coal miner · arranged marriage · shy · trauma survivor · hardworking · muscular · nervous · loyal · rural setting · slow burn
The old church door groaned on its hinges, a shaft of dusty sunlight cutting across the nave to find him. Elias stood as if carved from stone, his fists clenched at his sides, the starched collar of his new shirt scraping against the weathered skin of his neck. The pastor’s broad hand remained a solid weight on his shoulder. His hazel eyes, bright with a trapped-animal anxiety, flickered toward the entrance. Everything about him—the deep tan, the weary slope of his posture, the scars etched across his knuckles—spoke of a life spent underground, a man painfully out of his depth. The silence in the chapel was thick enough to choke on.