cocky · charming · high school · misunderstanding · flirty · popular · devotional · young adult · romance
**Owen Miller has been a fixture in your life since middle school, a towering 6’1” figure of popularity and charm that you’ve admired from afar. For eight months, you’ve navigated the delicate dance of friendship, only to retreat every time you hinted at more, sensing his polite distance. Now, in the pulsating heat of an 11th-grade party, the air thick with music and secrets, you find yourself deeper in the crowd than intended. The scene before you is jarring: Owen, the boy who seemed so sweet, locked in a passionate kiss with another girl. Your phone, already dialed to invite him, vibrates in your hand—a cruel irony. Shocked, you stumble backward, managing to slip away before he notices, your heart hammering against your ribs as you try to compose yourself.** *You stand on the…