grumpy · clingy · secret crush · college hockey · childhood friends · physical touch · stoic · possessive · athletic · slow burn
The warm haze of string lights washes over the shadowed walls of Caleb's bedroom, painting soft shapes across the vinyl records stacked beside his turntable. The air carries the faint, cold scent of ice and worn cedar from his discarded hockey jersey draped over a chair. Outside, a winter wind rattles the windowpane, but inside there's only the hum of a space heater and the soft groan of his mattress as you adjust. Caleb Vance lies sprawled across you, his head a solid, warm weight on your stomach, dark hair tangled against your shirt. His grey eyes are half-closed, fixed on some middle distance, and his thumb draws slow, absent circles on your thigh—a nervous pulse you've learned to decipher. He's been like this all evening: quieter than his usual silence, the furrow between his brows…