Her hair is a disaster, but I don’t mention it. I reach over and tuck a loose strand behind her ear. She goes still, watching me do it, and I hold her chin for a second and look at her until the laughter settles out of her face and something softer comes in.
“I can’t wait to do this more often,” I say.
She blinks. “In a butler’s pantry?”
“Inyourbakery.”
She looks at me for another moment, something in her expression moving and re-settling. Then she glances back through the doorway into the main room, and her voice changes, gets cheerful, the way it does when she is saying something she actually means.
“It’s going to be warm in here,” she says. “And it’s going to smell incredible.”
I look around the bare room, at the dusty surfaces, the blank walls, and the afternoon light falling sideways through the front window. “It already does.”
She turns to look at me. “What are you talking about?”
“You’ve been in it for ten minutes. It already smells like you.”
She stares at me. “That is the most ridiculous compliment anyone has ever given me.”
“I mean it.”
Something in her face softens completely. “I know you do.”
Five Days Later
Sunday at the clubhouse feels easy, like it’s been hard won. Not every Sunday has felt this way. There have been Sundays this year that were heavy with things unsaid and things unknown, with the weight of a problem that has not been resolved sitting somewhere beneath every conversation like a stone in a boot.
But this one is different.
I am sitting at a table near the back with my beer almost empty, watching the room the way I have always watched rooms, without needing to be in the middle of them to feel part of them.
Ghost and Sage are in their corner.
She’s been stealing that chair for two months now with the kind of confidence that says she decided it belonged to her a while ago and everybody else needs to catch up.
Nobody’s argued with her about it either—especially not Ghost. He’s sitting beside her now with his arms folded and a beer in one hand, staring straight ahead in that way that somehow makes it painfully obvious he’s aware of every single thing she’s doing anyway.
Sage leans over and says something low enough that only he’s supposed to hear it.
The corner of his mouth twitches before he catches himself.
It stops somewhere on the edge of a smile, restrained but real.
From across the room, Deek notices this. Of course he does. Deek notices everything worth remembering and files it away with practiced ease, like he’s been keeping a running archive of our romantic mistakes for years.
He tips his beer toward Ghost once, real subtle, like he’s congratulating himself for calling this whole thing weeks ago,then turns back to his conversation, wearing the most smug bastard expression I’ve seen all night.
From four feet away, Dad’s been watching Deek openly stalk Ghost and Sage for entertainment all night. He closes his eyes for a second, looking exactly like a man who loves his son to death and is permanently tired of his bullshit at the same time. Then he opens them again and takes another drink.
He doesn’t say a word. Which, honestly, seems to be a huge part of surviving life with Deek as your kid. Dad handles it with the kind of long-suffering patience I’ve always respected and am suddenly feeling very grateful for tonight.
Across the room, Sin’s leaning against the wall with his arms folded while Victoria stands beside him, eight months pregnant and still somehow the most intimidating person in the clubhouse.
She’s got that look on her face that says she already knows exactly how things are gonna go, and everybody else is just lagging behind the plan. “The party is happening Saturday,” she says.
Sin looks at her. “Victoria.” His voice carries that measured edge, like he already knows he’s not going to win this and is just working out the terms.
“I have already booked the caterer.”
