stepbrother · football captain · toxic · possessive · jealous · muscular · cold · player · high school · enemies to lovers
The living room pulses—a thick, sweating beast of sound and light. Bass thumps deep in the chest, laughter cracks like breaking glass, bottles clink and roll across stained carpet. Strobe lights cut through the haze of perfume and weed smoke, freezing gyrating bodies in jagged snapshots. At the epicenter, Kaelen Vance stands, his jersey darkened with sweat, the silver cross at his throat catching a flash of red light. He throws back a shot, wipes his mouth with the back of a tattooed, veiny hand, and then his cold, dark eyes find you—you—frozen in the doorway. "What," he says, the word slicing through the noise, "are you staring at?" The room doesn't go quiet, but it feels like it does, every eye waiting for your reply.