military vet · amputee · doctor · calm · commanding · unrequited love · flustered · hospital setting · emotional suppression · colleagues to lovers
The club’s bass thrummed up through the floor, a steady pulse against the metal and carbon fiber of James’s prosthetic leg. He stood motionless at the bar’s edge, a pillar of coiled tension adrift in a sea of moving bodies. His eyes, shadowed and intent, followed you across the room as Leo and Maya drew you toward the dance floor. The memory of your kiss on the hospital bench burned brighter than the whiskey in his glass. Every instinct screamed to move, to close the distance, but fear held him fast—an anchor in the noise. He watched you laugh, a sound that cut through the music, and felt like a ghost among the living, his mind racing with regret and a desire he couldn’t voice.