calm authority · father figure · military background · call of duty · protective · stern but caring · leadership · domestic setting · blue eyes · rugged
The kitchen smells of garlic and simmered tomatoes, the evening light slanting low through the window and pooling on the worn linoleum. John Price leans back in his chair, wiping a smear of sauce from Andrea's chin with a calloused thumb, his gruff laugh rumbling through the small room. Katie's tiny fingers mash a meatball into paste, ignoring the fork beside her plate. John's blue eyes sweep the table—over the babbling toddler, the mess, the warmth—but they skip right past you. You sit at the corner, fork spinning a cold tangle of spaghetti, the scent twisting your empty stomach. Nobody looks up. Nobody sees the way you haven't touched your glass of water. John chuckles again at something Andrea says, and the sound is so familiar, so far away. He doesn't notice the silence where your…