OFFSIDE
'Since when did so much hate become affection, no, NEED'
Callum Reyes has spent his entire life earning his place. A scholarship wide receiver at Crestfield University — one of the most elite football programs in the country — he knows exactly what he is to the people here: a charity case with fast legs and a GPA they didn't expect. He keeps his head down, his grades up, and his heart locked behind something no one has ever bothered to pick.
Then there's Jaxon Whitfield.
Quarterback. Team captain. Golden boy of Crestfield's football dynasty. Jaxon is everything Callum isn't — legacy money, a famous last name, and a jaw that could cut glass. He's also, by every measurable standard, the most infuriating human being Callum has ever been forced to share oxygen with.
From the first day Callum stepped onto that field, Jaxon decided he was a problem. Too fast. Too good. Too'there.' He rides Callum harder than any other player, gets under his skin in ways that shouldn't be possible, and looks at him with those dark green eyes like Callum is something he can't figure out — and hates himself for trying.
But when a career-threatening injury, a locker room secret, a rivalry that's starting to feel like something else entirely, and one night neither of them planned for collide — Callum and Jaxon have to reckon with something they were never supposed to feel.
'Offside' is a slow-burn, enemies-to-lovers MM sports romance about two young men learning that the person who makes your blood boil might just be the person setting you on fire. It's about class and legacy, found family and loneliness, the weight of expectation, and what happens when the one person you want to hate is the only one who actually'sees' you.
Baca
Chapter: What Marcus Is HidingPOV: CallumThe clinic was twelve minutes away by car, which gave me exactly enough time to call Marcus twice, get no answer either time, and arrive with my hands not quite steady on the wheel.I found him in the third row of waiting room chairs, leg stretched out in front of him at an angle that looked careful in a way that had nothing to do with comfort. His jaw was tight. He had his phone in his hand but wasn't looking at it, just holding it, the way you hold something when you need your hands occupied and don't actually care what they're occupied with.He looked up when I came through the door."I told you not to freak out.""I'm not freaking out.""You drove here going at least forty in a twenty five zone, I can see it on your face."I sat down in the chair next to him. I did not point out that he was right about the speed limit. "What's going on, Marcus."He opened his mouth. Closed it. Before he could answer, a door opened down the hallway and a nurse called his name, and whate
Terakhir Diperbarui: 2026-06-30
Chapter: Marcus KnowsPOV: CallumMarcus was already in the kitchen when I came out of my room, which was unusual enough that I noticed it before I noticed anything else.He had the pan going. Eggs, from the smell of it, and the particular burnt-sugar smell that meant he was also doing his attempt at french toast, which always came out slightly wrong in a way he refused to acknowledge no matter how many times I pointed it out."You're up early," I said."I'm always up early.""You're never up early."He flipped something in the pan with more confidence than the result deserved. "I am a man of mystery, Cal. Full of surprises."I got the orange juice out of the fridge and two glasses down from the cabinet and did not point out that I had lived with this man of mystery for two years and knew his sleep schedule better than my own. I set the glasses down. I watched him move around the kitchen with the easy, loud confidence that had made him impossible not to like from the very first week of freshman year, when
Terakhir Diperbarui: 2026-06-30
Chapter: The Weight Room At MidnightPOV: JaxonThe weight room at midnight is the only place on this campus where I am not performing.Everywhere else I am something. On the field I am the quarterback, the Whitfield name, the legacy, the thing this entire program is quietly betting its season on. In the dining hall I am a conversation people want to have whether I want to have it or not. In my own apartment I am still somehow my father's son, even when he is four hundred miles away, even when the only thing connecting us is a key he gave himself permission to keep.Here, at midnight, with the lights down to the half setting and the only sound the low hum of the ventilation and the occasional clank of a plate finding its rack, I am just a body doing work.I like the work.I have always liked the work more than I like talking about the work, which is something my father has never understood and never tried to.I loaded the bar. Stripped it down. Loaded it again differently. I have a routine I do not deviate from, not beca
Terakhir Diperbarui: 2026-06-30
Chapter: Second StringPOV: CallumI didn't sleep.Not really. I did that thing where my body went horizontal and my eyes closed and the room got dark but my brain kept the lights on and ran the same loop on repeat until my alarm went off at five forty-five and I sat up feeling like I had spent the night doing something strenuous.The text sat on my phone screen where I had left it.I had not responded. I did not know who sent it. What I knew was that someone in this program thought I deserved a warning, which meant someone in this program believed the warning was necessary, which meant Jaxon Whitfield had said something specific enough in front of the wrong person that it had traveled from Coach Dara's office to an unknown number to my phone in under twenty four hours.You don't try to bench someone you barely know unless it's personal.That was the part I kept circling back to at two in the morning. At three. At four fifteen when the apartment was so quiet I could hear the refrigerator running from my bed
Terakhir Diperbarui: 2026-06-30
Chapter: First lookPOV: CallumThe fluorescent lights in Room 114 of the Crestfield Athletic Administration Building had been flickering for what felt like the entire summer.I noticed it the second I sat down. That small, stuttering buzz above my head. Like the building itself was tired.I kept my eyes forward anyway.There were fourteen of us in the room. Scholarship athletes. Returning ones mostly, with a few freshmen in the back row who still had that look about them. That wide, careful look of kids who had just realized the thing they worked their whole lives for was actually real and were terrified of doing something to make it not real anymore.I remembered being that kid.I wasn't anymore.I uncapped my pen and signed where Dr. Vasquez pointed. Financial aid renewal confirmation. Academic standing verification. Athletic scholarship continuation agreement. Each form said the same thing in different language.You are here because we allow it. Stay in line and we will keep allowing it.I signed. I
Terakhir Diperbarui: 2026-06-30
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