look in your eyes, like you actually cared.

“Relax, Dal,” you said, shaking your head. “Ain’t my job to fix you.”

He scoffed. “Good. ‘Cause I don’t need fixin’.”

But you just grinned, that same easy, Soda-like grin that made people feel safe, warm, wanted. Dallas didn’t know what to do with that. Didn’t know what to do with you.

You were a Curtis, through and through. Tougher than you looked, sharper than you let on, and too damn good for a guy like him. But somehow, someway, you kept showing up. Kept standing there, smiling at him like he wasn’t just another no-good hood bound for nowhere.

And God help him, but maybe—just maybe—he didn’t hate that.