I don't venture far from the house anymore. Not because anyone's told me I can't, but because I've discovered I don'treally need to. Everything I need is here—the kids, the routine, the sense of purpose that comes from taking care of people who actually appreciate it. Dylan and Maddox have been over for dinner at least three times in the past week, Dylan shooting me knowing looks every time one of the Alphas does something thoughtful, like I'm not already painfully aware of how easy it would be to fall completely.
The shadows under my eyes have faded. I catch glimpses of myself in the bathroom mirror and barely recognize the woman staring back. She looks rested. Almost happy. The constant tension that used to live in her shoulders has eased, and there's color in her cheeks that has nothing to do with makeup or embarrassment.
I'm laughing more. Real laughs that come from my belly instead of the careful, controlled sounds I learned to make with Vincent. Isaac does this thing where he tries to tell jokes he doesn't quite understand yet, mangling the punchlines in ways that are infinitely funnier than the actual jokes would be. Yesterday he asked me why the chicken crossed the playground, and when I asked why, he said "to get to the other slide" with such complete seriousness that I laughed until tears streamed down my face.
The small moments are what get me. The ordinary, everyday pieces of life that I thought I'd never have again.
Riley struggling with her summer math work the school gave to keep up skills at the kitchen table, her face scrunched up in concentration as she tries to figure out what seven plus eight equals. I sit beside her, patient as she counts on her fingers, celebrating with her when she finally gets it right. She beams at me like I've hung the moon, and something in my chest cracks open a little wider.
Isaac coming in from the backyard with a scraped knee, tears streaming down his face. I clean it carefully with warm waterand a soft cloth, apply the bandage with gentle hands, and then—without thinking, without planning it—I kiss it better. Just press my lips to the bandage and tell him it'll feel better now. He stops crying immediately, staring at me with wide eyes, and then throws his arms around my neck and says "Thank you, Mia" in a voice so trusting it makes my throat tight.
Folding laundry in the living room while the kids nap, humming some song I can't quite remember the words to. The sun streams through the windows, warm on my face, and I'm matching tiny socks and folding little shirts and smoothing down wrinkles in blankets, and I'mhappy. Genuinely, completely happy in a way that feels almost foreign.
Evie's photographs are everywhere. I notice them more now that I'm paying attention, now that I'm not just moving through the house like a ghost trying not to disturb anything. She's on the mantel, in frames scattered across side tables, hanging on the walls in the hallway. Beautiful and vibrant in every picture, her smile bright enough to light up the room even in a photograph.
I talk to her sometimes when I'm alone. It starts by accident one afternoon when I'm dusting the living room and I pick up a photo of her with the kids when they were younger. Isaac must have been barely one, chubby and drooling, and Riley maybe three, all wild hair and gap-toothed grin. Evie is in the center, holding Isaac on her hip while Riley clings to her leg, and she looks so happy it makes my chest ache.
"I hope you don't mind me being here," I whisper to the photograph, feeling ridiculous but needing to say it anyway. "I'm trying to take care of them like they deserve. I'm trying to do right by them."
The photo doesn't answer, obviously, but something in me settles anyway. Like maybe she can hear me, wherever she is. Like maybe she understands that I'm not trying to replace her, just trying to fill the gaps she left behind.
I start doing it more after that. Little conversations when I'm cooking dinner or cleaning up toys or tucking the kids into bed. Telling her about Riley's progress with her reading, about Isaac's obsession with trucks this week, about how Hunter actually smiled at me yesterday when I made his coffee exactly how he likes it without him having to ask.
The Alphas are... different with me now. More present, more attentive in ways that make my skin feel too tight and my heart beat too fast. I catch them watching me sometimes, their eyes tracking my movements across the room with an intensity that should feel threatening but somehow doesn't.
Hunter finishes his dinner every night now. Every single night, he cleans his plate and then looks at me with those hazel eyes and tells me how good it was, how much he appreciates the effort, how the kids are lucky to have me. The praise makes me flush hot every time, some deep part of my Omega hindbrain preening under his approval even as I try to remind myself that it doesn't mean anything, that he's just being polite.
Silas brings me tea in the afternoons, appearing in the kitchen with a steaming mug doctored exactly how I like it—two sugars, splash of milk. He never makes a big deal of it, just sets it down next to wherever I'm working and sometimes lets his hand linger on my shoulder for a moment before he retreats to his study.
And Wyatt. God, Wyatt has started finding excuses to be close to me. Brushing past me in the narrow kitchen, his hand skimming my lower back. Reaching around me to grab something from a high shelf, his chest pressing briefly against my back. Smiling at me across the dinner table in a way that makes me forget how to breathe properly.
It comes to a head on a Wednesday afternoon when the kids are supposed to be napping but I can hear Isaac singing to himself upstairs, not quite settling. I'm in the kitchen prepping vegetables for dinner, chopping carrots with more focus than thetask really requires, trying not to think about how Wyatt's citrus scent has been lingering in the hallway all day, driving me slowly insane.
I hear footsteps behind me and know without looking that it's him. I've learned to identify all three Alphas by their footsteps now—Hunter's are heavy and deliberate, Silas' are quieter and more careful, and Wyatt's have this easy, confident rhythm that makes something in my stomach flip every time I hear them approaching.
"Need any help?" he asks, his voice warm and close enough that I can feel the words against the back of my neck.
My hands still on the cutting board, the knife frozen mid-chop. "I'm okay," I manage, though my voice comes out breathier than I intended. "Just getting dinner started."
He doesn't move away. Instead, he steps closer, reaching around me to grab a carrot from the pile I've already chopped. His chest brushes my back, solid and warm, and I have to close my eyes against the rush of heat that floods through me.
"You're good at this," he murmurs, and I'm not entirely sure if he means cooking or something else entirely. "Taking care of everyone. Making this house feel like a home again."
I should step away. Should put distance between us before I do something stupid like lean back into him, like turn around and do what I've been wanting to do for days now. But my feet feel rooted to the floor, my body refusing to cooperate with what my brain knows is the smart choice.
"I'm just the nanny," I say, but the words sound weak even to my own ears.
Wyatt makes a low sound in his throat, something between amusement and frustration. His hand comes up to rest on my hip, not pulling me closer but justthere, warm and grounding and impossibly distracting. "Is that really what you think you are to us?"
My heart is hammering so hard against my ribs I'm surprised he can't hear it. "What else would I be?"
"Amelia." The way he says my name, rough and full of something I'm afraid to name, makes my knees weak. "Look at me."
I turn slowly, the knife still clutched in my hand like some kind of useless weapon. Wyatt is right there, close enough that I have to tilt my head back to meet his eyes. His blue gaze is intense, searching my face for something I'm not sure I know how to give him.
"You're not just the nanny," he says quietly. "You haven't been just the nanny for a while now, and you know it."
I do know it. That's the terrifying part. I know that somewhere along the way, this stopped being just a job and started being something infinitely more complicated. But acknowledging it out loud feels dangerous, like speaking it into existence will somehow make it real enough to hurt me.
