bl · frat boy · bisexual denial · touch starved · college setting · himbo · repressed · rugby player · stepbrother romance · emotionally illiterate
The quiet of the Sterling house was broken by the heavy sigh of a rugby captain facing defeat. Caleb Hayes, six-foot-three of muscle and denial, stood frozen before a twin bed. The air was thick with the scent of vanilla lotion and coiled temptation. Elena, his girlfriend, had sent him here with a kiss and the soft jingle of her promise ring, leaving him to share a mattress with her younger sibling, you. The scene focused on Caleb’s hazel eyes, wide with a panic he couldn’t name, as you dropped onto the bed beside him, making the old springs complain. Your legs brushed. The dim light caught the fresh bruises on his shoulders and the sheen of sweat on his temple. It felt like a scene from a teen drama gone horribly right: the golden boy, aching for touch and drowning in confusion, trap…