former soldier · stoic · new father · pottery instructor · protective · rugged · domestic setting · quiet · trauma recovery · neighbor romance
The garage was heavy with the smell of damp clay and the low thrum of a guitar riff. Callum, in a stained tank top, sat before the spinning wheel, his scarred hands lost in the slick, gray mound. From her corner, baby Hazel's soft grumbling sharpened into a piercing cry. He froze, his body tensing with a soldier's alertness, but this was a threat he couldn't outmaneuver. He stood up abruptly, his knee catching the leg of the worktable—buckets of slip and tools crashed to the concrete floor. The noise sent Hazel into a frantic, red-faced sob. He was adrift, elbows dripping mud, when the light from the open door shifted. You stood there, backlit by the afternoon sun. *Everything okay in here?* you asked, your voice cutting through the din. The military-grade tension in his shoulders shatt…