“I’m sure we could have a pony,” I say as I pull two boxes down and turn to face the little girl who has me wrapped around her finger. “Lucky Charms, or Peanut Butter Captain Crunch?”
Tati giggles and points to the sailor. “Neato is gonna be crabby at you.”
“Oh well.” I shrug but we both laugh because she’s not wrong at all.
Niko is going to definitely becrabby at mewhen he sees how many pancakes I burned. And the two dozen scrambled eggs that were super crunchy and full of shells. And the biscuits we could stack up and use as load-bearing beams for the back deck. He’s going to hate the bacon that’s so fried it almost disintegrated, and he’s going to want to know how the hell I managed to destroy almost an entire three pound bag of mandarin oranges.
It’s kind of amazing I didn’t burn down the house, honestly. I’ve singlehandedly ruined almost all of the breakfast foods we had, including any I tried to make from scratch, and it’s going to annoy the hell out of my omega.
At least I tried.
Today is Tatiana’s first day of kindergarten and I wanted her to have a good breakfast before she left. I probably should have just made one of the boys cook for her, though. None of them would have botched scrambled eggs.
“Who made my lunch?” Tati asks as she watches me pour the milk over her cereal.
I snort and hand over a spoon. “Don’t worry, it wasn’t me.” She arches a brow, the expression one she inherited from her brothers, and it makes her look just like both of them when she whips it out. “Okay, you little turd, I did but then Leon fixed it.”
“Oh, that means I’m gonna have lots of cookies.”
Once again, she is not wrong.
The only reason her packed lunch sitting inside the brand newMy Little Ponylunchbox isn’t entirely made up of cookies and brownies, and everything else that will rot her teeth, is because I was supervising. I don’t doubt for one second that as soon as my back was turned, Leon tossed in a bunch of junk, though.
With a smile and sigh, I lean my hip against the counter and take a sip of coffee, watching Tati as she happily eats her breakfast.
I love how happy she is.
Especially since she has every right to be catatonic and miserable.
For a kid who was abandoned and sold to a sex trafficker by her mother, and had her father killed for trying to murder her big brothers, Tatiana is pretty fucking well adjusted, if you ask me.
“What about friends?”
I blink a few times then frown. “What do you mean, peanut?”
She shrugs as she looks down into her bowl, pushing the last few pieces of cereal around in the milk as she whispers, “I don’t have those.”
My heart cracks right down the fucking middle as I set down my mug and quickly round the island. “Tatiana.” I wrap her in my arms, hugging her tight as I press a kiss to the top of those almost jet black waves. “You’re going to make so many friends when you get to school. That’s part of why we’re having your party the weekend after you turn five. You’ll get to know all of the kids for a couple of weeks, then you can invite everyone in your class. It’ll be great.”
“Maybe,” she says softly as she rests her head over my heart. “Maybe they won’t like me.”
“Hey,” I say a little more firmly than I intended. “You are the coolest kid I have ever met. There is no way your classmates aren’t going to think the same thing. Besides, Benji is coming.”
I’m probably just as excited about that as Tati is. I haven’t seen Benji or his mama for a long time but when we started planning for the big birthday extravaganza, Niko suggested we invite them. He’s a little younger than Tati but they’ll get along just fine. Besides, what kid wouldn’t want to be at a party that’sprobably going to have a petting zoo? As soon as Tati mentions the pony to any of the men in this house, that’s exactly what will happen. That, and we’ll end up with that farm full of animals Styx claims he doesn’t want.
I’m excited Meghan accepted our invitation, though. She and Benji were such a big part of my time at Omega’s Haven, and being able to have a somewhat normal relationship with them now that we’re all living new lives is going to be great.
Hopefully.
I don’t really have any friends, either, and I’m almost positive I’m not going to be very good at making them, but I’m looking forward to trying my luck at it.
“And Sage.”
I nod as I hug my girl tighter. “Yep. She’ll be there.”
Sage and her crabby ass father.
As if my grumpy thoughts manifested them into existence, the doorbell camera chimes and I glance at the screen on the wall to see Sage bouncing around on the front porch while Ransom scowls into the lens.
