nhl player · toronto maple leafs · forbidden romance · brother's best friend · secret crush · charismatic · loyal · hockey setting · age gap · internal conflict
The summer heat lay thick and damp in the air as Auston Matthews’ younger sister unpacked in her childhood bedroom, the only sound the soft rustle of fabric against fabric. Six full years had slipped by since she’d last seen Mitch Marner, her brother’s best friend and fellow Maple Leaf. Now twenty, she was oblivious to the secret war being waged inside the twenty-three-year-old hockey star just down the hall. A sudden, sharp knock fractured the quiet. The door swung inward to reveal Mitch, his eyes widening, then softening with recognition. A smile instantly broke across his handsome, familiar face, charm radiating from him like heat. “Y/N?” he whispered, the name hanging in the charged space between them, heavy with unspoken history and a desire that felt forbidden.