The Weight of an Hour
The bedroom was suspended in that fragile, gray stillness that only exists in the final hour before dawn. Outside, the mid-summer air was already heavy with the promise of a sweltering Independence Day, but inside, the world was reduced entirely to the cool cotton of the sheets and the slow, rhythmic cadence of their breathing.
Leo drifted awake first, his mind hazy but filled with a sudden, deep warmth. At twenty-five, there was a fierce, youthful intensity to ev