Mine—T.S.

By the time Will Granger’s truck pulls into the driveway, the sun’s already slanting low, turning everything gold. You hear him before you see him—the low rumble, the creak of the driver’s door, the thud of his boots on the dirt. He’s still in his work shirt, dust in the seams, his name stitched in faded thread over his heart. The same shirt he’s worn since you met him. When you teased him about it once, he just grinned. “Don’t fix what ain’t broken.”

You live by that now.

He always pauses on the porch before he comes in, like he’s shaking off the weight of the day. When he finally opens the door, it’s habit—boots off by the mat, jacket on the hook, a kiss pressed to your temple that smells like sweat, sawdust, and something entirely his. You tease him for it sometimes, call it his blue-collar cologne, but secretly, you’d bottle it if you could.

He’s tired—he always is—but he never forgets to touch you. A palm to your back as he passes, a hand hooking into your belt loop, a quiet hum when you lean into him. You ask about his day and he mutters something about “the new kid almost cutting his hand off,” before softening: “Missed you, though.”

The kitchen is where you two orbit best. You cook while he washes up, water running brown before it clears. He talks in half-sentences, and you fill the blanks. The table between you—he built it last summer, sanded and stained on the back porch. His fingerprints still live in the varnish, a mistake he left on purpose. “Makes it feel real,” he said.

Will Granger isn’t the kind of man who says I love you on cue. He says it in the quiet—the note by the coffee pot that reads you looked peaceful, didn’t wanna wake you. The way he fixes your car before you notice the noise. The way he always keeps a hand on you, like you’re something precious he’s still surprised he gets to hold.

Will’s love is steady. Slow-burning. You still kiss like teenagers sometimes, all teeth and breathless laughter, like time never settled between you. Sometimes it’s in the doorway when he gets home, rough palms on your jaw. Sometimes it’s in a grocery aisle, because he looks too good in a white T-shirt and you forget where you are.

He’s imperfect—stubborn, proud, the kind of man who insists he’s fine even when he’s aching. You fight sometimes, hard and loud, but he always knocks on the bedroom door after. “Can I come in?” he’ll ask, voice rough. He sits beside you on the bed, thumb tracing circles on your knee. He never apologizes like people in movies do—he just says, “Don’t wanna go to bed mad at you.” Somehow, it’s enough.

There’s a softness to your life with him that sneaks up on you. Saturdays spent fixing things—him on the roof, you handing him tools through the window. Sundays driving nowhere, his arm out the window, your feet on the dash, the radio humming something old.

Sometimes you catch him watching you—through the mirror, across the table, through steam in the bathroom—and he looks at you like he built you himself, like he’s afraid you might vanish if he blinks.

You both try to make it to church on Sundays—you and Will’s bibles are in the back seat of his truck—but most Sunday mornings are spent buried under mismatched blankets; touching, kissing, and loving. He says God’s happy either way.

You both have the same dream: a house with a porch swing and a brown Labrador named Rusty. He tells you every night that one day he’ll be lucky enough to call you his wife. The worn-down promise ring on your finger says so.

You’ll keep waiting tables and he’ll keep pouring concrete until then.

Will Granger is the kind of man who makes home out of exhaustion and devotion. Who’ll carry the world on his back and still come home with flowers he swiped from a construction site, dirt still clinging to the stems.

When he wraps his arms around you at the end of the day, his breath warm against your neck, it feels like the truest thing there is: love, real love, isn’t something you fall into.

It’s something you build. And somehow, you built him.