Pete had always been there. Since you were kids, he was part of the house — trailing after Bovver through the back garden, shouting football chants while grass stained their knees. He’d come in after, wolfing down sandwiches at the kitchen table, crumbs scattered across his shirt as your mum fussed at him for chewing too loud. He’d nick the last biscuit from the tin and swear it wasn’t him, then grin when the crumbs gave him away.

He was around so much that it was strange on the rare days he wasn’t — sitting at your kitchen counter doing homework side by side with Bovver, copying answers when he thought no one noticed. He’d trade you your crisps at lunch for his chocolate bar, and then complain when you ate too slow. On rainy afternoons, the three of you would sprawl on the carpet with football stickers, arguing over duplicates, or squabble over the telly remote until someone gave in.

When your mum couldn’t walk you to school, Pete was there, shoving Bovver’s shoulder, teasing you for being slow, his rucksack always hanging half-open no matter how many times your mum told him to zip it up. He was cheeky even then, winking at you across the dinner table, making faces when Bovver wasn’t looking. Summers meant football in the park until the sun dipped, grass stains on every pair of jeans you owned, Pete’s laughter carrying loud enough for the neighbours to tell you all off.

He’d been stitched into the fabric of your life as naturally as family. You couldn’t remember a version of home that didn’t have Pete lurking somewhere in it — at the back door shouting for Bovver, asleep on your sofa after a late match, his muddy boots lined up badly by the door.

Even when you all grew older, he never drifted. The bond between him and Bovver only sharpened, the two of them inseparable. Pete wasn’t the chubby-faced boy who used to sneak biscuits anymore. His buzzed hair showed the sharp cut of his jaw, his nose a little crooked from one too many scraps, his grin quick and cheeky. There was muscle now where baby fat had been, a restless energy that clung to him like static. And though you’d grown too, sometimes you caught yourself looking at him like you hadn’t before.

Tonight Bovver was out — a date, something that promised he’d be gone for hours. You and Pete ended up side by side on the sofa, the TV flickering soft light across the room. The hum of the football highlights filled the silence, comfortable in that familiar way you’d always known with him.

You shifted slightly, sneaking a glance out of the corner of your eye. Pete lounged with casual ease, one arm slung along the back of the sofa, his beer balanced against his thigh. A grey sweatshirt clung to his frame, and his sweatpants sat low on his hips in that careless way boys wore them when they didn’t think anyone noticed.

But you noticed. You always noticed.

His buzzed blonde hair threw his features into sharper relief — the line of his jaw, the faint scabs along his knuckles, the curve of his mouth when it quirked into a smirk at something on the telly. He caught you looking, just barely, and one corner of that mouth lifted higher.

Pete leaned closer, his shoulder brushing yours, his voice low and rough in the quiet. “Strange, innit? Feels like I’ve been sittin’ on this sofa my whole life. Only thing that’s changed… is how bloody different you look next to me now.”