“Boys,” Anna said fondly, shaking her head. “I swear, sometimes I think you're all secretly twelve.”
“Mentally, we absolutely are,” Nate agreed cheerfully. “Emotionally, we're about six. Right, Evan?”
“Speak for yourself,” I said with wounded dignity. “I'm very mature.”
“You growled at the mailman yesterday because he looked at me wrong.”
“He was clearly harboring inappropriate thoughts.”
“He's married to Mrs. Patterson from the flower shop.”
“Your point?”
Nate just shook his head, but he was grinning, and his hand found mine as naturally as breathing.
This was happiness, I realized. Not the sharp joy of a successful hunt or the fierce pride of pack victory, but something softer and more lasting. The simple pleasure of being exactly where I belonged, with exactly the people who mattered most.
If only I could freeze this moment, keep it safe from whatever storms were gathering on the horizon.
But storms were coming whether I wanted them or not.
For now, though, there were cookies cooling on the counter and the sound of Nate's laughter filling Anna's kitchen, and that was enough.
That was everything.
28
FOREST CALLING
NATE
The smell of bacon and coffee pulled me from dreams that felt more like memories, warm and golden and tasting like those childhood mornings when the world was small enough to fit in Mom's palm. I rolled over in my old bed, blinking away sleep as sunlight filtered through curtains that Mom had hung when I was in high school and thought I knew everything about heartbreak.
Funny how wrong a person could be about their own capacity for pain.
Voices drifted up from the kitchen. Mom's laugh bright as wind chimes, Dad's gruff response carrying affection he'd never been good at putting into words. The sound wrapped around me like a hug, settling into places that had been hollow since I'd moved back home. This house, these people, this life I'd run away from and somehow found again. It all felt precious in ways I was still learning to name.
I dragged myself out of bed and pulled on clothes that smelled faintly of Evan and motor oil, a combination thatshouldn't have been as comforting as it was. But then again, nothing about my life made sense anymore.
“There he is,” Mom said when I stumbled into the kitchen, hair sticking up in directions that defied both gravity and good sense. “I was beginning to think you'd decided to hibernate until spring.”
“Tempting,” I said, accepting the cup of coffee she pressed into my hands like communion wine. “But then I'd miss your pancakes.”
“Pancakes?” She laughed, gesturing toward the pan where something that definitely wasn't pancakes was sizzling in butter. “I'm making French toast, sweetheart. With that thick-cut bread from the bakery you like so much.”
Right. French toast. Because my brain was apparently still stuck somewhere between sleep and consciousness, cataloging details like I was documenting evidence of contentment. The way Mom's hair caught morning light, silver threading through brown in patterns that spoke of grace under pressure. The way Dad read the newspaper with reading glasses perched on the end of his nose, muttering commentary about local politics that nobody asked for but somehow always made sense.
The way this kitchen felt like the center of everything good in the world.
“Earth to Nathaniel,” Dad said without looking up from his paper. “You're doing that staring thing again. Very artistic. Very brooding. Very likely to make your mother worry about your mental health.”
“I don't brood,” I protested, settling into the chair that had been mine since I was tall enough to reach the table. “I observe. With artistic sensitivity.”
“You brood,” Mom said cheerfully, sliding a plate of French toast in front of me that looked like it belonged in a magazine spread. “It's very distinguished. Very tortured artist. Very muchlike your father when he's trying to figure out how to fix something complicated.”
Dad's snort of laughter was muffled by his coffee cup, but I caught the pleased expression that flickered across his face. Being compared to his son, even in the context of mutual brooding tendencies, was apparently still a source of paternal pride.
“I don't brood either,” he said with the wounded dignity of someone who absolutely brooded on a regular basis. “I contemplate. Strategically.”
