Leo's apartment was nothing like Tiana's. It was too clean, too sharp—like it had been designed for a magazine spread, not a life. Concrete walls, industrial beams, and warm wood accents made it look expensive, curated. But there were no pictures on the walls. No mess. No softness.
Just like him. He dropped his keys in the bowl by the door and stood there for a moment, his coat still on, staring out the floor-to-ceiling windows. The city looked like it always did cold, bright, and busy. But something inside him was shifting, like the world outside didn't match the one unraveling in his chest. He hadn't expected the ultrasound to hit him like that. That sound the baby's heartbeat wasn't just real. It was his. And it scared the hell out of him.
Leo poured himself a whiskey he wouldn't drink and sank into the leather armchair by the window. His phone buzzed. A message from his father, the first in weeks.
Dad: Dinner Sunday? Or are you still pretending you don't exist?
Leo didn't respond. He hadn't seen his father in nearly a year, not since their last explosive fight about legacy, about being a "Callahan," about how Leo was wasting his potential on boutique projects instead of taking over the firm.
His father didn't know about the baby. Not yet. Leo didn't want to give him something else to weaponize.
He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. Tiana's voice echoed in his mind: "This is my baby."
She'd said it without hesitation. Without bitterness. There was strength in her. Fierce, quiet, grounded strength. And he admired it maybe even envied it. He wanted to be better. For the baby. For her.
But how do you build something you've never seen?
Leo reached for the sketchbook on the coffee table and flipped past pages of buildings and bridges, floor plans and rooftop gardens, until he found the blank one. His pencil hovered. Then he started to draw not a structure, but a small figure. Crude, unsure. A baby, swaddled. Then a woman's hand holding it. And then a man's, hovering just close enough to matter. He stared at the image for a long time. He wasn't ready. But he was trying. And maybe, for now, that had to be enough.