Page 51 of Claimed By My Biker Daddies

The pastry competition gets written up by small papers and sometimes big ones if the winner is heartwarming.

I’ve dreamed of it the way choir kids dream of the solo.

My phone rings. “This is Marisa.”

A brisk woman introduces herself. “We had a last-minute drop. Can you do six stollen by noon for judging.”

I stare at the tote like it heard the future first. “They are already baked,” I say. “Still warm enough to smell like my Nonna’s kitchen.”

“Bring them,” she says. “Ravenwell square. Check the white tent. We’ll put you in at the end.”

I hang up and look at my sons.

Gabe snores like a tiny furnace. Luca frowns at the ceiling as if deciding whether to trust daylight. Helium fills my chest, then dread.

“Field trip,” I whisper, keeping my voice bright so the apartment doesn’t catch on to my nerves. “You will be perfect angels. I will bribe you with songs and kisses. We will show the mountains we know our way around sugar.”

I move like a woman at work, because work is church and a map.

Bottles in the warmer.

Diaper bag with the precision of a medic: extra clothes, extra diapers, muslin that smells like home, wipes, the pacifier Gabe insults when he is trying to be brave, the pacifier Luca adores like a grudging romance.

Formula. Wallet. An apple-ginger cake for good measure because I’m always baking to get rid of stress and always have something or the other lying around.

Nonna’s rosary in the side pocket because it weighs less than guilt and more than luck. And the stollen.

I text Lidia:Thank you. I will bring you back a ribbon or a scandal.

She replies with four egg emojis and a heart shaped like a tomato.

Then:The Subie has gas. Do not let Marco borrow it. He thinks fifth gear is a myth.

Lidia keeps the old Subaru in the building’s “family orbit,” as she calls it.

When mine stalled last month, she handed me her keys and an espresso and said,Women who work get the wheels.

On the stairs I meet her, apron dusted with flour, hair wrapped in a scarf the color of egg yolk.

She scans the car seats, my face, the tote, and nods like a general blessing a mission.

“You have it,” she says. “Do not argue with the road. Do not argue with judges. Smile like you will forgive them later. If you get a ribbon, bring it back. If you do not, bring gossip.”

I hug her fast and promise both.

She tucks a foil-wrapped bundle of garlic knots into my arm. “In case the angels get hungry.”

She taps Luca’s nose until he blinks up at her like she hangs the moon. To me, quieter, “Drive safe, bella. Call when you land.”

The Subaru waits at the curb like a tired loyal dog.

I love it with the kind of affection a person gives the thing that hauls her life uphill.

I buckle car seats with a focus that would impress a parachute instructor.

Gabe grumbles, then sees his turtle toy and forgives the universe.

Luca studies my face and decides not to cry for the next five minutes. We consider this a win.