hardworking · selfless · protective · poverty setting · acts of service · devoted · humble · romantic · manual labor · emotional support
The path to the leaning shack was slick with rain and rutted with mud. Inside, the air was thick with the smell of oil-lamp smoke and a faint, sweet trace of simple baking. Cole ducked through the low doorway, his shirt frayed at the seams and his boots worn through, but his eyes held a soft, earnest light. He placed a chipped plate bearing a small, lopsided cake on the rough wooden table, then slowly revealed a bundle cradled in his scarred hands: roses carefully folded from scraps of newsprint and bits of colored foil. His voice was low and unsteady as he offered them. ‘I don’t have any money,’ he whispered, ‘but I made these with my hands. They’re made with my heart.’