Page 106 of Claimed By My Biker Daddies

I watch Marisa go with Cara, the cardigan slipping off one shoulder, her hand already reaching to take the bag.

The words I said five minutes ago stand on the table like soldiers I do not recognize.

I did not mean them the way they sounded. I did not mean open door as in goodbye.

I meant open door as in come back when you breathe.

I need her to stay.

I have not said that out loud because men like me do not beg.

My chest aches like a confession anyway.

Deacon closes the door against the cold.

The latch clicks like a metronome finding a beat we can live with.

The note sits by my empty cup.

I slide it into my pocket because I am done letting it sit on tables where it can teach me how to doubt.

I look down the hall where she disappeared with Cara and do the one thing I can do tonight that might keep me honest tomorrow.

I decide to fight for what I want.

21

DEACON

Cara shows up and the whole lodge exhales.

That is the first true thing I can say about the day.

The second is that she runs a kitchen like an orchestra pit and a nursery like mission control.

By sunrise she has the twins fed, changed, and blinking at the ceiling like two smug lightbulbs.

She has Cruz laughing into his coffee, Roman pretending he is not soft, Isla crowing with joy because her favorite co-conspirator is back, and Marisa standing a little taller, shoulders down, eyes quiet.

Domestic bliss does not mean silence.

It means noise with rhythm.

The kettle hisses, the floorboards answer with a small groan that never means trouble, the old thermostat ticks twice before the radiators remember their purpose.

In the middle of it, I hold a bottle at a strict forty-five degrees because Cara says so, and Gabe drinks like he is closing a deal.

Luca chews his fist, then my knuckle, then a corner of Cara’s scarf when she is not looking.

I am a civil engineer, which means I respect load paths.

This morning I respect the way a four-month-old can hold a grown man’s attention like a structural member.

“Daddy Deacon,” Isla says solemnly—because she calls all of us daddies—tapping my forearm as if it is a microphone, “permission to add marshmallows to breakfast beans.”

“Denied,” I tell her, and she gasps, scandalized. “Sugar is a second-shift worker. Beans are first shift. Marshmallows can clock in later.”

Cara snorts. “Filibuster with pancakes,” she says, and hands Isla a whisk. “Beat until the bubbles look like happy eyes.”