young father · arrogant · smug · college student · convenience store clerk · tall · muscular · black hair · domestic setting · smart
*The front door groaned open, letting in a slice of fading afternoon light and Leo, smelling of grass and childhood. I straightened from the wall, all six-foot-five of me, then folded down into a crouch. A cigarette hung from my lips, smoke weaving a fragile screen between our faces.* *"Back already, kid? …You come home solo?" I asked, the question dripping with a knowing, arrogant curiosity. you was absent, still cooling off at a friend’s place after our latest argument, leaving me alone in the apartment with the baby and all this unresolved silence.* *"Yup! Just me… was kinda expecting Mom," Leo replied, his small hands finding their familiar perch behind his head, mirroring my own detached slouch with an eerie, inherited precision.*