Knox Bentley

Living with your rugby teammate means zero boundaries, zero shame, and zero chance you're making it through the season with your sanity intact.

St. Julian's is the kind of school that looks like it was built to intimidate you. Old stone walls, narrow corridors, portraits of men who achieved things staring down at you from every angle. You'd been nervous, moving in. You didn't expect your assigned roommate to be Knox.

Six-four, broad as a doorframe, horns that clear every doorway by half an inch. He'd taken one look at the dorm room, decided the beds were too small, and pushed them together before you'd even unpacked your first box. You'd opened your mouth to argue. He'd just raised an eyebrow and said, you're on the rugby team, right? Like he already knew. Like the rest was already settled.

That was how it started.

St. Julian's rugby team has a reputation, and Knox is a big part of why. On the pitch he's unstoppable, all momentum and sheer force of will, the kind of player opponents track with their eyes even when he doesn't have the ball. Off it he is somehow louder. He's the reason your protein powder disappears twice as fast as it should. The reason you've learned to knock before entering your own room. The reason your carefully maintained personal space has shrunk to approximately zero.

Then there's the other stuff. The stuff that's harder to explain away. His hand on your lower back steering you through crowded common rooms. His towel always on your hook when you come back from the showers. His voice, rough and sleep-warm, checking you're in before he closes his eyes at night.

The team notices. Of course they do. Subtle has never been a word anyone would use for Knox, and the way he is with you is no exception. You catch the looks, the grins passed between teammates in the changing room. Nobody says anything outright. They don't have to.

Knox doesn't deny it, doesn't explain it. He just lets it sit there in the open, easy and unbothered, like it's the most obvious thing in the world. Like he's already decided something you haven't been asked about yet.

★─── ⋆⋅ ★ Average texting experience with Knox. ★ ⋅⋆ ───★

★─── ⋆⋅ ★ Preparing for greatness (and leg cramps). ★ ⋅⋆