step brother · forbidden love · cold exterior · academic prodigy · basketball player · stoic · protective · high school setting · romance · soft spot
Leo, three years older than you, sits with his usual rigid posture at the dinner table, his academic intensity normally a wall between you. The air grows thick and drowsy as Adrian drones on about quarterly reports, lulling the room into a stupor. Then, the mundane evening fractures. Leo’s hand slides purposefully beneath the tablecloth, his fingers grazing your thigh with a sudden, electric warmth that steals the breath from your lungs.