Page 107 of Claimed By My Biker Daddies
Marisa leans on the counter, sleeves pushed up, hair twisted and pinned with a fork that looks like it burned bridges in a former life.
She smiles at the baby I am burping, then at Isla, then at the bowl of batter, and I catch something in her face that reads like relief wearing borrowed boots.
Roman catches it too and looks away, which is our president’s way of admitting he would rather guard a body than a feeling.
I stack plates.
Roman pulls espresso.
Cruz kisses the tops of two tiny heads like a man who understands sacraments.
I slide a small glass of cold brew from the back of the fridge and take a slow, guilty sip.
Roman’s left eye twitches.
Cara catches me and smiles like a cat who has found the cream.
“Breakfast,” she calls, and the house responds.
We eat pancakes with edges crisped in butter, beans with a bay leaf that did something holy while our backs were turned, strips of bacon that snap and then melt, orange slices that taste like sunlight even in December.
Marisa pours warm maple over Isla’s pancakes in the shape of a motorbike.
It looks like a hedgehog wearing goggles.
Isla declares it perfect.
Luca grins around a spoon with no food on it. Gabe frowns at gravity.
I drink my cold brew to spite Roman, then accept the espresso he slides my way because I am not a monster.
“Plan,” Cara says, wiping a bib with efficiency. “I will take morning shift with the boys and a nap, you all do your work and your worrying. After lunch we rotate. Tonight we sleep like serious people.”
“Bless you,” Marisa says, and means it.
There is a rule in my head that reads: when a house feels peaceful too early, put your boots on.
I kiss the tops of two small skulls, steal a pancake edge, and go find my jacket.
The sky has that pre-dawn steel, clouds lower than they should be, breath hanging in the air like a diagram.
The first birds stir in the pines, curious and unimpressed. I step out, tuck my gloves, and begin the perimeter.
I run the same line every time, not because I am a slave to habit, because habit makes it easy to see what changed.
Fence, gate, eastern line through the birches where the ground heaves in winter, past the old foundation stones from the distillery, across the yard to the sheds, around the barn, up to the orchard, back by the spring.
A figure eight drawn by a man who does not like surprises.
The snow took a light dusting in the night, not enough to hide tracks, enough to sketch them.
The first thirty yards are ours.
Heavy tread where Roman did the last pass, the smaller heel-toe print that belongs to Marisa’s boots when she stepped outside for air.
The dog tracks are Cleopatra, who believes herself a hen and follows Isla anywhere, dignity optional.
Then there is something new.
