Page 80 of Claimed By My Biker Daddies

Fourteen.

Twenty-one.

The picture of the button pulls three views from handles I don’t recognize and one from a name that doesn’t belong to a man who ever wore our colors.

Ping.

The reply is short, the way a certain kind of threat is short when it knows you’ll read the rest in the margins:YOUR SAINT’S EYE BELONGS TO A MAN WHO DOESN’T USE HIS NAME ANYMORE. USED TO DRINK AT YOUR TABLE. BORROWED A CHURCH AND A JACKET. WALKING YOUR HILLS.

15

MARISA

Cold touches my ankle like a careful finger and the dream snaps.

The room is in half-light, lit by coals whispering in the fireplace and the red eye of the old stove across the hall.

My shawl has slid to the floor.

The quilt smells like cedar and soap and Cruz’s laundry.

For a second I do not know why my heart is running.

Then the silence settles. It is the heavy kind that happens when a house decides to listen.

I sit up and the floor bites my feet.

The window shows white and a smear of tree.

No storm howl, just the soft hiss of winter.

The quiet is not wrong, only too complete.

I pull the shawl around my shoulders and step into the hall.

Across from me, the nursery door sits with its new steel plate and quiet hinge.

Deacon fixed it this afternoon while pretending to argue with a loose tile.

There is a charm in knowing a man who believes in hinges that do not lie. I touch the handle, breathe once, and ease it open.

Both boys sleep the way saints do in paintings.

Luca on his back, mouth open, one hand fisted like he is holding court.

Gabe curled to the side, knee tucked under, brow creased as if the ceiling tried to tell him a story and got the details wrong.

The quilts are warm over their bellies, Abuela’s hand in every stitch.

Two soft rasping breaths move in counterpoint.

A third body lies on a pallet beside the cribs.

Cruz, on his side, one forearm thrown out toward the nearest crib like a man who fell asleep reaching.

There is a bottle rinsed and set on a towel within arm’s length.

His mouth twitches when I tuck the blanket over his shoulder.