"Daddy! I'm hungry!"
Dylan groans and drops his head back against the pillow. "Duty calls."
"I'll make breakfast," I offer.
He looks at me like I just offered him the moon. "You don't have to do that."
"I want to," I say. "Besides, I make excellent pancakes."
"Better than mine?"
"We will see."
I slip out of bed and pull on one of his t-shirts and a pair of sweatpants I left here during the evacuation. When I catch my reflection in the mirror, I look thoroughly rumpled and completely content, and I can't remember the last time I looked this happy.
Dylan watches me from the bed, his expression soft and possessive in a way that makes my stomach flip.
"What?" I ask.
"Nothing," he says. "Just appreciating the view."
I throw a pillow at him, and he catches it with a laugh.
By the time I make it downstairs, Maddie is already at the kitchen table with her coloring supplies spread out in front of her. She looks up when I walk in, and her face lights up.
"Piper! Are you making breakfast?"
"I'm," I say. "What do you want? Pancakes? Waffles? French toast?"
"Pancakes with chocolate chips!" she announces.
"Coming right up."
I move around Dylan's kitchen with an ease that surprises me. I know where he keeps the mixing bowls. I know which cabinet has the flour. I know that Maddie likes her pancakes cut into triangles and that Dylan takes his coffee black with just a hint of sugar.
These are small things. Domestic things. The kind of things I never let myself learn about anyone because learning them meant staying, and staying meant getting attached, and getting attached meant risking the kind of pain I've spent my entire adult life avoiding.
But now, standing in this kitchen with sunlight pouring through the windows and Maddie humming at the table and Dylan's footsteps on the stairs, I realize something fundamental has shifted inside me.
I'm not scared anymore.
Or maybe I'm still scared, but the fear doesn't matter as much as the wanting.
Dylan appears in the doorway, freshly showered and dressed in jeans and a soft gray Henley that makes his eyes look darker. He stops when he sees me at the stove, and something in his expression makes my chest tight.
"What?" I ask again.
"You look good in my kitchen," he says quietly.
"I look good in your shirt too," I tease.
"You look good everywhere," he corrects, crossing the room to press a kiss to my temple. "But especially here."
Maddie makes a gagging sound from the table. "You guys are so mushy."
Dylan laughs and ruffles her hair. "You will understand when you are older, bug."
"I'm never getting mushy," she declares.
