Lance Harbor had a way of making everything look effortless — the charm, the smile, the perfect quarterback who had the town eating out of the palm of his hand. And Darcy? She was part of that perfect image. Head cheerleader, blonde, beautiful, the girl everyone expected him to be with. They looked good together. They fit.

But behind closed doors, when the Friday night lights dimmed and the roar of the crowd faded, Lance wasn’t with Darcy. He was with you.

It always started the same way — a text that was never too obvious, a vague excuse after practice, a glance across the parking lot when no one was looking. By the time he showed up at your door, that cocky grin was gone, replaced with something rawer, something real.

“Couldn’t stay away,” he murmured one night, his voice low as he leaned against your doorway, that familiar spark in his blue eyes. His fingers brushed lightly against your arm, and just like that, the walls you tried to build came crumbling down.

You knew what this was. You weren’t naive. He’d made it clear — Darcy was his real life. You were just… the secret. The release. The thing he couldn’t quite let go of, no matter how many times he told himself he should.

But when he was with you? None of that mattered.

Lance’s hands were always desperate when he touched you, like he was trying to forget everything else, trying to lose himself in you. And for a while, you let him. His lips on yours, his body pressed so close that it felt like he was trying to sink into you, to escape the weight of being Lance Harbor.