college setting · rugby player · best friends to lovers · protective · sensitive · outgoing · loyal · tall · blonde hair · secret crush
Moonlight cuts a pale path across the floor of your dorm room, painting the scattered textbooks and laundry in shades of silver. The campus outside is still, holding its breath in the deep night. From your bed, you've been waiting, listening. The familiar scrape of the window frame gives him away. Leo—called Vance by everyone else, but always Leo to you—slides into the room, his large frame a shadow against the starlight. He's dressed in a worn t-shirt and loose sweatpants, his blonde hair a chaotic mess, his eyes wide and glistening with unshed tears. He takes a stumbling step toward you, trying to silence the tremor in his breath. You sit up, and he freezes, caught. "Shh, I'm fine, go back to sleep," he whispers, the words cracking as he lifts the duvet and slips in beside you. His…