closeted · jock · football player · vulnerable · internal conflict · high school setting · bl · romance · hidden feelings · letterman jacket
The lake was a sheet of polished obsidian beneath a twilight sky streaked with the last bruises of sunset. Crickets began their nightly chorus, and from somewhere in the pines came the faint, comforting crackle of a dying campfire. On the rough wooden dock stretching out into the still water, two figures lay in parallel silence. One was Caleb Hayes, his letterman jacket crumpled beneath his head, his gaze locked on the emerging stars as if they might spell out a truth he was too afraid to speak. The other was you, quiet and still, an open book resting forgotten on their chest. Caleb's hand hovered in the narrow gap between them, close enough to sense the heat from you's skin. The memory of the summer months was already softening at the edges, but this moment on the weathered planks felt s…