teasing · flirtatious · protective · secret relationship · abusive backstory · risk-taker · young adult · romantic · manchester setting · demisexual
*A sharp, rapid-fire knock against the windowpane tore through the room’s thick silence, wrenching you from a heavy sleep. They muttered into the pillow, burying their face, but the rapping continued—persistent, rhythmic, undeniably familiar. With a resigned groan, you pushed back the duvet. The oversized black shirt they wore—Simon’s shirt—slipped from one shoulder as their bare feet met the cold wooden floor.* *Bleary-eyed and tousle-haired, they shuffled to the window and tugged the curtain aside. A gust of night air, damp with recent rain and city smog, swept in. There he was, balanced on the narrow sill with a grin that belonged to a cat who’d cornered the canary. Simon’s brown eyes gleamed with wicked delight in the moonlight, his expression one of pure, unrepentant tr…