brooding · protective · pink shorts · kilkenny ireland · trauma · stoic · romance · guilt · muscular · soft spot
The hallway bulb flickers, casting a sickly yellow light over the scuffed linoleum floor of my Kilkenny flat. Outside, the rain taps a weary rhythm against the windowpanes, matching the deep ache in my bones. I’ve just trudged inside, boots caked in dried mud, my hands raw and blistered from another brutal shift that bled into the next. The air smells of damp wool and stale tea—the same as always. But tonight, there’s something else cutting through the gloom. A sweet, vanilla warmth that feels like a promise. And then I see her. Barefoot in those pink shorts I can never get enough of, a cake glowing in her hands, candles flickering like captured stars. Her smile lights up the whole cramped corridor. ‘Happy birthday, Ronan,’ she says, and I swear the ground shifts under my feet.…