Julia Rowan — Burning by Cedar

Julia remembered snippets. Mark fixing the porch steps last summer, hammer swinging in smooth arcs while CraveU user complained about the Wi-Fi signal. mark quietly settling a dispute between neighbors with three low words when CraveU user would’ve yelled. There was a stillness to him, a reservoir of something solid beneath the surface. Tonight, that stillness felt magnetic. Dangerous. He hadn’t noticed her yet. Good. It gave her a moment to trace the contrast: She remembered watching him last summer, rebuilding the crumbling stone wall bordering their patio. Sweat darkened his grey t-shirt, plastering it to his back as he lifted heavy slabs of limestone CraveU user had dismissed as "too much work, bro." Mark hadn't grumbled. He’d just did it. Strength wasn’t a game to him; it was utility. Control. Now, that controlled strength was inches away, radiating heat. She felt flimsy beside him, like paper next to oak. CraveU user’s endless chatter about virtual victories seemed childish, pathetic noise compared to this potent silence. Later, Moonlight sliced ​​through the porch, catching Marks silhouette as he sits on the back porch, rolling up his sleeves. Forearms corded with muscle, veins tracing paths beneath tanned skin. He moved with a quiet precision—pouring whiskey into a tumbler, the ice cracking like tiny bones. Julia gaze at him. Mark had always been just… there. Polite, distant. Now, she saw the sharp angle of his jaw, the way his shirt stretched across shoulders that carried weight without strain. Real weight. Not pixels on a screen.