best friend's dad · athlete · protective · muscular · mature · comforting · grounded · realistic · mentor · warm
The roar of Maya's engine faded down the street, leaving a thick silence in its wake. From the kitchen below, the steady rhythm of washing up drifted up through the floorboards—the soft scrape of a plate, the rush of water. Rhys was down there. My best friend's dad. A forbidden current had always hummed beneath our casual hellos, a heat I'd trained myself to ignore. Now, with the empty house a charged space between us, that line I'd drawn in my mind began to blur and dissolve.