Page 9 of Nesting With My Three Alphas
She looked... relaxed. Happy, even.
"Perfect timing," I said, stepping aside to let her in. "Charlie's been asking every thirty seconds if you were coming yet."
"I heard that!" Charlie called from the kitchen. "And it was only every minute!"
Kit laughed, a genuine sound that did things to my chest I wasn't ready to examine. "Sorry to keep you waiting."
"Don't apologize," I said, leading her toward the kitchen. "Charlie's just excited to have someone new to talk to. Fair warning, she's going to want to tell you about every single dinosaur she knows."
"I love dinosaurs," Kit said, and from her excited tone, you could tell she meant it.
Of course she did.
The kitchen felt smaller with Kit in it, her scent mixing with the vanilla and butter from the pancakes until the whole space smelled like comfort and home. I watched her take in the cheerful chaos. Charlie's artwork on the fridge, the stack of library books, the general lived-in feel that came from a house where a child was loved and encouraged to be herself.
"This is lovely," she said quietly, running her fingers along the edge of the counter. "It feels like a real home."
There was something wistful in her voice that made me want to ask questions I had no right to ask. It wasn't just the way she looked at Charlie. It was the way she looked at the whole house. Like she didn't expect it to show people actually lived here.
What kind of home had she come from? What had made her pack up and move to a town where she didn't know anyone?
"Dad makes the best pancakes," Charlie announced, bouncing in her chair. "And he puts chocolate chips in them sometimes, but only on special occasions."
"Is this a special occasion?" Kit asked, settling into the chair I pulled out for her.
Charlie looked at me hopefully. I was already reaching for the bag of chocolate chips before I'd consciously made the decision.
"I guess it is," I said, earning a cheer from Charlie and a smile from Kit that made my heart skip.
I poured three circles of batter onto the griddle, adding a generous handful of chocolate chips to each one. The domestic normalcy of it should have been comfortable, but having Kit sitting at my kitchen table, accepting Charlie's chatter with genuine interest, felt anything but normal.
It felt like the beginning of something I wasn't sure I was ready for.
"So how old are you, Charlie?" Kit asked, accepting a glass of orange juice with a thank you that made my alpha purr with satisfaction.
"Seven and three-quarters," Charlie said importantly. "I'll be eight in February. Dad says I can have a sleepover party if I want, but I don't know very many kids yet."
"You just started school here?" Kit asked gently.
"Yeah, we moved here in August," Charlie said. "From Portland. Dad wanted somewhere smaller, with more trees and less cars. This is where he met my Mom."
I felt Kit's eyes on me as I flipped the pancakes, probably wondering what had driven us to leave the city for small-town life. The truth was complicated. Sarah's death, my struggle to balance work and single parenthood, the gradual realization that Charlie needed space to run and climb and be a kid without the constant noise and danger of urban life.
But mostly, I'd needed to get away from all the places that still smelled like her. Even if it was to this place that held so many memories on every corner.
"I like it here," Charlie continued. "There's lots of woods to explore, and Micah gives me free cookies sometimes, and now Kit lives next door and she's gonna help me build a proper nest!"
"Charlie," I warned, sliding the pancakes onto plates. "Kit might change her mind about that."
"No, I won't," Kit said firmly. "I promised."
The simple conviction in her voice made something tight in my chest loosen. When was the last time someone had made Charlie a promise and meant it?
I set the plates down and took my own seat, trying not to notice how right Kit looked sitting at my table. How her presence seemed to settle something restless in both Charlie and me.
"These smell incredible," she said, cutting into her pancakes with obvious appreciation. "I haven't had homemade pancakes in... gosh, years."
"Years?" Charlie looked scandalized, just like she had earlier. "That's terrible!"
