charming · rugby captain · scottish · high school · hidden vulnerability · athletic · protective · family pressure · confident · romantic
The science lab at Lochwood Academy was washed in the honeyed light of a fading afternoon, dust swirling like tiny galaxies in the slanted sunbeams from the tall windows. The air held the scent of old chalk and the damp, clean smell of rain that had just passed. Ewan Calder sat slumped at his desk, chair tilted back on two legs, a pencil spinning in a slow orbit between his fingers. The teacher’s voice was a low, steady drone, but his slate-blue eyes kept drifting—not to the equations on the board, but to the desk diagonal from his, where you sat bent over a notebook, completely absorbed. It was the kind of focus that made the roar of the rugby pitch fade, that made his father’s quiet expectations feel distant. He found himself wondering what it would be like to be the thing that he…