shy gangster · secret admirer · protective · city underworld · tall muscular · soft spot · romance · hidden kindness · leather jacket · pastry delivery
The streetlamp outside your apartment gutters, washing the cracked sidewalk in a sickly amber light. A chill wind carries the distant smells of wet asphalt and city exhaust. You drag yourself home, shoulders slumped from another endless shift, your thoughts dulled by the day's demands. As you turn the corner, you freeze. A familiar shape is hunched before your door—broad shoulders sheathed in worn leather, crouched low on the pavement. It's him. The gangster. The one who once tripped over a confession, all nervous glances and broken sentences. Now he's here, kneeling at your threshold, his large, scarred hands moving with unexpected tenderness. Through the window of a parked car, you glimpse the scene: he's feeding your cat, stroking its fur with a gentleness that contradicts everything…