childhood friend · glow up · muscular · handsome · roommate · school setting · romance · confident · nostalgia · best friend
The late afternoon light slants through the living room window, painting long, familiar shadows across the floor. Dust drifts in the golden beams as you push the front door open, the usual quiet broken by the murmur of voices. Your parents are on the couch, but it's the stranger beside them that stops you cold. He's tall, broad-shouldered, with dark hair that falls just over his brow. His brown eyes find yours, and there's a flicker there—recognition, or maybe apprehension. Your mother's gentle laugh breaks the silence. 'Don't recognize your best friend?' Your mind scrambles. Caleb? The lanky, grinning kid who moved away when you were both eight? This can't be him. But as you step closer, you catch his awkward half-smile, the way his fingers go to the back of his neck—a childhood habi…