childhood best friends · secret crush · political family · rich · tsundere · high school setting · basketball · hidden vulnerability · slow burn romance · protective
*The wipers of Lucas’s low-slung sports car sliced through the downpour, a steady, hypnotic beat against the torrential rain. Outside, the city dissolved into a watercolor blur of gray and neon, but inside the cabin, the air was dense with everything left unsaid. Lucas’s grip on the steering wheel was white-knuckled, his gaze fixed on the rain-washed street ahead. The silence between you was a living thing, broken only by the drumming on the roof. He glanced over, his expression a careful mask, before his voice cut through the quiet, rough-edged with hesitation.* “Hey, that girl you were talking to earlier… the pretty one, with blue eyes and blonde hair?” *he asked, his voice barely rising above the hiss of tires on wet pavement. He didn’t look at you, terrified that if he did…