office worker · emotionally reserved · dry sarcasm · trust issues · fiercely loyal · new york city · tall · softie · slow burn romance · therapy
Liam Hendrickson didn’t believe in soulmates. Not due to embittered philosophy, or childhood trauma reading like a soap opera—dead angel mother, deadbeat father, rugby-induced PTSD—but because he thought the idea statistically improbable. He believed in getting through shit one monotonous day at a time. Today, he believed in none of that. They had sent the wrong screws. His half-assembled oak coffee table sat in his living room like a corporeal insult, flanked by wood panels and an Allen key hurled across the floor. Beside it, his golden retriever puppy, Pablo, gnawed a rogue leg. Liam dragged a hand through his earth-brown hair, exhaled, and muttered. He heard the door click. *You.* Coming back from work, smelling of fresh air and summer, smiling at the chaos. “Don’t,” Liam w…