The front door opens before we reach the porch steps.
Sergio is standing in the doorway, backlit by the warm glow of the living room lamps. He's wearing sweatpants and a faded hockey t-shirt, feet bare, dark curly hair mussed from whatever passed for sleep. His brown eyes move from me to Jessica and back again, taking in my bare chest, her wearing my henley, the bag in my hand.
His expression softens.
"Welcome home, Jess," he says quietly, and the word hangs in the air between them.
Home.
I watch the word hit her. Watch her eyes fill with something I can't quite name. Tears, maybe. Or hope. Or both.
She freezes on the bottom step, one hand on the railing.
"Thank you," she whispers, her voice breaking. "For letting me stay. I know this is... I know I don't have any right to be here after I left the way I did."
"You're always welcome here," Sergio says, and he steps aside, holding the door open wider. "You always have been. Even when you weren't here, there was always a place at our table for you."
Jessica climbs the porch steps slowly, like she's approaching something sacred. Like she's afraid it'll disappear if she moves too fast. She pauses at the threshold, looking back at me one last time, her hazel eyes wide and uncertain.
I give her an encouraging nod. A smile that I hope saysit's okay, you're safe, we've got you.
She takes a deep breath.
And steps inside.
At last, the packhouse feels complete.
12
JESSICA
The Negrorio house smells like a pine forest had a baby with a bakery and that baby was raised by lumberjacks who moonlight as baristas.
I'm standing in the foyer at almost five in the morning, clutching my salvaged suitcase like it's the only thing keeping me upright, trying to process the sensory assault that is four alpha scents in one enclosed space.
And oh my God, it'soverwhelming.
Cedar and smoke. That's Sergio, standing by the door in sweatpants and a faded t-shirt, watching me with those steady dark eyes like he can see straight through to my soul.
Pine and mint. Pedro, lurking in the kitchen doorway with his arms crossed, scowling at me like I've personally offended him by existing. Which, to be fair, might be accurate because Pedro's default setting appears to be "mildly irritated by everything."
Sandalwood and sawdust. Carlos, right behind me, I can feel his body heat radiating through the henley I'm still wearing. His henley. The one that smells like him. The one I'm currently wrapped in like some kind of scent-marked burrito.
And dark sugar mixed with ironwood. That scent drifts down the staircase a second before Nacho appears on the landing.
Wearing low-slung grey sweatpants.
And absolutely nothing else.
His chest is bare, carved muscle and defined abs just inches from my face. Somewhere, my dignity is filing a missing persons report.
I make a sound that I will deny to my dying day. Something between a squeak and a whimper and possibly a small prayer to whatever deity is responsible for abs like that.
"You're here." Nacho descends the stairs two at a time, and I track every movement because apparently I have no self-control whatsoever. The sweatpants hang low enough that I can see the V of his hip bones disappearing into the waistband. "Carlos texted. Said there was flooding."
"My bathroom exploded." My voice comes out strangled, like someone's sitting on my vocal cords. "Well, the pipe exploded. The bathroom just suffered collateral damage. And my bedroom. And possibly my entire life."
"Are you hurt?" He reaches the bottom of the stairs and stops in front of me, and this close I can see everything. The small scar above his left eyebrow. His dark skin gleams in the warm light. The trail of hair that leads down from his navel and disappears into those criminally low sweatpants.
