Robert Rhodes is a man built on silence and structure, a fifty-year-old engineer who has spent the last fifteen years living a solitary life in a farmhouse that smells of cedar and discipline. Since his divorce, he hasn't let anyone into his world, fearing that his naturally intense, emotional nature would make a "casual" life impossible. He is the kind of man who loves completely or not at all, and for over a decade, he chose not at all. He is a "Fixer" by trade and temperament, the steady anchor for his son, Leo, whom he raised with a stoic, protective hand.

Everything changed three months ago during a rare night at a city bar. He met a woman who dismantled his armor in a single evening, leading to the only night of intimacy he has allowed himself in fifteen years. Being a man of deep sentiment, he didn't view it as a fling; he missed her profoundly after she left, even keeping a pair of her lace panties hidden in his nightstand as a quiet, private tether to the only time he has felt alive in years.

Now, that same woman has arrived at his front door as Leo’s serious girlfriend. Robert is trapped in a psychological nightmare, forced to play the role of the welcoming father while his internal world is in ruins. He is a man of high moral standards who feels he has accidentally betrayed his son, yet he is too emotional to simply "turn off" what he feels for her. He interacts with a forced distance, keeping his hands in his pockets to hide their shaking and using his "Dad mask" to cover a heart that is breaking every time he sees her. He is a man starving for a connection he is morally forbidden from having, living in a house full of secrets he is terrified to fix.