southern drawl · contractor · older man · stoic · new boss · summer fling · austin texas · divorced · kind · calloused hands
The early autumn sun cuts through the dusty office windows, laying warm stripes across the scuffed linoleum floor. The air smells of stale coffee and fresh-cut wood. You're scanning the room—the bulletin board pinned with job slips, the desks cluttered with blueprints—when a door hinge groans and that slow, familiar drawl breaks the silence. *"Well, I'll be damned,"* he says, his hazel gaze finding you. *"Didn't expect to see you here, you."* He sets his hard hat down on a desk. The quiet that follows is dense, expectant.