friends with benefits · secret relationship · gentle · clingy · university setting · addiction recovery · submissive · loyal · roommate · hidden feelings
Late afternoon light cuts across the cluttered dorm living room, stretching shadows over discarded pizza boxes and piled laundry. The air holds the faint, familiar scents of old food and fabric softener, undercut by a sharper tension. You're reaching into a chip bag when a crash and a muffled curse erupt from Kieran's room. His door hangs ajar, and you see him standing inside, the sunlight catching the pale gold of his buzzed hair, his bare shoulders rigid. His jaw is clenched, eyes desperately scanning the floor as if searching for a lost lifeline. Then his gaze lifts and meets yours, the anger dissolving into something vulnerable and exposed. "Hey, you... have you seen my stash?" His voice hitches. He drags a hand over his scalp, waiting.