Page 83 of What We Don't Say: Part Two

“Where is mine?” I ask, already reaching for her, and the question comes out softer than my need because she's crying and I don't want to break the moment. “Callie, I need mine too.”

The laughter that moves through the kitchen is small and tender. It starts in Callie, a wet little sound that catches against Idris' mouth before she turns toward me. Sloane huffs something close to a laugh into her hair, and even Dash makes a warm sound at the stove, his shoulders dropping as if the room has let him breathe. I don't feel embarrassed. I feel correct.

Callie cups my face and kisses me.

I pull her off the counter before the kiss is done, and Sloane’s hand follows her waist long enough to make sure she lands steady. I take the chair nearest the table and draw her with me, half beside me and half across my lap because across the table is offensive and impractical. She settles against me with a breathy laugh, her legs angled over mine, one arm looped around my shoulders while I reach for the toast plate with my free hand.

“Breakfast works better like this,” I say, holding a piece of toast near her mouth. “This is efficient.”

“It is possessive,” Idris says, but his voice is warm as he takes the pan from Dash and checks the eggs before they overcook. He looks at my face for a second too long, noticing the heat in my cheeks and the sweetness in the air, then returns his attention to the stove without making a production of it.

“It can be both.” I press the toast to Callie’s lips, and when she bites it, satisfaction spreads through me so fast I have to put my face against her shoulder. “Today is a Callie Day.”

Sloane pours coffee, moving slower than usual, like his body has not fully accepted being upright. “What does a Callie Day involve?”

“Breakfast first.” I count on my fingers even though Callie is holding one of my hands and making the task harder. “Then the nest. Then no real clothes unless she wants them. Then reading, but only if someone reads to her, because she will pretend she's reading and stare at the same page for twenty minutes. Then snacks. Then hair brushing. Then a movie. Then more nest.”

Dash sets plates on the table and slides into the chair across from us, close enough that his knee brushes Callie’s bare foot when she shifts. “That is an ambitious Sunday schedule.”

“No legal talk unless she asks.” I look at each of them to make sure they understand that part. “No Garrett at breakfast. No papers in the nest. No making her face do the blank thing.”

Callie goes still against me as her fingers slide through the hair at my nape, and she presses her mouth to my temple. “Thank you.”

The words make me warmer.

Sloane carries coffee to the table, setting Callie’s mug within reach before he takes his own. He glances at Dash when Dash’s hand settles briefly at Callie’s lower back as he passes her a fork. The hurt crosses Sloane’s face quickly, but it is there. I see it because I am watching everything today. He looks down at the coffee and breathes once.

Idris sees it too before moving behind Callie’s chair and resting one hand on Sloane’s shoulder for a brief second as he passes. Sloane leans into it by the smallest amount, then clears his throat and reaches for the toast like breakfast suddenly requires all of his concentration.

Callie shifts in my lap, looking toward Idris with heavy-lidded warmth. “Come here.”

Idris pauses with the spatula in his hand, and the faint surprise in him makes my chest pinch. He sets it down carefully before stepping closer. Callie holds out both hands, and I let her move because the plan isn't to keep her from them. The plan is to keep her surrounded by everyone she wants.

She slides from my lap into Idris' when he sits in the wider chair beside us. For a second, my instincts complain because my arms are empty. Then Idris settles her sideways against his chest, one hand at her hip and the other cupping the back of her head, and Callie exhales like something in her has finally found a second place to rest. I scoot my chair closer until my knee presses against Idris' and my hand can stay on Callie’s thigh.

“Still mine today,” I tell him.

Idris' mouth curves against Callie’s hair. “I would not dream of disputing the schedule.”

“You should not dream of it either,” I say, then immediately wonder whether that sounds too much like teasing. It does not feel like teasing in my chest. It feels like joy with teeth, and Callie’s shoulders shake once in a quiet laugh before she hides her face against Idris' throat.

Sloane lowers himself into the chair on Callie’s other side with his coffee in both hands. He looks more awake now, but the rumpled softness remains, and it makes him seem younger for a moment, less like an Alpha who has been bleeding guilt into every corner of the house and more like someone who forgot sleep could be shared without danger. “That sounds a lot likeyou’re keeping her in your nest,” he says, watching me over the rim of his mug.

“Yes.” I don't hesitate. My hand slides higher on Callie’s thigh, not possessive enough to trap, only enough to keep contact. “That is exactly right.”

This time, the laughter lasts longer, moving through the kitchen from Sloane’s low huff to Callie’s breathy laugh against Idris' neck, then to Dash’s warm chuckle from across the table. Even Idris lets it touch his mouth, and the sight makes something in me loosen.

I look at Dash again and find him closer than he was at the start of breakfast, but still not close enough. His fingers rest around his mug as his eyes move between Sloane and Callie, then Idris, then me. He belongs here. I know it in the same place that knows the nest is too cold when Callie leaves it and that my heat is creeping nearer by the way every scent has started glowing under my skin.

Dash notices me staring after the third time.

“What?” he asks, and there is a smile in his voice, but there is caution beneath it too.

I study his face, then Sloane’s. Same mouth, maybe. Different eyes when they hurt. Sloane’s pain burns outward before he forces it still. Dash’s pain folds in and makes room for other people to sit down. I tilt my head, trying to see the shape of family between them and finding only pieces that don't know how to touch yet.

“I don’t see the resemblance between you and Sloane,” I say.

The kitchen goes quiet for one heartbeat before the laughter returns, gentler this time and threaded with something older. Sloane looks down at his mug. Dash looks at him, and the smile on his mouth softens into a thing with weight inside it. Callie lifts her head from Idris' shoulder, suddenly very awake, and I feelher attention move between the brothers like she understands I didn't say it only to be funny.