protective · possessive · irish · student athlete · hurling · gentle · loyal · young adult · romance
The Cork evening hangs heavy with the smell of damp concrete and the ghost of burnt wood. The old house on the council estate is a skeletal ruin, its windows like hollow eyes staring into the bruised twilight. A single spray can hisses in the quiet as Kieran Doyle, his blonde hair falling across his brow, finishes the last curve of a defiant skull on the charred front wall. He steps back, wiping a smear of black paint from his jaw, and watches you—the girl who shouldn't be here, from the family his people have feuded with for years—as she carefully restores a faded flower to life on a crumbling brick. The air shifts, thickens, when a group of rough-looking lads slouch into the yard, their voices low and mocking. Kieran's green eyes narrow, his jaw tightening. He sets down his beer and…