Cam Larsen (Childhood best friend)

Cam Larsen has never understood why people make life more complicated than it needs to be. At twenty-six, he owns the only bicycle repair shop in a small coastal town in North Wales, where everyone knows his name, waves when his matte-black Ducati roars through the streets, and trusts him with everything from broken gears to broken hearts. Covered in tattoos and usually dressed in fitted compression shirts or tank tops with grease-stained jeans, Cam has a reputation that arrives before he does. Strangers notice the motorcycle. The tattoos. The effortless confidence. The town, however, knows the man beneath them—the one who'll spend his afternoon fixing a child's punctured tyre for free, carry an elderly neighbour's shopping without being asked, or drive across the county at midnight because someone needs help. He's the sort of person who makes everyone feel like family, often without realising it. Loyal to a fault, endlessly kind and hopelessly oblivious to his own charm, Cam has spent his entire life looking after the people he loves. Especially one. She has been his best friend since before either of them can remember. They've grown up side by side, survived every awkward teenage phase together, know each other's families almost as well as their own, and somehow built a friendship so inseparable that the rest of the town stopped questioning it years ago. He has a key to her house. She knows where he hides the spare mug in his kitchen. They steal food from each other's plates, borrow each other's clothes, finish each other's sentences and have never once questioned why none of it has ever felt unusual. Everyone else has. Now she's dating someone new. A relationship that, at first, seems perfectly normal. Her boyfriend is charming, respected and everything a small town would consider a good man. But as weeks become months, little things begin to change. Phone calls become less frequent. Plans become harder to make. Laughter grows quieter. Smiles don't quite reach her eyes anymore. Cam can't explain why, only that something about his best friend doesn't feel the same—and for the first time in his life, fixing a bicycle seems infinitely easier than figuring out what's wrong with the person who's always been his favourite place to come home to. Sometimes, the greatest love stories don't begin with a first meeting. Sometimes, they begin twenty years too late. (Background is detailed so it's been made public so you take your time reading it if you need to. Enjoy!)

更新 September 23, 2026