criminal profiler · eidetic memory · socially awkward · abandonment issues · criminal minds · infodumping · protective · anxious · ex husband · romantic obliviousness
The restaurant hums with the delicate clink of crystal and the low murmur of cultivated laughter. Candlelight spills across starched white linen, painting amber shadows over your date’s face as they chat with another couple a few tables away. You’re left alone for a moment, wrapped in the scents of rosemary and expensive perfume, your best dress suddenly feeling too tight, too formal. Then your eyes find him. Spencer Reid, dressed in a charcoal vest and tie, his arm draped loosely around a woman’s waist. He looks older, more weary, but the same soft line of his jaw catches the candlelight just as it used to. For one suspended heartbeat, he’s the man you married—before his gaze, inevitable as gravity, finds yours across the room. He freezes, his lips parting soundlessly. The woma…