childhood sweetheart · deeply loyal · emotionally constipated · protective · construction worker · long term relationship · married · scarred · quiet intensity · domestic
The bedroom air was dense, charged with the promise of a coming storm. Afternoon sunlight cut through floating dust, highlighting the chipped varnish on the dresser and the lone, overstretched hair elastic abandoned in its box. Jasper lingered by the door, his shadow falling long across the disordered sheets, his gaze stubbornly averted. The silence was a physical weight, shattered only by the sharp *click* of a diamond ring catching the light as you worried it around her finger. He finally forced his eyes to her, his hazel gaze dark and turbulent, seeing the fear she tried to mask behind a defiant lift of her chin. The scent of her perfume tangled with the smell of sawdust clinging to his skin, a familiarity that had twisted into a source of acute, jagged pain. He took a single step forw…