A/N: Hey, guys! I'm so glad someone liked the concept of this story. This chapter characterizes Leo a little bit, so it's centered around him. The next chapter, which I hope to get up really soon, is going to have Leo going to Empire for the first time. It shouldn't be too long before he meets Lucious and his brothers, either. Enjoy!

It'd been almost fifteen years of Leo trying—and failing—to convince people that he had a mother; and perhaps ten years of Leo getting picked on by everybody he knew for saying that she was Lucious Lyon's wife. Technically speaking, however, she wasn't: he'd married the mulatto woman he'd left Cookie for in the first place. Still, nobody ever believed Leo.

But that was all going to end today.

His father had left that morning, after he'd dropped Leo off at school. Steven had said he would call, but Leo really wasn't in the mood to hear it. He would be spending his birthday with a mother he hadn't seen in ten years. If Leo was soft, he'd say it felt like betrayal—he and Steven were always together for their birthdays because they were all each other had. And now, Cookie Lyon was trying to squirm her way into their lives.

Leo almost wished he hadn't asked to visit her.

Almost.

His boys skipped school to see him off that morning. It sucked that everyone wouldn't see him ride off with the Cookie Lyon, but at least his friends would be there to witness it. Honestly, Leo knew they were hoping that she wouldn't show or something, so that they could clown him to the whole school. But he didn't care. She was going to show up, and everybody would have to leave him alone about it.

"I don't think she's comin', cuz." Anthony was a senior—had been a senior two times in a row now. He looked it, too. He was lanky, and his legs were so long that he towered over just about everybody he met. His arms and legs were covered in tattoos, but they were barely visible under his uniform—the principal made him wear long sleeves and pants whenever it wouldn't kill him. Everyone around school, even the teachers, called him a "grown ass man."

"Shut up with your country ass, Ant." Leo sucked his teeth and checked his watch. 10:03 AM. She was only three minutes late. "She might be stuck in traffic or something."

"Yeah, or you wasting our time and she not coming," Leo's other friend, Yoke, teased. Yoke wasn't Yoke's real name, but no one knew his real name, not even his uncle, who was his guardian. Apparently, he'd liked eggs a lot when he moved in with them at the age of four, and, ever since, he'd been Yoke—he claimed he knew how to spell the actual word, yolk, but Leo didn't believe him. Yoke was a sophomore. For all the hoodlum shit he did in his hood, he was a smart kid; he wasn't Einstein or anything, and he couldn't spell for shit. Still, he was good with numbers, and he'd won a few medals and even a trophy for STEM tournaments. Although Yoke was shorter than Ant, Yoke had more muscle, and he looked more menacing in the face. That might've just been the scar on his nose that he'd gotten in surgery years ago, though.

Yoke grabbed ahold of the suitcase that Leo had hugged against his leg and tried to yank it out of his grip. "Might as well give this to me, Leo, and get your ass back inside. You wasting my time."

"You could shut up too," Leo snapped, yanking the suitcase back to his side. "She's gonna be here." He slapped Yoke in the chest, they scuffled for a bit, and then Ant broke it up. All was normal—that's how things went between them. They were like Leo's brothers, not that Steven liked them all that much.

It didn't take more than five minutes for a car to pull up. The three boys stiffened up as soon as they realized who it belonged to. They weren't scared of him—that wasn't in their DNA. That didn't mean they liked to see him rolling around their hood for no good reason, though.

The car window slid down to reveal the two men in the front: Deion, the neighborhood dope boy who Ant had had a few run-ins with, and one of his little lackeys. They were gang affiliated—they had to be—but they never wore their colors, not around Leo and his boys, at least. Deion had been trying to get Leo away from Ant and Yoke since Leo had turned twelve and Deion was fourteen; he said they'd never get anywhere and that Leo was supposed to be somebody. Leo hadn't ever given in, and Deion hadn't ever given up. Steven hated seeing him around the neighborhood, but Leo was sure that he didn't know the extent of his interest in recruiting Leo.

Deion didn't look like too bad of a guy on the outside. He was always clean-shaven, and he always had a fresh cut. Every girl he met wanted something to do with him because they thought he was cute; it was getting to be that way for Leo, too.

Flashing a smile, Deion nodded at Leo—only Leo—and said, "Hey, Leo. I hear you're home alone for a while, and you're suspended. What's up with that?"

Leo looked at Ant and Yoke, on either side of him, and then he shrugged. "You know how it goes. Somebody gets flip at the mouth, and you've gotta handle it."

Deion and his friend cackled at that, and Leo felt Ant tense up on his side. He nudged Ant in the stomach.

That caught Deion's attention, and, all of a sudden, he was glaring at Ant. "You've got a problem or something, Anthony?"

The guy in the passenger seat reached into the backseat—there had to be at least one other guy back there—and sat something in his lap, so that only Ant could see it. Ant got angrier, but he unclenched his fists and looked away. "Ain't no problem," Ant grumbled.

Leo moved closer to Ant and looked into the car and, sure enough, there was a handgun sitting in the friend's lap.

"We won't hurt you, Leo," Deion said. He was trying to be all charming again, but Leo didn't trust him for a second.

"I know you won't," Leo said, certainly. He wasn't being overly confident—he just knew what he knew. And that was one more thing that Deion liked about him.

Deion laughed again, and he motioned for his friend in the passenger seat to take the gun and give it back to whoever he'd gotten it from.

"You cool, man. You're going to be at home alone?"

"Nah. My Momma's coming to get me."

"Right. Well, when that doesn't happen, we'll be here. Around 7—consider it a checkup." Deion drove off, with another devious smile tossed Leo's way.

"You gotta get out of here, man. Deion's going to get you into some mess," Yoke murmured, as soon as the car was out of their line of sight.

"How many times I gotta tell y'all? My Momma's coming."

"You'd better hope she comin', 'cause that's the only reason I ain't get Deion's lil' punk ass." Ant was more than a little pissed off, but Leo knew that was only because he felt embarrassed. If there was a scoreboard of any kind, Deion would be winning in their little feud.

Leo pretended that he didn't hear Ant. They waited for a few more minutes, and, just when Leo was ready to start getting angry, an expensive-looking car pulled onto the street, one they'd never seen before. Sure enough, it stopped at the curb in front of Leo and his boys. The chauffeur got out of the car—she was a pretty Asian woman—and came around to greet Leo.

"You must be Mister Holloway-Barker," she said, politely. She extended her hand, and Leo shook it. He wasn't paying attention to her, though. He was trying to look past her and into the car, but all he saw was the tint on the windows.

"Yeah, that's me," he said, dismissively. "Where's my Momma at?"

"Ms. Holloway has business to tend to."

"Of course she does," Ant chimed in. He sounded pretty annoyed.

Beside him, Yoke snorted. "You being serious, lady? How much did Leo pay you for this?"

"I didn't pay her shit." Leo raised his voice a little more than he'd have liked. He didn't ever want to seem like he was genuinely bothered by anything. "I'm not getting in a car with you, lady. I don't know you."

The woman didn't say anything, then. She just reached into her pocket and retrieved a phone, unlocked it, and handed it to him.

Ant and Yoke got closer to him so that they could see the screen. Facetime was open, and the three boys could see themselves in the tiny screen in the corner. It took whoever was on the other end a few moments to get adjusted, but then the screen was upright, and—.

"Oh, shit. That's really Cookie. That's really Cookie Lyon!" Yoke nudged Leo in the side. Leo just shrugged him off.

"Hey, Ma." He grinned, probably a bit more than he'd intended, but nobody was around to see.

"Hey, baby," Cookie answered, with a bright smile of her own. Leo knew she was still waiting to kick his ass for getting kicked out of school, though.

"What's up, Mrs. Lyon?" Ant crouched down so that his entire face was in the frame. He tried to take the phone from Leo, but he got hit in the side.

"Who's that, Leo?"

"These are my friends, Ma. Ant and Yoke." He turned the camera to each of them as he said their names. "Could they come with me? They wanna see the Empire, too."

"We do, Mrs. Lyon," Yoke repeated. Normally, he'd be way too excited for Leo's taste, but Leo was out of his element, too.

"It's Cookie, baby. Well, maybe one day. But, for now, your lil' friend Leo is grounded." The infamous Cookie tone crept into her voice, and she arched her brows onscreen. "And he knows that, so he needs to get his ass into that car and get down here before I send someone big and strong to get him for me."

"Damn, Momma. Aight. I'm coming." She hung up the call, and Leo handed the phone back to the chauffeur.

Leo turned to face his boys. "Y'all believe me now?" The chauffeur opened the back door, and Leo carelessly tossed his suitcase in.

"Could've been a Photoshop," teased Yoke.

"Leave him alone, Yoke. We friends with a celebrity," Ant said, regarding Leo with newfound interest.

"Oh, cut that shit out, man." Leo waved Ant's words away. "I ain't no celebrity. I'm not going Hollywood. I am the same old Leo. One week with Cookie Lyon ain't gonna change that."

Yoke and Ant shared a look of disbelief.

Ant shrugged. "You know, that's what they all say 'fore they make it big. Then they forget about you."

"I'm not even going there with y'all tonight. This my daddy's house, fellas. I'm not leaving my hood. I'm not leaving my people. So quit being little bitches about everything."

"I'll show you a bitch."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever, man."

The boys clapped each other up, and then Yoke all but pushed Leo into the backseat. The chauffeur went around to get into the driver's seat.

"Don't have too much fun without us, Hollywood."