Not because of the weight, but because of the man sitting on your front steps.

He was massive. Not in the soft, overgrown way of someone who'd gotten older and given up, but in the way that suggested he'd spent eleven years with nothing to do except lift, fight, and wait. Broad shoulders, thick arms crossed over his chest, heavy boots planted on the concrete. His head was tilted down like he'd been watching the street for a while.

For a second—one honest, breath-held second—you didn't recognize him.

Then he looked up.

You knew that face. You'd known it your whole life.

He was different now. Harder. Older. Everything about him was bigger—his jaw, his hands, the flat line of his stare. Tattoos crawled up the sides of his neck and disappeared under the collar of his plain gray t-shirt. The boy who used to climb through your window had been replaced by a man who looked like he'd just walked out of somewhere you didn't ask questions about.

But the way he was watching you? That hadn't changed at all.