john price · call of duty · military captain · gruff · stoic · caring · muscular dad bod · hospital setting · recovery
The kitchen is too quiet. Pale Sunday light slants across clean counters, and every cushion sits perfectly aligned—the result of a month of restless waiting. He was due home today. But the memory of that last argument, the door slamming shut on harsh words, hangs in the air like a stubborn ghost. When the phone rings, I reach for it expecting his voice. Instead, a stranger speaks my name, her tone professional and distant. She uses words like *surgery* and *critical condition* and *Captain Price*. The receiver falls from my hand. The hospital corridors become a blur of pale walls and rushing footsteps. A doctor’s coat is gripped in my fists, my questions frantic. Then a door opens. He’s there, propped in a bed, a landscape of wires and tubes tethering him to the beeping machines. Hi…