Page 60 of His Wicked Alpha

"I drive the speed limit," Alex says, setting a six-pack on the counter. "With a toddler in the car."

"Grandma." Devon kisses him on the cheek and Alex rolls his eyes and catches Devon's hand before he can pull away and holds it for a second and the gesture is small and private and I look away not because it's uncomfortable but because it's the kind of thing I used to ache watching and now I have my own version of it and the ache has turned into recognition.

Kole and Lawson arrive ten minutes later. Noah is four now and comes through the door announcing "I brought you a ROCK" to Lily, who receives the rock with appropriate solemnity. Gabriel and Noah immediately begin the complicated negotiations of toddler friendship, which involve showing each other things and then taking those things away. Lawson is carrying a bottle of wine and a diaper bag that he still carries out of habit even though Noah is mostly past that stage.

"We brought wine and children," he announces. "You're welcome for both."

Kole follows, smiling, already scanning the apartment with those perceptive eyes. He sees the yellow room through the open door. He sees the toys. He sees Ray holding Lily on his hip while stirring sauce with the other hand. His eyes land on me in the doorframe and his smile deepens.

"Hey," he says, and the word carries a year of conversations — omega to omega, late-night texts after Lily came home when I didn't know what I was doing, Kole's quiet reassurance thatnobody knows what they're doing and that's normal. He became my friend somewhere in the noise. My first real one.

"Hey," I say back.

The apartment fills. It's loud — three toddlers, six adults, Ray's off-key singing now accompanied by Devon's heckling and Gabriel's enthusiastic banging on a pot he found somewhere. The food is spread across the counter and the table and people are eating standing up because there aren't enough chairs. Noah shares a cracker with Lily and she accepts it with the gravity of a diplomatic exchange. Alex is in the corner holding Gabriel and a beer and watching Devon tell a story and his face is doing the thing it always does when he watches Devon — the exasperated adoration of a man who cannot believe this is his life and wouldn't trade it for anything.

Lawson asks about the practice. I tell him about the new client — a small business, not a major corporation, the kind of work that matters to actual people instead of boards of directors. The practice has been open for over a year now and we're growing, slowly, the right way. Ray jumps in with details about the client intake system he redesigned last month — he finished his paralegal certification in the spring and the credential is on the wall next to my law degree and he earned it. Every hour of coursework, every exam, every late night studying while Lily slept and I reviewed briefs at the kitchen table. He built that. His career. His work.

"He's good at it," I say, and Ray looks at me the way he still does when I give a compliment, which is rarely, and I look back at him steadily because I mean it.

"He's always been good at it," Devon says. "He just didn't know it."

"I knew it," Ray protests.

"You did not. You thought your only marketable skill was being hot."

"That IS a marketable skill."

"It's really not."

Lily tugs on my pants leg. I look down and she's holding up a board book — the one with the dog, her favorite, the same one she showed me at the center on the first day. She holds it up with both arms and waits.

I pick her up. She's heavier every week — growing, always growing — and she settles into my hip with the ease of someone who has done this a thousand times. She opens the book and points at the dog and says "woof" and looks at me expectantly.

"Woof," I confirm.

She turns the page. Points at a cat. "Woof?"

"That's a cat."

She considers this. "Woof," she says firmly, because she is her father's daughter and she has decided that all animals are woofs and I am not going to win this argument.

Ray appears beside me. His arm goes around my waist, his chin hooks over my shoulder, and he looks at the book. "She's right. That's definitely a woof."

"You're not helping."

"I'm supporting our daughter's creative vision."

Our daughter.The phrase still stops me every time. Not like the old tightness — not the clench of the barrenness, the weight of something missing. This is different. This is the catching of fullness. It still surprises me by being real.

I look around the room. Devon is eating empanadas with one hand and catching Gabriel with the other because Gabriel has discovered the curtains and is trying to climb them. Alex is having a quiet conversation with Lawson about something — probably sound equipment, they've bonded over technical things. Kole is on the floor with Noah, building something with blocks, and he catches my eye and smiles.

The apartment is loud. It's messy. There are cracker crumbs on the rug and a sippy cup on the coffee table and three toddlers in various stages of controlled demolition and the laundry is still on the couch.

My apartment used to smell like nothing. I built it that way on purpose — scentless soap, no cooking, everything controlled and clean and empty. A place to sleep, not a place to live.

It smells like garlic and basil now. It smells like Ray's hoodie and Lily's baby shampoo and Devon's empanadas and the mingled scents of six people and three children who chose to spend their evening here, in this space, together.

I press my face into Lily's curls. She smells like crackers and baby shampoo and something that's just her — the scent I've been learning, the one that means home in a way I never expected.

Ray's arm tightens around my waist. Lily turns another page and points at a fish.

"Woof," she says.

"Woof," I agree, and I hold my daughter and lean against my alpha and I let the noise wash over me.

The apartment is a disaster. It's the best place I've ever lived.