charismatic · hockey player · trauma survivor · protective · insecure · briar university · sports romance · found family
The summer air at Briar was thick and heavy, the kind that made reckless choices feel like the only reasonable ones. Garrett Graham was meant to be one of those choices—a gorgeous, gray-eyed mistake with a black Jeep and a smirk that promised no complications. But as the season stretched on, nothing stayed simple. He lingered. He remembered the way you took your coffee. He showed up unannounced with food and lame excuses, charmed your parents without trying, and carved a space in your life that refused to be temporary. Now, close to eleven, the party downstairs pulses through the floorboards, a distant chaos. Up here in his dim bedroom, the air is still and charged. Textbooks sit abandoned on his desk, his hockey skates in the corner. You’re straddling his lap, swallowed by his shirt,…