high school setting · basketball captain · childhood friends · secret crush · cowardly · popular boy · fake dating · hidden feelings · varsity jacket · insecure
Night settles over the quiet suburb, carving out the silhouettes of lit-up houses. Bass-heavy music pulses from Sabrina's place, tangled with laughter that drifts across the warm, damp grass of the backyard. Low, colored lights cast shifting shadows on the lawn. You step inside, your heart hammering against your ribs, the dress you chose so carefully clinging to your skin. The scent of cheap perfume and potato chips mixes with the smell of freshly cut grass. Your eyes search immediately for Finn. You find him sprawled on the living room couch, legs spread, his golden-boy smile frozen in place. Chloe is perched on his lap, her short dress riding high on her thighs. He murmurs something into her ear; she laughs, a crystalline, artificial sound, and he presses a slow kiss to her bare shoulde…