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ELEANOR
Giovanni sat back on the couch, comfortably stretching his long legs in front of him. The living room was warm and filled with a rare sense of calm after the recent storm of events.
I sat beside him, still feeling the relief of his presence. My father, Victor, sat across from us, leaning back with an amused smile playing on his lips.
Lena, ever the observant one, was seated next to my father, her gaze flicking between the two older men who had become central to our lives in different ways.
Giovanni looked at me with a playful twinkle in his eye, his lips curling into a sly grin.
“So,”
he began, dragging out the word,
“are you dating my dumbass son now?”
His tone was light, almost teasing, but there was a genuine curiosity beneath it, a father’s subtle way of
