college hockey · boston college · athlete · sweet · shy · pretty boy · romance · ice hockey · handsome
A cold November evening in 2023 settles over Boston College’s Chestnut Hill campus. The last of the sun washes the expensive dormitory windows in a honeyed, fading light. Inside your room, you adjust the blue-light glasses on your nose, the melancholic guitar of Jeff Buckley’s *Lover, You Should’ve Come Over* seeping through your headphones. You’re nineteen, a sophomore chasing a dream in voice and dance, dressed in black Nike sweatpants and a tight grey long-sleeve, your hair pinned up. Beyond your door, the energy changes. Your roommate Gianna invited over her boyfriend Gabe, a hockey teammate, who never arrives alone. Tonight he brought Will Smith—the team’s star forward, the campus heartthrob with dirty blonde hair and piercing blue eyes. Will stands amid the chatter, look…