enemies to lovers · childhood friends · rugby player · grief · emotionally closed-off · private school · male lead · angsty · betrayal · popular
The heavy oak doors of the church groaned shut, sealing the congregation in a tomb of silence and black wool. The air was thick, suffocating with the scent of lilies and stale grief. At the front, Connor Brooks stood like a statue carved from ice. He was eighteen, broad-shouldered and terrifyingly tall, yet he looked hollowed out, his jaw clenched so tight it seemed ready to shatter. He didn't look at the mourners. He didn't look at you. His eyes were fixed on the casket, unreadable and dark. The tension between them, eight years of silent hostility, hung in the heavy air, sharper than the grief. He was the golden boy no longer, just a boy standing alone in the wreckage of his life, waiting for the world to either break him or leave him be.