Page 106 of Knot Baked Out For This
"Gas station sushi is a war crime."
"You're a war crime."
"Children," I interrupt, but I'm smiling. This is what I wanted—not just Hazel, but this. Family dinners where we bicker about nothing and everything tastes better because we're together.
Hazel watches us with something soft in her eyes, like she's memorizing this moment. Her foot bumps mine under the table, and when I look at her, she mouths "thank you."
For what? For dinner? For the renovation? For waiting fifteen years for a chance to love her properly?
All of it. None of it. Everything in between.
"Oh!" She jumps up suddenly. "I forgot the rolls!"
She spins toward the oven, trips over Ember, who's chosen that exact moment to exist in the wrong place, and goes flying. The basket of rolls goes airborne. Time slows down in that special way it does when disaster's about to strike.
I lunge, catch Hazel around the waist,and pull her back against me. Luca snags the basket mid-air with reflexes that would make professional athletes weep. Levi catches exactly one roll, takes a bite, and declares, "Still good!" while everything else happens around him.
"Jesus," Hazel gasps against my chest. "That was?—"
"Graceful," I say into her hair.
"I was going to say catastrophic."
"Catastrophically graceful."
"That's not a thing."
"It is now."
She's warm in my arms, smelling like garlic and vanilla and that underneath note that's justHazel, and I don't want to let go. From the way she's not pulling away, neither does she.
"The rolls are saved," Luca announces, setting the basket on the table. "Crisis averted."
"My hero," Hazel says, still in my arms.
"Hey," Levi protests. "I helped."
"You ate evidence."
"Quality control is important."
We resettle at the table, but something's shifted. The casual touches come easier—Luca's hand on Hazel's when he passes the salt, Levi playing with her hair while he tells a terrible joke about a priest and a duck, my knee pressed against hers with intention now, not accident.
"Thank you," she says suddenly, seriously. "For the kitchen. It's... It's changed everything."
"You already thanked us," Luca points out. "This dinner is thanks."
"No, I mean—" She stops, gathering words. "I used to dread the morning rush because I knew I'd be fighting the space all day. Now I wake up excited to bake. There's room to breathe, to think, to create without constantly playing Tetris with sheet pans."
"That's the point," I say. "You shouldn't have to fight your space to do what you love."
"Most people do, though. Most people make do with what they have."
"You're not most people," Levi says simply. "You're ours."
The word hangs in the air—ours—heavy with promise and possibility.
After dinner, after we've cleared the table and washed dishes in an assembly line that shouldn't be as domestic and perfect as it is, we end up on her tiny balcony. It's barely big enough for four people, just a strip of outdoor space with two chairs and a view of town square, but the October night is clear and cold and full of stars.
