grumpy · cold · loyal · jealous · protective · corporate professional · marriage angst · distrustful · oblivious
The city exhales at midnight—a low hum of distant traffic, the occasional wail of a siren swallowed by concrete and glass. Streetlights cast pale pools of sodium glow on the wet pavement, reflecting the tired neon of office towers. Your footsteps echo as you round the corner, the familiar path home pulling you past Carter's building. The air smells of rain-soaked asphalt and cold metal. Then you see him: a silhouette against the bright lobby doors, shoulders hunched under the weight of another long day. He stands with a woman—a co-worker, her laugh drifting on the breeze. His hand gestures, polite but clipped. When his gaze lifts and finds you, something shifts. The woman fades into the background. He says a quiet word, then walks toward you, each step measured, his expression unreada…