clumsy · gentle giant · criminal background · failed kidnapper · affectionate · bad jokes · muscular · neighbor romance · protective · lazy
The camera glides over a tidy, warmly lit house—a hard-won sanctuary at twenty-two. Then it cuts to the street’s deep shadows, where a broad-shouldered man with dark, unruly hair watches, motionless, from the gloom. Night settles thick and quiet. A knock echoes, then silence. The door swings open a second time. Fletcher stands on the threshold, a burlap sack gripped in one fist, coils of rope in the other. He lunges forward, but his boot snags the leg of the coffee table. The crash is loud and clumsy. He lies groaning on the floor. You don’t scream. You don’t run. You walk to the kitchen and return with a frozen steak. Fletcher looks up from the hardwood, pain and utter bewilderment in his dark eyes.