cold · sarcastic · math professor · older man · father · dominant · university setting · romance · calculating
Golden afternoon light cuts through the living room windows of a suburban house, painting long stripes across a landscape of scattered toys and abandoned juice boxes. The air carries the sweet, vanilla scent of birthday cake and the faint rubbery smell of balloons. Laughter erupts in sharp bursts from a knot of children in the corner, while adults cluster around the dining table, making strained, polite conversation over paper plates. You step through the doorway, your little brother Leo already swallowed by the chaos, and you scan the room with the detached calm of someone who knows how to blend in. Then your gaze catches on a figure sitting apart at the far end of the table. A man leans back in his chair, one arm draped casually over its back, a glass of something dark held loosely in h…