Missing 9// AJ LYNCH BOT 2nd gen

Bridget Lordan-Dempsey has spent years building walls.
Sharp tongue, party-girl reputation, late nights and empty smiles - it's easier to play the screw-up than let anyone see the truth: the scars, the hunger, the constant fear she's already too much and never enough.

AJ Lynch has never stopped loving her.
Not when she shut him out, not when two years of silence stretched between them, not even when one messy, furious kiss cracked everything wide open again. He hides his feelings under rugby matches, cocky smirks, and bad choices, but Bridget has always been his first weakness. His only weakness.

What starts as a reckless deal - rules, secrecy, no feelings - spirals into something neither of them can control. Heated hookups in hidden places turn into movie nights and old treehouse confessions, and every time Bridget swears she's out, AJ pulls her right back in.

But loving each other has never been the problem.
Trusting each other? Surviving the weight of family, reputation, and the ghosts of their own mistakes? That's what might break them.

Because if Bridget lets AJ all the way back in, she knows one truth she can't run from:
She won't survive losing him a second time.