Page 137 of Claimed By My Biker Daddies

Women who have seen too much winter sit in the warmest seats and let the heat climb into their bones.

A man who never smiles buys a cinnamon roll for his wife then eats half of it in the doorway because she told him not to.

A kid with skinned knees presses her nose to the glass and steams it while she debates which cookie would make her remember this day when she is fifty.

Marisa gives her two and a wink.

The girl whispers something to her mother on the way out and the mother wipes at her eye.

I do not hear the words.

I know them anyway.

Around noon, the boys hit a synchronized drowse.

I scoop them both up, one to each shoulder, and pace behind the counter while Marisa plates a slice of stollen for Mrs. Picarelli, who has finally stopped telling us how she used to make it and started telling everyone else how we do.

Luca drools down my collar and does not apologize.

Gabe tucks his hand into my shirt like it was cut there for him.

My back complains just a little then remembers it is proud.

“Gentlemen,” Roman says as he tops two tiny cups, “your mother likes the window table at one. Plan accordingly.”

“Espresso for me?” Marisa asks, already knowing the answer.

“Always,” he says, softer than the machine’s hiss.

I carry the boys to the back room and lay them in the playpen Deacon framed like a ship’s berth.

On the shelf above it sits a row of glass jars labeled in his precise hand: Teethers. Soft Blocks. Unclear Rattles.

There is a smaller jar, full of glittery hair ties Isla claims she no longer loses. That is a lie told lovingly.

When I come back out front, the little bell trills and in walks the pastor from the hill church, the one with hands that smell like cedar and eyes that have seen more bad weather than I hope to.

He is careful with us; we are careful with him.

He orders cornbread and coffee and leaves a folded twenty with a note under the saucer that says,Thank you for feeding my people.

We do not make a show of it.

You never do with gifts that matter.

Marisa catches my eye as she brings him his plate.

We have entire conversations at that distance now, entire novels.

The one she gives me says,This is good. This is what we wanted.The one I send back says,Yes. Always.

Then she grins and the room brightens the way it does when the sun finds an unwashed window and forgives it.

“Cranberry pistachio biscotti ready?” Deacon calls, opening the oven with the reverence of a man unveiling stained glass. The smell rolls out like a wave.

“Those are Isla’s,” Marisa says. “She invented the ratio. You will not change it.”

“I do not change ratios that work,” he says, affronted. “I annotate them.”