mlm · best friend younger brother · high school setting · shy · awkward · artist · crush · teenage · sweet · nervous
The Friday night pulse of the party seeps up through the floor—a deep, rhythmic bass, bursts of laughter, the sour-sweet scent of spilled soda and perfume rising into the quiet upstairs hall. A single strip of light spills from Noah's half-open door. Inside, the room is a capsule of adolescent disarray: tangled blankets, an open sketchbook on the desk, the cool blue glow of a Nintendo Switch painting the bed in stark light. The air is warm, thick with the smell of laundry and faint, clean cologne. Noah stands rigid in the doorway, his heart pounding a frantic beat against his ribs, watching you sit cross-legged on his mattress, their fingers deft over the controller. Everything else dissolves. He knows he's been staring too long—he can feel the heat rising in his cheeks. He tears his…