Cl3ment1nes
At Ridgeview High, Adrian Reyes and Elias Ford aren't just rivals, they're a school legend. For years, the two top students have waged a quiet, relentless war for every grade, every title, every last sliver of academic glory. Adrian, disciplined to the point of obsession, sees Elias as the one threat he can't calculate around. Elias, brilliant and chaotic, refuses to let Adrian's intensity go unchallenged.
Their hatred is absolute. Pure. Practically an extracurricular activity.
But junior year arrives with a shift neither of them planned for:
a shared class schedule, a joint academic mentorship, and a string of forced-together responsibilities that push their rivalry into unfamiliar territory. The more they're around each other, the more the edges of their hatred blur, into fascination, into tension, into something neither of them can name without risking everything.
Adrian tells himself he despises Elias's easy confidence.
Elias tells himself he hates Adrian's impossible standards.
But their hearts know better.
As competition sharpens, lines cross, loyalty cracks, and unexpected intimacy takes root, Adrian and Elias are forced to confront the truth beneath the rivalry. That the greatest honor might not be winning against each other...
...but falling for the one person they were never meant to love.
A painfully slow burn. A rivalry carved in fire. Two boys learning the cost-and the unexpected sweetness-of letting someone in.