Renna Rose Lancaster never searched for love.
She stumbled into it long before she was old enough to know what to call it.
It lived inside flower crowns that barely survived a minute on his head. Pebbles he slipped into her pockets because every tre...
"I want to be with you, it is as simple, and as complicated as that."
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Some people say love feels like poetry. I don't know about that.
To me, it feels like standing in the middle of a gym that smells like floor polish and pain, while the girl I'm completely and pathetically obsessed with flashes me the most embarrassing handwritten signs from the stands—and does it with a face that says she's the definition of innocence.
God help me.
Coach Gallagher's voice is slicing through the air like a guillotine, barking out instructions while all of us stand there drenched in sweat, hearts pounding from the last brutal round of suicides.
"Eyes up! Focus! I dinnae run a bloody daycare here!" Gallagher roars, pacing like a hawk.
My eyes are up. Just... not on him.
They're on her.
Renna's sitting in the stands like she's the main character of a music video—legs crossed, one ankle swinging lazily, a pleated skirt that's playing dangerous games with gravity, and a cropped baby-blue cardigan that's slipped just enough off her shoulder to make me forget my own name.
And she's smiling. At me.
Don't look. Don't look. Coach'll eat you alive if he sees you spacing out again-
Too late.
My head's already turned.
Renna's got a notebook on her lap, pencil spinning between her fingers like she's plotting something unholy. Isla's leaned in beside her, whispering, while Freya looks like she's seconds away from exploding with laughter.
Then Renna glances up-straight into my eyes-and lifts a page.
Big, bold letters. A doodle of me mid-run, tongue out, drenched. And right above it:
"THE SWEAT IS A SIN 😇🔥"
I swear my soul left my body.
The guys next to me broke.
Logan saw it first and nearly folded. "Oh my fucking God, mate-she's unreal!"
Nico snorted so hard he almost coughed up a lung. "She's actually out of pocket for that."
Gavin wheezed, "Bro, she's roasting you in calligraphy!"
"Something funny, lads?" Gallagher snaps, voice sharp enough to slice through concrete.
All of us freeze.
"No, coach!" we say in perfect terrified harmony.
He stares us down, then mutters something like, "Bloody eejits, all of ye," and goes back to pacing.
