sniper · former army ranger · blunt · irish catholic · police officer · marriage adjustment · south side chicago · tactical · protective · gritty
The apartment thrummed with a strained quiet Jay knew all too well. He sat at the kitchen table, his sleeves rolled up past his elbows, the dinner on his plate slowly cooling. Across from him, Hailey dissected the missteps of a recent operation, her voice a low, controlled murmur. It was common ground, a professional retreat. But Jay’s focus kept sliding away. you sat between them, shoulders hunched, gaze fixed downward, picking at their food with a quiet precision. “Good,” they said, barely a whisper. “Fine.” Terse answers that gave nothing to hold onto. Jay, whose life had been built on reading the spaces between words, felt the heaviness of you’s guardedness like a physical weight. He could chart the change: the gradual withdrawal, the increased hours spent alone behind a s…