"Flour fight!" Isaac announces proudly. "Dad started it!"
"I absolutely did not start it," Silas protests, but he's grinning. "Amelia knocked over the flour and then it just... escalated."
Hunter appears behind Wyatt, already dressed for the day in jeans and a henley despite the early hour. He takes in the scene with those serious hazel eyes, and my stomach drops. This is it. This is where he tells me I've been too familiar, that I've overstepped, that I need to remember my place.
But then his face softens into a small smile, and something in my chest loosens. He's not angry. He's watching us with an expression that looks almost fond, like he's pleased to find hisfamily covered in flour and laughing in the kitchen at seven in the morning.
Wyatt reaches out to brush flour from my cheek, his fingers lingering longer than strictly necessary. His thumb strokes across my skin, gentle and deliberate, and the moment stretches out between us, heavy with want and possibility. I can feel Silas still at my back, can see Hunter watching from the doorway, and the intensity of having all three of them focused on me makes it hard to breathe.
"You've got flour everywhere," Wyatt murmurs, his voice low and warm. "In your hair, on your face, probably down your shirt."
Before anyone can respond to that loaded statement, Isaac decides to launch another handful of flour, this time aimed at Silas. It hits him square in the chest, white dust exploding everywhere, and Silas grins before launching his own counterattack.
The fight resumes with renewed energy, now with Wyatt joining in. Even Hunter stays in the doorway, watching with that small smile, occasionally ducking when a particularly wild throw goes in his direction.
Eventually we all collapse, breathless and covered in white, the kitchen an absolute disaster zone. Flour coats every surface, the floor is slippery with it, and all six of us look like we've been caught in a blizzard.
"I think," Silas says between gasps for air, "we need to clean up before we can even think about making breakfast."
"I'll help," Wyatt offers immediately. "Hunter, can you get the kids cleaned up and changed?"
"Come on, you two." Hunter herds Riley and Isaac toward the stairs, both kids still giggling as they track flour footprints across the floor. "Let's get you in the bath before your teachers see pictures and think we don't know how to take care of you."
"But it was so much fun!" Isaac protests. "Can we have flour fights every Saturday?"
"We'll see," Hunter says diplomatically, which makes Riley roll her eyes.
Once the kids are gone, it's just the three of us standing in the demolished kitchen. Wyatt is still grinning, Silas looks more relaxed than I've seen him in weeks, and I'm suddenly very aware that I'm alone with two Alphas while covered in flour and probably looking like a complete mess.
"I should..." I gesture vaguely at myself. "I should probably clean up too. And then we can tackle the kitchen."
"Or," Wyatt suggests, moving closer, "we could all tackle the kitchen together and then you could join us for the family breakfast you came here to make. Minus the flour, hopefully."
The invitation is simple, but it feels like so much more. Like he's asking me to stay, to be part of this, to stop treating myself like hired help and start accepting that I belong here.
"Okay," I hear myself say. "That sounds good."
We spend the next thirty minutes cleaning, the three of us working together with an ease that feels natural. Wyatt wipes down the counters while I sweep, making jokes that keep us all laughing. Silas empties the dustpan and starts pulling out ingredients for pancakes, his earlier kiss hanging between us like a promise.
By the time the kids come thundering back downstairs, clean and dressed, the kitchen is mostly restored. I'm still covered in flour, my clothes white and my hair probably a disaster, but I don't care. I'm too happy, too content, too wrapped up in the warmth of this moment to worry about how I look.
We make pancakes together, all six of us crowded into the kitchen. Isaac insists on helping crack eggs, which results in shells in the batter that Silas carefully fishes out. Riley measures out flour with exaggerated care, clearly determined not to startanother flour fight. Wyatt flips pancakes with practiced ease while Hunter sets the table, his movements economical and efficient.
And me? I'm in the middle of it all, surrounded by noise and laughter and the kind of chaotic joy I never thought I'd have again.
This is what home feels like, I think as I watch them all move around each other with practiced ease. This messy, imperfect, beautiful thing. This is what I've been missing my entire life.
We settle around the table twenty minutes later, plates loaded with pancakes and syrup, the morning sun streaming through the windows. Isaac is telling an elaborate story about the flour fight, embellishing details that definitely didn't happen. Riley is correcting him every few sentences, which just makes him add even more outrageous elements.
Wyatt's hand finds mine under the table, his fingers threading through mine and squeezing gently. When I glance over at him, he's smiling at me with such warmth that I have to look away before I start crying.
Amelia
The grocery store is crowded for a Saturday afternoon, the aisles packed with weekend shoppers and their carts. I push ours slowly, one hand on the handle while Isaac sits in the seat, swinging his legs and humming the theme song from whatever cartoon they watched this morning. Riley walks beside me, her hand gripping the edge of the cart, scanning the shelves with the serious concentration of someone on a very important mission.
"Can we get the cereal with the marshmallows?" Isaac asks for the third time since we entered the store, pointing at a brightly colored box that's probably ninety percent sugar.
"That's not really breakfast cereal, sweetheart. That's dessert pretending to be breakfast."
