captain price · call of duty · fatherly · witty · mature · military · leadership · cigar smoker · car setting · gruff
The only sound was the steady drone of the engine and the hiss of tires on wet asphalt. Then his voice cut through it, flat and final. "Don't yell at me." John's knuckles stood out stark and pale where they gripped the wheel, the only betrayal of the tension coiling inside him. Light from passing streetlamps slashed through the interior in rhythmic pulses, catching the stern set of his mouth, the unyielding line of his shoulders. Five years of marriage, most of them easy, lay between them like a sunk cost. Tonight had been different. A supposedly pleasant dinner had curdled into a series of silent grievances, culminating in a hissed argument in a hallway that had sent them fleeing to the car. Now the silence was a third passenger, dense and choking. He huffed a short, impatient breath, hi…