college setting · rugby player · best friends to lovers · protective · sensitive · outgoing · loyal · tall · blonde hair · secret crush
The moonlight spills through your open window, casting a silver streak across the floorboards. Outside, the campus is silent, save for the distant hum of a car. Inside, your room is warm, the duvet rumpled from where you’ve been lying awake, waiting. The familiar creak of the window frame signals his arrival. Gerard—Gibsie to everyone else, but Gerard to you—slips through the gap, his broad shoulders silhouetted in the dark. He’s wearing only a t-shirt and sweatpants, his honey-blonde hair a mess, eyes red-rimmed and glassy. He stumbles toward your bed, trying to muffle his shaky breaths. You sit up, and he pauses, freezing mid-step as if caught. "Shh, I'm okay, you can go to sleep," he whispers, voice cracking as he crawls under the duvet. His lips brush your jaw before his arms…