A ripple of whoops and teasing filled the kitchen, and Matteo’s fingers tightened around my waist, warm and unbothered, a smile flashing across his face. Like he had fallen long before I ever admitted I had too.
He leaned down and caught my bottom lip between his in a quick kiss before we turned back to everyone else.
Maria’s was practically giggling. “So you two were secretly seeing each other in Hawaii?”
Natalia smirked, tilting her head toward Kali and Zane. “We know someone else.”
Kali threw a napkin at her. “Please. We were extremely obvious. You guys were just too busy making out to notice Zane and me.”
Everyone laughed, and I raised my hand slightly. “Not when we got there. But when we left… A little.”
Trevor, still slicing something on the counter, looked up. “That’s why you two flew together, huh?”
The room erupted again – everyone connecting dots like it was a group activity. Matteo slid a hand down my arm, casual, intimate, and I swore I caught Zach smiling into his drink.
The conversation drifted naturally, soft and warm like a candlelit evening. We teased. We joked.
Matteo stole more food before dinner and I slapped his hand away, earning a smug kiss to the side of my head.
Eventually, the spotlight shifted back where it belonged – on the woman of the night.
Maria asked Natalia about her pregnancy and how she was feeling with everything going on.
“Three months left,” She said, resting a hand over her bumpy. “Trevor is already nesting more than I am.”
Trevor scoffed, flipping something in a pan. “I like things prepared. Sue me.”
“You labeled all the towels,” Zane muttered, dead serious.
Kali cackled. “He made a spreadsheet!”
We lost it.
The entire kitchen filled with laughter – real, easy, the kind that warmed bone-deep.
Zach, with tears in his eyes from laughing so much, went over to Trevor and slapped a hand on his shoulder, pulling a laugh out of the soon-to-be-dad too.
I leaned back into Matteo without thinking about it, his arm looping around me as if it belonged there.
Natalia turned to Trevor, looking at him with hearts in her eyes.
He dried his hands on a kitchen towel and smiled back, prouder than I’d ever seen him. “Go ahead. Tell them.”
She turned to us, eyes bright, face lighting up the entire kitchen.
“We’re having a baby girl.”
Maria squealed. Kali screamed. Natalia was immediately swallowed into a group hug while the guys clapped Trevor on the back, congratulating him, before we all switched parents.
Kali started crying, hugging Natalia. “I’m gonna be a baby girl’s aunt!”
I laughed, wiping a tear of excitement from the corner of my own eye. “So Trevor was right?”
Zach shook his head with a grin. “He’s never wrong.”
“It’s exhausting!” Natalia rolled her eyes dramatically.
“Can we see the baby girl’s room?” Maria was already bouncing.
