Lover || John Tucker ⁹

Raina Di Laurentis only met John Tucker once before he became part of her life forever.

It happened the summer before her brother Dean started at Briar University. John showed up at the Di Laurentis house with a hockey bag slung over his shoulder and an easy smile that immediately irritated Raina for reasons she couldn't explain. He spent the entire afternoon trading jokes with Dean, stealing food from the kitchen, and acting like he already belonged there. Raina barely spoke to him, but somehow she still remembered the exact way he grinned at her before leaving.

Years later, John Tucker is no longer just Dean's teammate. He's his best friend. Practically family. Which means he's everywhere. Team dinners, apartment hangouts, holidays at the Di Laurentis house. And every single time Raina comes home, John somehow looks at her a little differently than he used to.

The problem is Dean would lose his mind if either of them crossed that line.

So Raina and John settle into a dangerous routine of lingering eye contact, sarcastic teasing, and pretending there isn't something simmering beneath every interaction. But the older Raina gets, the harder it becomes for John to remember she's supposed to be off-limits. And the more time they spend together, the more impossible it becomes to ignore the truth neither of them wants to admit:

Somewhere along the way, John Tucker became the person Raina can't stop thinking about.