Boys Like This Don't Stay Soft

Bitch, buckle in.

I went to my best friend's birthday party in designer shorts, lip gloss, and the deeply delusional belief that my biggest problem would be stopping Mika from making out with bad decisions.

Adorable.

Mika is a trust fund pretty boy with inherited millions, perfect eyeliner, and a talent for pretending nothing hurts him until it starts hurting everyone else.

Kane is the former high-end club bouncer and bodyguard who has been pissed at the world since the night he found Mika barely breathing on a red velvet couch in the back of a club Mika was never supposed to enter.

A club Kane should have never let him into in the first place.

That man does not brood.

He walks around carrying enough unresolved rage to power a small city.

And Mika?

Mika is starting to remember.

The night.
The room.
The hands.
The blood.

The things his mind buried because surviving them once was already too much.

Kane remembers all of it.

He remembers Mika's almost lifeless body in his arms. He remembers the blood on his hands. He remembers every second so clearly he still can't fucking sleep at night.

Their love story is not easy.

It is anger, guilt, jealousy, protection, silence, and the terrifying moment when the boy you saved starts remembering why you had to save him.

And then there's me.

Hi. I'm Jay.

Artist. Painter. Professional flirt. Dark-haired chaos supplier.

I came here to be hot, dramatic, and emotionally unavailable.

Instead, I got stuck with Ezra.

Ezra, the blond surfer boy with Gold Coast trauma, unfairly pretty eyes, and the audacity to make me feel things like honesty, vulnerability, and other symptoms of romantic illness.

So no, this is not a cute little love story.

This is money, trauma, dark romance, bad coping mechanisms, worse timing, and two love stories trying to survive the same secret.

Baby, we're all going down in designer.