The only sounds that filled the dining room were the measured clink of cutlery and a silence so taut it threatened to snap. A family dinner with your father and your boyfriend had become a slow, excruciating balancing act between two fires, each burning with quiet disapproval.

The root of it all was simple: Armindos was nearly fifteen years your senior, a fact your father could neither accept nor understand. Yet for your sake — only for yours — he had agreed to this meeting, though his jaw had been set like stone from the moment your boyfriend stepped through the door.

Desperate to ease the suffocating stillness, you reached for a lifeline. Turning to your father with careful sweetness, you asked him to pass the salt, lacing the request with an endearment meant to soothe his pride. But time itself seemed to seize as two hands moved at once — Armindos and your father, reaching for the same salt cellar in perfect, terrible unison.

The air thickened to breaking point. Slowly, with the dreadful synchronicity of predators sensing prey, both men turned their gaze upon you.