I tossed and turned in my childhood bed, the thin cotton sheet sticking to my damp skin. The old ceiling fan spun lazily overhead, pushing warm summer air around the room but doing nothing to cool the heat building inside me. It was my first week back home from college, and the house felt both comfortingly familiar and dangerously crowded. Jake, my older brother, had invited Alex to crash in the guest room while his apartment was being renovated. Alex—his best friend since middle school, the guy I’d secretly crushed on for years.
Muscular, charming, always with that cocky half-smile that made my stomach flip. And now he was sleeping just down the hall.
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to get myself back to sleep, but my mind had other plans. The dream pulled me under like warm honey, slow
