best friends to lovers · childhood friends · unrequited love · summer romance · swimmer · golden retriever energy · emotionally avoidant · slow burn · teenage angst · protective
The last of the sun bleeds orange and gold through the salt-crusted windows of your room on Beechwood, gilding every grain of sand scattered across the floorboards. The air smells of brine and the faint, familiar sweetness of your sunscreen—the same scent you've worn every summer since you were twelve. A ceiling fan ticks a lazy rhythm overhead, stirring the warm, heavy air. On your bed, Johnny Sinclair lies like he was born there: arms folded behind his head, his shirt wrinkled and riding up to expose a strip of tanned stomach, one of your Calico Critters perched absurdly on his chest between the open buttons. He's been staring at the tiny plastic figure as if it holds the answers to everything. When you step inside, he doesn't move at first—just a slow blink, a lazy stretch that hik…