“Kael loves them.” He gestures across the yard without looking. “See?”
I turn. Kael, my son, my storm-born boy with his dark hair and his father’s stubborn jaw, is standing three feet from the clown, bent double with laughter. The clown makes a balloon disappear, and Kael absolutely loses his mind, shrieking with delight, both small fists pressed to his cheeks. He is already covered in blue frosting. There is frosting on his ear, too, somehow.
“Okay,” I concede. “I guess you’re right.”
Alaric smiles, that rare full smile that still makes my stomach flip, and crouches down to Ellie. “Come here, little star.”
She releases my knee and lifts her arms immediately, because whatever grudge she had with the clown situation is apparently resolved now that Daddy has appeared. He swings her up and holds her above his head, her gold-glitter dress catching the afternoon light, and she shrieks with laughter.
“Look at this dress,” Alaric says, turning her so she catches the sun. “Your mother really outdid herself.”
“They were non-negotiable,” I say. “The glitter matched the whole theme of the party.”
Ryker is still swaying with Rose, who has calmed to quiet hiccups against his shoulder, his phone appearing in his free hand so he can film Kael attempting to help the clown with his next trick.
Across the yard, Rex is sitting cross-legged on the grass with three pack pups crawling over him like he’s a jungle gym. Rose had migrated to him earlier and apparently decided his red spiky hair was the most interesting thing she’d ever seen in her life. He’d let her pull it for twenty solid minutes without a single complaint, his green eyes bright and laughing as she tugged with her whole body weight.
John is at the snack table, deep in conversation with one of the other pack fathers, looking absolutely at home in the linen shirt he probably borrowed from one of the alphas. Somehow, in the past four years, he’s gone from sleeping on a secondhand couch and working odd jobs to running the resort’s marketing department half the year and living in a studio on the island the other half.
My mother finds me on the patio as I watch the sunset, while the party dies down.
She has Kael in her arms. He’s finally crashed, his dark head heavy on her shoulder, his fist still clutching a half-eaten cupcake. His mouth is covered with blue frosting. He looks utterly perfect.
“I count fourteen children and somehow only four balloons not attached to anything,” she says, sitting beside me.
I laugh softly, careful not to wake him. “We ordered a hundred balloons. I don’t know where the ninety-six went.”
She presses a kiss to Kael’s hair, her eyes soft. We sit in comfortable silence for a while, watching the yard slowly wind down— fathers corralling their pups, the clown packing up his kit, Rex finally persuading Rose that his hair could survive the evening without further assistance.
The guests begin filtering out not long after, full of cake and warmth. I stand by the door, trading hugs and telling pack pups they’re very welcome to come back any time. By the time the garden is just us and the remains of a party wildly beyond its occasion, the sun is properly starting to set.
“Goodbye! Thank you for coming and celebrating Kael’s birthday with us,” I say to the guests from Kael’s daycare and their parents.
My mother appears beside me with her purse over one shoulder and a very sleepy Kael still draped on the other, Ellie clutching her hand, Rose already reaching up to be carried.
“I’m taking them for the night,” she says, in a tone that makes it very clear this is not up for discussion. “I can watch them for one night. Have some time with your husbands. The bond is important.”
I open my mouth, and she fixes me with a look.
“Thank you,” I say instead.
I lean down and kiss Ellie’s cheek, then Rose’s, smoothing their curls back from their faces. “You are going to be good for Grandma,” I tell them seriously. “No tantrums. No pretending to be scared of the dark so you can sleep in her bed.”
Rose gives me an angelic look that fools absolutely nobody.
I press my lips to Kael’s forehead, careful not to wake him, breathing in his warm sugary smell for a long moment. “Happy birthday, baby boy,” I murmur against his hair.
I stand at the patio door and watch my mother carry my children down the path toward her little cottage at the edge of the beach, the girls’ glittery hems catching the last light. I watch until they disappear around the hedge.
Then I exhale, for what feels like the first time all day.
Later that night, my alphas had prepared a romantic dinner at the beach for us. They’ve strung hurricane lanterns all the way down the stone steps to the beach, so the whole path glows amber in the dusk, warm light pooling in each glass globe as the ocean breeze moves through them.
I stand on top of the stairs leading to the beach, surprised by how beautiful everything looks.
The resort’s head chef is working quietly at a portable kitchen set up just off to one side, the smell of something extraordinary drifting up on the warm air— garlic, butter, something rich and slow-cooked. The ocean stretches out beyond it all, the last blush of sunset still faint on the horizon.
“You did all of this,” I say.
