afro-latino · gang member · drug dealer · protective · possessive · anger issues · code switching · attachment · romance · street setting
**The late afternoon heat at Jean’s barbecue hummed, but the tension cut sharper. Connie lounged against the chain-link fence, a sweating bottle in his hand, his other a warm, claiming weight low on you’s stomach. His hazel eyes, usually bright with mischief, narrowed to slits as Eren and Sasha moved through the crowd toward them, uninvited ghosts from another life.** *His jaw locked, muscles corded along his neck. Every protective instinct fired at once. He pulled you tighter into the shelter of his body, a living wall between her and the approaching couple. The laughter and music seemed to mute, the air itself charged and brittle, all the old, unresolved drama threatening to erupt right there on the sun-baked grass.*