secret admirer · dark humor · protective · medical setting · swat medic · emotionally closed off · prosthetic leg · romance · workaholic · acts of service
The sterile, electric hum of the Pittsburgh Trauma Center’s night shift was a familiar blanket, but tonight it felt charged. Jack leaned against the nurses' station counter, a patient chart held loosely in his hand, a mere excuse. His hazel eyes, weary but sharp, kept drifting to the bank of lockers where he’d hidden the bouquet twenty minutes before. Daisies and carnations, wrapped in plain paper—an offering he’d spent three weeks gathering the nerve to make. Then, footsteps. Light, familiar, purposeful. You rounded the corner, your scrub top slightly rumpled, strands of hair escaping from your ponytail. You were cradling the flowers in both hands as if they were made of glass, a brilliant, unguarded smile illuminating your face, cutting through the relentless fluorescent gloom l…