Everyone knew Xariah Duren's name long before she ever stepped onto the sidelines at Ohio State. As the daughter of NBA superstar Jalen Duren and ESPN analyst Jamani Carr-Duren, Xariah grew up surrounded by cameras, headlines, sold-out arenas, and the kind of attention that turns ordinary moments into public conversation. To the world, she's another athlete's daughter born into privilege, beauty, and opportunity. But to Xariah, being a Duren has always felt bigger than just a last name. It's expectations. Pressure. Legacy. And the constant feeling that people are waiting to see whether she'll become her own person... or spend the rest of her life living in somebody else's spotlight. At nineteen years old, Ohio State becomes her opportunity to finally change that. Driven, ambitious, and impossible to ignore, Xariah quickly finds her place within one of the biggest football programs in the country as a rising sideline reporter and media personality. Confident in front of cameras and sharp enough to survive in a world built on image, pressure, and perception, she knows exactly how to navigate attention. Until Arvell Reese. Quiet. Guarded. The type of person who never says more than he has to. Where Xariah's life has always been loud, Arvell's has always been about survival, discipline, and keeping people at a distance. Focused entirely on football and carrying the weight of expectations far beyond himself, he has no interest in media attention, famous families, or becoming part of somebody else's storyline. But under stadium lights, everybody is performing something. And somewhere between football season, rivalry games, media pressure, family expectations, and trying to figure out who they are outside of what the world expects from them, Xariah and Arvell find themselves pulled into something neither of them planned for. Something complicated. Something consuming. Something that begins changing both of them before either realizes it's happening.

"I don't know this man, I don't know his friends, I don't know his type." No amount of love could replace the past. And they had a lot of that for one another-love that is. The two child hood friends had bonded early on, especially over their love of music. Where one lacked, one had. Mariah was the writer, Kentrell the performer. It's only until a high school talent show that Kentrell performs a song written by his beloved best friend, Mariah...that his career takes off. But it happens to take off without Mariah. And he had promised to take her. Promises were meant to be broken I suppose.

Legally, nothing about their relationship was wrong. Morally? That was a different story. She was eleven years older than him, his professor-and yet, she couldn't resist. Kamron, with his irresistible brown eyes, his honeyed voice laced with a hint of southern charm, and a smile that could stop you in your tracks, had her completely ensnared. Robin had seen the way he captivated everyone around him, and now, fate seemed to toy with her: the boy who embodied temptation living just beside her as her next door neighbor, his bedroom window staring straight into hers. Two forbidden hearts. One impossible desire. Window to window.

𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐘𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐒𝐄. banners + cover by @-laysdiary They had one rule. Don't involve the media. No pictures. No posting. No feelings. Kylan Westbrook just got drafted to the Miami Dolphins, rookie year going crazy, his name everywhere, life moving fast. Aja Tejada already had her own buzz, her own money, her own name. She wasn't impressed by athletes, and he wasn't looking for nothing serious. So it stayed what it was. Late nights. Quiet links. Nobody knowing nothing. Until he switched up. Texts slowed down. Calls stopped. Then he was just gone like it never even happened. Aja ain't chase him. Ain't post about him. Ain't say nothing. She just went quiet and kept working. New music, new look, baggy clothes, then she disappeared off the internet completely. When she came back, she didn't explain nothing. She just dropped a video. And at the end of it, her hand was on her stomach. Pregnant. The internet went crazy trying to figure out who the father was, whole time Kylan still living his life, doing interviews, playing games, not knowing he left more than just a situation behind. Until one night, they in the same room again. One question. Is it mine. And just like that, everything they kept quiet gets loud. Now the media watching, their teams in their ear, and the only way to control the story is to lie. Act like they been together. Act like they happy. Act like this was always the plan. Playing house for the cameras is easy. Doing it for real is where it gets complicated. 𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐘𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐒𝐄.

❝ It's just that he know what I want. ❞ ©𝐍𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐌𝐁𝐄𝐑 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟑.

peter parker x reader fanfic! tw: smut, sexual assault, death read intro for description!

Tony Stark x Reader| One-Shots *requests are open* Note:- I write Smut, Fluff & Angst Smut - 💦 Angst- 🖤 Fluff- 🥺 will give warnings in the beginning of the chapter✨