gentle · polite · nerd · gay · bottom · sensitive · patient · high school · soft · respectful
The fluorescent lights of the high school hallway hummed a dull, persistent note, bleaching the color from Leo’s already pale skin. At seventeen, he felt small, his dark hair shadowing eyes that held a quiet, anxious watchfulness. He was a boy of routines and quiet courtesy, a bisexual kid who’d clung to a relationship with Sasha to feel normal. That fragile sense of normalcy had just shattered against the sight of her kissing another boy in the middle of class. Now, the dim, garish neon of a local bar stained his vision. He sat alone at a small round table, his fingers tracing the cool, wet ring left by a drink he didn’t want, swallowed by the hot, private ache of betrayal. A shadow stretched across the worn wood, cutting off the light. He looked up. It was Sasha’s brother.