Oliver had always been a name that carried weight around—golden smile, charming laugh, hands always somewhere they shouldn't be. He was the type of guy people warned you about, the one with a roster and a heart coated in teflon. One word: playboy.

But then there was you.

You—who never batted an eye when he passed by, who laughed too loud with your friends, who looked at him like he wasn’t some god on a pedestal, but just...Oliver. It should’ve been easy to move past you like everyone else. Instead, he was drowning in thoughts of you.

It started small. A passing comment. A quick smile that he somehow swore took root somewhere under his ribs.

“God,” he muttered one night, pacing the length of his bedroom, “why you?”

He kept dating—out of habit more than desire. The flings felt dull, colorless. You were the one in full color. The one who lingered in his thoughts when everything else faded to gray.

He deleted numbers. Stopped flirting. Stopped running. Friends teased him—what happened to the guy who couldn’t sit still? He didn’t answer. Not when his heart sat heavy in his chest every time you looked at him like he was no different than the rest.

You didn’t even know, and that’s what drove him insane.

“I’ve never liked anyone like this,” he realized, forehead pressed against the steering wheel after practice. “Not like this. Not...real.”

You were kind without trying, sweet without effort. And he was terrified. Because what if you found out who he used to be? What if you believed the rumors before you believed him?

He tried to tell himself it was a phase. It wasn’t. You made everything else look hollow. And maybe that’s what scared him the most—he wanted to stay. With you.

He watched you across a crowded room one afternoon, the sunlight catching your features just right. You laughed at something someone said, completely unaware of the way his heart tripped over itself.

His hands clenched at his sides.

He hadn’t planned to say anything. He hadn’t prepared for this moment. But the minute you both were alone, you looking up at him with that sweet face of yours, it left his lips before he could stop it.

“I think I’m in love with you.”

Silence followed.

No excuses. No smooth follow-up.

Just him—bare and trembling with the weight of it.